Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team 2007

Manhattan Beach, Calif. — Ivan Dominguez’s will to win was strong Sunday at the 46th edition of the Chevron Manhattan Beach Grand Prix. But after a month-and-a-half of rehabilitating a back injury, his legs were not quite fast enough to deliver him first to the finish line at the end of the 90-minute race.

“I wanted to win badly because so many people came out to see me,” Dominguez said after finishing second to Rahsaan Bahati (Rock Racing). “But I just didn’t feel fast enough today. I only had two weeks of real riding.”

Dominguez was quick to add that Bahati – a former junior national criterium and road champion – won the field sprint impressively. Bahati’s teammate, Kayle Leo Grande, also made the podium with his third-place finish.

“Bahati was 10 kilometers faster than me,” Dominguez said. “He’s riding good and this was good for him because his team owner put a lot of resources and backing into the race.”

Toyota-United Team Director Harm Jansen said Dominguez’s result should instill some confidence in the Cuban super sprinter. Dominguez won eight races in the first three-and-a-half months of the season before being sidelined following a crash after the finish of Stage 1 at the Tri-Peaks Challenge on May 17.

“Of course you always want to win, but second place isn’t bad,” Jansen said.

With five other teammates in the race Sunday, Dominguez was able to sit in the back of the peloton and periodically test his legs for what would ultimately be a dash to a 180-degree corner that sets the riders up for a final 300-meter sprint to the finish.

“I did a few sprints in the back to see how my legs were going and I knew then that I was not 100 percent,” Dominguez said.

Sunday’s race, in front of an estimated crowd of more than 7,500 spectators, was also streamed live over the Internet by iBN Sports. On-line viewers saw Dominguez’s Toyota-United teammates Ryan Miller, Jose Manuel “Chepe” Garcia (shown at left), Chris Wherry, Sean Sullivan, Caleb Manion and Henk Vogels massed at the front with three 1.4-mile laps remaining.

Sullivan said what viewers at home could not see in the closing laps was a “messy and dangerous” battle as dozens of riders fought their way to be in the front.

“The way the wind was blowing today, it was a pretty easy ride so at the finish, everyone was really fresh,” he said.

The aggressive racing came to a head with half-a-lap to go when Wherry nearly crashed.

“Chris basically got pinched out and it nearly took out all the spokes in his front wheel,” Jansen said. “Until that point, we had everything set up perfectly with Chris on Sullivan’s wheel and Henk and Ivan right behind him. They had to come back from 20 guys so it really disrupted their whole rhythm.”

Still, Vogels was able to tow Dominguez up to the front and he was first to dive into the final 180-degree turn.

“As soon as you make the U-turn, you have to go,” Dominguez said. “I went but Bahati made it seem like I was standing still when he went by me.”

Next up for Dominguez and Toyota-United is the Infineon Cougar Mountain Classic at the Infineon, Calif., Raceway July 7-8. Both the criterium on Saturday and circuit race on Sunday will utilize the 12-turn, 2.52-mile twisting and turning course.

“It’s all about Ivan next weekend,” Jansen said. “With the guys’ help, he has to go out there and make it happen.”

Labels: Caleb Manion, Henk Vogels, Ivan Dominguez, Sean Sullivan

Stevic wins with a fist pump while Vogels (right) has time to celebrate as well.
St. Paul, Minn. - Ivan Stevic of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team captured the opening stage of the ninth annual Nature Valley Grand Prix Wednesday night by winning the Downtown St. Paul Criterium.

Stevic rebounded from a mid-race crash that sent him over the handlebars and onto the pavement coming into the first turn of the six-corner, six-tenths of a mile (1.1 km) course that the racers circled for 60 minutes.

“Two guys in front of me crashed and I lost control and went down,” Stevic said. “I got back up and I was pretty angry after that so the adrenaline was really flowing.”

Stevic was delivered to the finish line by teammates Henk Vogels, Caleb Manion and Sean Sullivan (pictured at right) in what Toyota-United Team Director Harm Jansen called “an impressive leadout.” Kirk O’Bee (Health Net presented by Maxxis) finished second and Jonathan Page (Nature Valley) was third.

“Henk (Vogels) was the last one to pull off and even he managed to finish fourth,” Jansen said.

The victory was Stevic’s fourth of the season and the 25th for Toyota-United in 2007. Just three days ago, Stevic won the Driveway Criterium in Austin, Texas, using another picture-perfect lead-out from Vogels.

“I was feeling pretty good before the crash,” Stevic said. “It helps that the guys were amazing and did more than a perfect job to help me tonight.”

Jansen said Toyota-United has every intention of keeping the yellow jersey of race leadership on Stevic’s back for the remainder of the five-day, six-stage race.

“We definitely want to protect the jersey,” Jansen said. “Tomorrow, we will be protecting Stevic and one or two of our other riders.”

Thursday’s stage is the 65.3-mile (105 km) Cannon Falls Road Race. The race starts and finishes at Cannon Falls, Minn., with a 5 p.m. start. Though it is a short race, Jansen cautioned that it will be made more difficult by five laps of a difficult 1.9-mile (3 km) finishing circuit.

“It’s going to be windy and the finishing circuits are pretty tough. That makes tomorrow’s race a tough one,” Jansen said.

Stevic, who won the final stage of the 2006 race, said he hadn’t even looked that far ahead.

“If it’s like last year’s course, it is pretty steep, short climbs,” he said. “No matter what, I think we have a strong team here so we’ll see how it goes.”

Labels: Harm Jansen, Henk Vogels, Ivan Stevic, Sean Sullivan

Toyota-United's Sean Sullivan (center) escaped with USA Crits series leader Mark Hekman (Abercrombie & Fitch) and Phil Wikoff (HealthCoach) with 10 laps to go.
Austin, Texas - Short on numbers, the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team still managed to come up with impressive results at a pair of weekend races in Austin, Texas.

Only Sean Sullivan, Ivan Stevic and Henk Vogels made the trip to Texas’ capital city to compete in Saturday’s AT&T Downtown Austin Criterium and Sunday’s Driveway Criterium.

In front of a huge crowd, Sullivan nearly pulled off a win Saturday jumping out of a three-man breakaway – only to be caught on the last lap of the 70-minute race.

Frank Travieso (AEG-Toshiba-Jet Network) took the win, as Stevic and Vogels finished third and fourth, respectively.

“We were hoping Sean would make it to the finish,” Stevic said. “It was really hard to control things with only three guys.”

Sunday’s race featured a smaller field but speeds were still high on the car and go-kart racing track where the race was held.

The 45-minute race featured a flurry of attacks. But it all came back together in the end with Stevic taking the win and Vogels placing third. The victory was Stevic's third of the season.

Labels: Henk Vogels, Ivan Stevic, Sean Sullivan

Left to right: "Chepe" Garcia, Sean Sullivan, Ivan Stevic and Henk Vogels.
Austin, Texas — The Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team will field one of the strongest squads for Saturday’s 2007 AT&T Austin Downtown Criterium, the fourth race of the USA CRITS Series.

Toyota-United’s lineup for the 70-minute race consists of Serbian national champion Ivan Stevic, Australian Tour de France veteran Henk Vogels, former Mexican national champion Jose Manuel “Chepe” Garcia and former Australian Under 19 national champion Sean Sullivan.

The four are responsible for five of Toyota-United’s 21 victories this season. Stevic scored one of the team’s most impressive wins on Stage 2 of the Tour de Georgia when he soloed over the top of Clocktower Hill in Rome, Ga., to notch the only victory by a domestic team at the ProTour race.

Toyota-United has been ranked either first or second all season in the National Race Calendar team standings. In addition to its 21 wins, the team has more than 60 podium finishes (first, second or third placings) to its credit and is rapidly closing in on the 100-win mark in just its second season as a professional cycling team.

Vogels was Toyota-United’s best finisher in Philadelphia, placing 13th. He was one of a number of racers that were delayed by a crash a couple hundred meters from the finish line.

“It’s frustrating when you ride six hours and everything comes unglued in the last kilometer,” Sullivan said about the end to the 156-mile (251 km) race that was won by former Toyota-United rider Juan Jose Haedo.

At the last USA CRIT Series race in Arlington, Va., June 2, Stevic narrowly lost the sprint to Rashaan Bahati (Rock & Republic Cycling Team). Toyota-United did not field any riders for the first two races of the series.

Toyota-United is one of the most fan-friendly teams in the pro peloton. Its riders wear their last names on the backs of their jerseys for easy identification (like other “mainstream” sports such as basketball, football and baseball). The team also has a fan club that boasts 20,000 members who receive discounts on team merchandise and apparel, as well as monthly e-mail newsletter and other special offers. For more information, visit www.toyota-united.com.

Labels: Henk Vogels, Ivan Stevic, Jose Manuel-Garcia, Sean Sullivan

Richmond, Va. - Henk Vogel’s 12th place finish led the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team Saturday at the Inaugural U.S. Open Cycling Championships in Richmond, Va.

Canadian Svein Tuft (Symmetrics Cycling) soloed away from breakaway companion Pat McCarty (Team Slipstream Presented by Chipotle) in the final three miles to earn the victory in the 113-mile race from Williamsburg to Richmond. McCarty held off Alejandro Borrajo (Rite Aid) for second.

Besides Vogels, five other Toyota-United riders were among the 54 finishers: Sean Sullivan (18th), Ivan Stevic (27th), Ivan Dominguez (28th), Caleb Manion (29th) and Justin England (44th).

Vogels and Dominguez each found themselves in breakaways at some point during the race. Vogels was part of a group that never gained more than 30 seconds’ lead on the road to Richmond. Later, the Australian integrated himself into a three-man move that was off the front with five laps to go. But again, the gap never reached more than 30 seconds and Vogels’ escape ended with a flat tire.

Dominguez was part of a seven-rider group that tried to close the gap on McCarty when the Slipstream rider attacked with three laps to go. Instead, Tuft bridged across to McCarty and the pair quickly built a 39-second gap with two laps to go. Dominguez’s group was caught by the remnants of the pack with 5.5 miles to go, but Tuft and McCarty were already more than a minute up the road.

The dynamic I was worried about going into this race was that we would be in a position as the team to beat,” Toyota-United Team Director Harm Jansen said. “So having the numbers at the end kind of put us at a disadvantage. Everyone else looked to us to do the chasing.”

Toyota-United’s Justin England said Stevic, Sullivan and Manion did what they could to close the gap and get Vogels and Dominguez in a position to win.

“We came up empty in the end, but we gave it a go,” he said.

The more-than-150 riders who started the race endured driving snow at the start that gave way to sunshine, only to have it start snowing again. Winds gusting to nearly 30 miles an hour buffeted the peloton, which stayed in intact until it reached the first of eight laps along a 5.5-mile circuit finish in Richmond. The race finished under sunny skies, with temperatures in the upper 30s.

“With the cold and the wind and the morning start, it made the race a lot harder,” Jansen said. “Had we had sunshine and warmer temperatures, it would have been much less harder.”

Labels: Caleb Manion, Henk Vogels, Ivan Dominguez, Ivan Stevic, Jose Manuel-Garcia, Justin England, Sean Sullivan