Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team 2007

Toyota-United will put no fewer than four riders on the start line of this week's Bend Memorial Clinic Cascade Classic stage race who have the ability to win the overall title.

The powerful lineup features:

■ Two-time (2002 and 2006) Cascade winner Chris Wherry (second from left), who won last year’s race on the final stage.

■ Chris Baldwin (right), who has a pair of runner-up finishes in National Race Calendar stage races (Tour of the Gila, Tri-Peaks Challenge) to his credit this season.

■ Burke Swindlehurst (second from right), a three-time stage winner (1998, 2002 and last year) at Cascade who won the mountainous High Uintas Classic stage race last month.

■ Justin England (far left), a climbing specialist who finished second on the difficult Oak Glenn stage earlier this year at the Redlands Classic.

So much talent on one team for one race is a nice problem to have, said Toyota-United Team Director Kirk Willett.

“Baldwin, Wherry and England are all riding to maintain their pos-itions on the National Race Calendar standings,” Willett. “So those guys will be protected. Burke is in a role where he’s had such incredible results at this race before that with the right strategy or breakaway, he’ll be right in there, too.”

Wherry (pictured winning a time bonus sprint that won him the race last year) has had a quiet season, though he has played an integral role in many of the team’s victories by powering its lead-out train.

“We’re hopeful this is the event where he comes out and is on form,” Willett said.

Baldwin is searching for his first victory of 2007 after compiling five second-place and five third-place finishes.

“With the time trial being twice as long as it was last year, he’s a big favorite,” Willett said.

Also in the lineup for Toyota-United will be Ivan Dominguez, who has his eyes on Friday night’s Stage 4 Desert Orthopedics/Rebound Physical Therapy Downtown Criterium. Dominguez will race Cascade for the first time and see his first action in a stage race since crashing out of the Tri-Peaks Challenge in mid-May.

“I really want to do this race,” Dominguez said. “I cannot keep training and training and training. I need to race to get faster.”

In addition to those five, the remainder of Toyota-United’s roster will be Stefano Barberi, Heath Blackgrove and either Sean Sullivan or Jose Manuel “Chepe” Garcia. Sullivan experienced some knee pain over the weekend, Willett said, keeping him out of the team’s lineup for the Cougar Mountain Classic.

Toyota-United lead-out specialist Henk Vogels is out for six to eight weeks with a broken collarbone suffered on the first day at Cougar Mountain while newly crowned “B” World Champion Ivan Stevic remains in Europe after racing in his country’s national championship.

Labels: Burke Swindlehurst, Chris Baldwin, Chris Wherry, Justin England, Kirk Willett