Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team 2007

Toyota-United's Ivan Dominguez won his 12th race of the season Sunday.
Elk Grove, Ill. - A modified version of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team lead-out train helped deliver Ivan Dominguez to victory Sunday in the final stage of the Tour of Elk Grove.

Dominguez won a close bunch sprint at the end of the 68-mile (110 km) criterium to score his 12th win of the season and finish fifth overall in the two-day, three-stage National Race Calendar event. Taylor Tolleson (Team Slipstream powered by Chipotle) held on for second in the sprint while Martin Gilbert (Kelly Benefits Strategies/Medifast Pro Cycling) was third.

Three of Toyota-United’s lead-out specialists – Ivan Stevic, Henk Vogels and Caleb Manion – are currently sidelined by injury. But capably filling in for them Sunday were Chris Baldwin, Heath Blackgrove and Justin England. The trio set the stage for the two most powerful engines on the lead-out train – Sean Sullivan and Chris Wherry – who piloted Dominguez into position for the final lap around the 1.7-mile (2.7 km) course.

“I told the guys that as long as they kept me safe to the last turn, I would be OK,” Dominguez said.

The victory was Toyota-United’s 33rd of the season and its 13th in an NRC event.

“Today, we got it dialed in perfectly,” England said. “We covered moves early on, we took the front with six laps to go and we got a little help from other teams that had interest in the sprint as well.”

Dominguez said he honed in on the wheel of Fred Rodriguez (Predictor-Lotto) with about 20 laps to go. Rodriguez had won Saturday’s 50-mile (80 km) criterium and was eyeing a victory Sunday to overtake Stage 1 time trial winner Nathan O’Neill (Health Net presented by Maxxis) in the overall standings.

“He (Rodriguez) was moving around a lot and with so many good guys all over the place, I tried to get our guys on the front early to be safe,” Dominguez said

Wherry said the job of shepherding the Cuban sprint specialist was made much easier because of the form Dominguez is enjoying. Dominguez won his third race in the past four weekends.

“Ivan is super quick right now,” Wherry said. “He seems like he’s where he was before he crashed. All of these races are a lottery in a sense. But he’s really good about getting himself in position.”