Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team 2007

Rain made racing treacherous Sunday at Downer's Grove.
Downers Grove, Ill. - Bobby Lea’s eighth-place finish led three other Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team riders at a rain-soaked edition of the USPRO Criterium Championship Sunday in Downers Grove, Ill.

In addition to Lea (pictured at left), Sean Sullivan finished 22nd, Chris Wherry was 26th and Heath Blackgrove was 36th. The four were the only Toyota-United riders still in the race at the halfway point of the 62-mile (100 km) event.

Canadian Martin Gilbert (Kelly Benefit Strategies/Medifast Pro Cycling Team) narrowly won the race in a sprint with Kirk O’Bee (Health Net presented by Maxxis) while Shawn Milne (Health Net) finished third. By virtue of being the first American to cross the finish line, O’Bee was crowned the U.S. national criterium champion and will wear the stars-and-stripes jersey in criteriums for the next year.

Steady rain and temperatures in the mid-60s made for less-than-desirable racing conditions. The wet streets led to countless crashes, one of which took down Sullivan less than halfway into the race.

“In the second-to-last corner, I just lost my front wheel,” Sullivan (pictured) said. “I skidded about 15 feet across the pavement and up onto the grass.”

Ivan Dominguez, who had won three criteriums in the past four weekends for Toyota-United, bowed out of the race after about a half-hour of racing.

“On this course, in the rain, it was not worth taking chances,” Dominguez said.

Lea agreed, saying he saw a crash in nearly every corner on the final two laps of the race.

“It was just a race of survival,” Lea said. “Guys were hitting the deck, so I kept moving up and moving up. I think I was one more crash away from being top five.”

Toyota-United Team Director Harm Jansen said the team sorely missed its criterium specialists: Caleb Manion, Ivan Stevic and Henk Vogels. Manion broke his collarbone last weekend, Stevic is still nursing sore knees and Vogels is rehabilitating a severe shoulder injury.

“Once Dominguez was out of the race, it was a very tall order for these guys to make it happen,” Jansen said. “I told Chris (Wherry) to give it a couple goes and he did. But being an American and being Chris Wherry, it’s hard for him to get away. I think he looked solid today so it’s very promising for the USPRO road championships that are coming up.”

Blackgrove (pictured), who has one criterium victory to his credit this season, called racing in the rain his “worst nightmare.”

“Every time I tried to move up, it was really dangerous. I wanted to try and move up but every time I tried to move up, my wheel would slip or there would be a crash and it would put more fear in me.”

Blackgrove will be one of eight Toyota-United riders who will contest the second-to-last race on the National Race Calendar, the Chris Thater Memorial criterium on Sunday in Binghamton, N.Y.