Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team 2007

Boise, Idaho — Ivan Dominguez of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team scored his 10th victory of the season Saturday night by easily sprinting to victory at the end of a blazingly fast edition of the Wells Fargo Twilight Criterium in Boise, Idaho.

In front of a crowd estimated at more than 20,000, Dominguez used a perfect lead-out to take the lead before the final corner and hold off second-place finisher Ricardo Escuela (Successful Living Presented by Parkpre) and Jeffery Hopkins (Jittery Joe’s Professional Cycling Team). The 80-lap race was completed at an average speed of 30 miles an hour.

“There were so many primes that guys never got a break,” Toyota-United Team Director Kirk Willett said. “Once in a while someone would go off the front, but they never got more than a few seconds ahead before they were reeled back in.”

With Toyota-United’s usual lead-out specialist, Henk Vogels, sitting out due to injury, it was left up to another Australian, Caleb Manion, to get Dominguez into position for the final sprint. Manion was the caboose on the Toyota-United lead-out train of Bobby Lea, Ryan Miller, Burke Swindlehurst, Heath Blackgrove and Jose Manuel “Chepe” Garcia.

“Those guys got Caleb all the way through to the halfway point of the last lap,” Willett said. “From there, Caleb took Ivan pretty close to the last corner and Ivan took it from there.”

Willett said he was confident Manion could deliver.

“It’s a little bit different role for him, but he’s always been one of the strongest guys and he is just as strong as a true sprinter,” Willett said. “All of our guys stepped up tonight. For instance, Burke (Swindlehurst) is not a criterium guy, but he was on the front from the first lap.”

The victory is the 28th of the season for Toyota-United and Dominguez’s sixth at a National Race Calendar event. It also provides valuable points in the battle with Health Net presented by Maxxis for the NRC team title.

Dominguez, Blackgrove, Lea and Swindlehurst now head to Pennsylvania to compete in the International Tour de Toona, a race that runs Monday through July 29.

Labels: Ivan Dominguez, Kirk Willett