Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team 2007

Carson, Calif. - Bobby Lea of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team earned the eighth elite national title of his career Saturday by teaming with Colby Pearce to win the Madison at the USA Cycling Elite National Championships.

Lea and Pearce jumped out to a fast start and held off Rahsaan Bahati and Austin Carroll (Rock Racing) in the 40-kilometer race, out-scoring them 22-17. Defending champions Brad Huff and Michael Friedman (Team Slipstream) finished third with 16 points.

Lea’s win makes him an automatic qualifier for USA Cycling’s 2008 men’s endurance Talent Pool team. From this team, USA Cycling will select the athletes who will represent the United States at the Olympic Games in Beijing, the World Championships in England and in four UCI World Track Cup races.

Lea earned two other podium finishes during the championships at the ADT Event Center. The 23-year-old won a bronze medal in Friday night’s 60-lap points race as Friedman successfully defended his title in the event. Thursday night, Lea finished fifth in the scratch race, which was won by David McCook (Kelly Benefit Strategies presented by Medifast).

In the Madison, Lea said he and Pearce wanted to accomplish two things: get off to a good start and not let any of the other teams get a lap up.

“It's such a long race you can have big momentum shifts, so there is no rule to starting it out,” Lea said. “We were hoping to crack the whip early to catch guys in traffic (because) there is always a lot of confusion and we were hoping it would work in our favor.”

Lea’s victory was his fifth of the season. It raised Toyota-United’s win total to 39 for 2007 and to 94 in the team’s two-year history.

Carson, Calif. — Bobby Lea of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team earned a fifth-place finish Thursday in the Scratch Race at the USA Cycling Elite National Championships.

McCook (Kelly Benefit Strategies presented by Medifast) took the stars-and-stripes jersey by winning the field sprint ahead of Cody O’Reilly (Kodakgallery.com/Sierra Nevada Pro Cycling) and Steve Palaez (Adobe/Schwalbe).

Lea said the 15-kilometer (9.3-mile) race did not play out to his strengths.

“Rock Racing and another combine were riding for a field sprint and they completely neutralized any attempts to get up the road,” Lea said. “I was in good position for the final sprint but just didn't have the horsepower to compete in a finish like that.”

Lea, a seven-time elite national champion, gets another shot at a national title on the velodrome today at the ADT Event Center. He will compete in a 60-lap Points Race qualifying heat this afternoon in the hopes of making tonight’s final. Saturday, he will race in the Madison.

In addition to a victory in the Madison at the KNBT Festival of Speed, Lea had a solid road race campaign in 2007. He was Toyota-United’s best finisher (eighth place) at the USPRO Criterium Championships in Downers Grove, Ill., in August and won three times on the road (McDowell Mountain Regional Park Circuit Race, Leonardtown Criterium and Stage 3 of the Tour of Christiana).

There was no doubt Toyota-United's Ivan Dominguez was the winner.
Las Vegas — In a season punctuated by flawless teamwork, Ivan Dominguez was ultimately on his own when it came time to deliver a victory for his Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team.

Dominguez dramatically chased down Martin Gilbert (Kelly Benefit Strategies presented by Medifast) on the final lap, then outsprinted him to the line after the final turn to win the World Criterium Championship Thursday night under the lights in Las Vegas. The victory was Dominguez’s 15th of the season – a career-best – and the 38th of the season for Toyota-United.

“This feels great,” Dominguez told the estimated crowd of 20,000 that gathered under the lights to watch the inaugural edition of the race. “All the guys are very happy. This has been a great year.”

But before the 60 km (37-mile) race outside the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, Dominguez was downplaying his chances.

“Before today, (I considered) the Tour of Missouri my last ride,” he said. “I was sitting at home, doing nothing. Then I went to the show (Interbike) today and a lot of people were saying they put money on me. I said, ‘Dude, you should ask for your money back because I don’t think I’m going to win.’ This is a very dangerous race.”

The danger of racing 60 laps on a flat and sweeping, six-turn course that was set up in a parking lot was illustrated several times Thursday night. In the Bicycling Magazine Industry Cup race that preceded the pro men’s event, a massive pile-up disrupted the final lap. About a half-hour later, the pro men’s race became a crash-fest, with Toyota-United’s Jose Manuel “Chepe” Garcia one of the victims on the opening lap. The first turn was particularly treacherous, with more than a half-dozen separate crashes.

Dominguez, though, avoided the mayhem and was in position to follow Gilbert when attacked through the start/finish line with a lap to go. Behind them, an immediate gap opened up when a rider crashed in the first turn.

“I thought I would wait because he (Gilbert) was taking too many chances in the turns and I preferred to keep it safe,” Dominguez said. “Coming into the second-to-last turn, I caught him and he took me to the finish. He was tired.”

Dominguez didn’t even have to get out of the saddle while Gilbert (pictured, left of Dominguez) held on to finish second, just ahead of his teammate, Dave McCook. Besides Dominguez, only two of Toyota-United’s six racers finished the race: Justin England was 41st and Heath Blackgrove was 61st.

“We were fortunate today,” Toyota-United Team Director Harm Jansen said. “It was a one-man show tonight, but it was the result of one season of hard work by everyone on the team. We all share in the win.”

Las Vegas – Ivan Dominguez made sure Team Directors Harm Jansen (left) and Kirk Willett each went out a winner.

In early August, Dominguez won the Hanes Park Classic Criterium in Winston-Salem, N.C., in Willett’s final race with Toyota-United. The 37-year-old is now pursuing a career in medicine at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

Jansen announced Monday that Thursday’s race would be his last for Toyota-United. Len Pettyjohn will take over as the team’s director in 2008.

“Going out like this makes it harder – and easier,” Jansen said. “It’s easier because I can’t go out any better. And it’s harder because it is that great. These are the great moments you work for.”

Las Vegas - More than 25,000 people turned out for the second day of Interbike, North America's largest bicycle trade event.

The show in the Sands Convention Center that draws more than 1,000 suppliers and representatives from 4,000 bicycle retail stores also played host to the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team and its sponsors.

Toyota-United’s six riders who would be racing in Thursday night’s World Criterium Championship took time to sign autographs at the Fuji Booth earlier in the day.
Toyota-United's Heath Blackgrove meets Fuji Bicycles President Pat Cunnane.
Henk Vogels, who has been sidelined since July with a shoulder injury,
is still pretty adept with a Sharpie.
Cycling announcer Dave Towle (right) interviewed Ivan Stevic on Cycling.tv…

Las Vegas – It all comes down to this.

After more than 100 races in 20 states over the past 40 weeks, the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team goes after one more win in Thursday night’s season finale.

The WCSN USA Crits Final is also the last race in the 2007 USA Crits Championship Series.

WCSN.com will provide live coverage of the 37.2-mile (60 km) race along a fast, five-turn, one-kilometer course at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, situated near Interbike’s home at the Sands Convention Center.

Toyota-United’s sprint specialist Ivan Dominguez and B World Road Race Champion Ivan Stevic are among the 109 starters. Toyota-United is one of seven teams that will field a full complement of the maximum number of six riders.

Race-time temperatures, normally a concern in the desert heat, are expected to be in the mid 80s when the race goes off at 9:15 p.m. PDT.

Only one of Dominguez’s 14 wins of the season has come at a USA Crit Series event (the Wells Fargo Twilight Criterium in Boise, Idaho). He stands a team-best 13th place in the individual series standings while Toyota-United lies eighth in the team standings.

Frank Travieso (AEG-Toshiba-JetNetwork) is the individual USA Crit Series leader while his squad leads the team standings over the Abercrombie & Fitch Pro Development Cycling Team.

Before the men’s pro race Thursday, an inaugural “industry cup” race will go off, featuring two sponsors of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team. Bicycling Magazine and Fuji Bicycles are both fielding four-man squads for the 25-mile (40 km) race that will take place on the same course as the professionals.

Paul Davi estimates he drove about 27,000 miles in 2007.
Along I-70, Outside of Las Vegas — The races may blend together for Toyota-United Bus Driver Paul Davi. But one thing sticks out from driving mile after mile, week after week, from one end of the country to the other.

“I’ll remember all the times I got to listen to the guys while I was driving and I’d be just laughing my head off,” he said. “That was really the rewarding intangible that I will miss.”

In between the time he spent behind the wheel, cleaning the bus and pumping gas, Davi was living out his dream. He grew up watching the Coors Classic in his hometown of Boulder and followed the Tour de France religiously – even to the point of watching videotapes of the race over and over.

“Even before I got this job, I was a bit of a pro cycling junkie,” Davi said.

So it was quite a “rookie moment” when the team’s riders first stepped on board the bus in February, all decked out in their uniforms and headed for a photo shoot during training camp.

“Not long after we got going, Chris Wherry said, ‘I think you’ve got a bit of a problem.’ I was so new to the bus that I didn’t realize our tanks were full. Some of the gray water tank (the non-waste water) had started coming back up through the shower drain. It was a pretty horrible ride.”

Perhaps less memorable was his task of keeping the 48-foot red, white and blue motor coach clean – inside and out.

“Cleaning was the least glamorous part of the job,” Davi said, “Sometimes I’d be detailing the thing at 11 o’clock at night because that was the only time it was not being used.”

But perhaps his most important task was keeping the refrigerator stocked.

“Ivan Dominguez loves mayo but doesn’t like mustard,” Davi said, recanting a list from memory. “Chris Baldwin has to have the right stuff for his oatmeal and his late-night snacks. And you can’t forget our owner, Sean Tucker. He absolutely has to have regular bread. The rest of the guys prefer baguettes and big crusty loafs. But to keep Sean happy, you had to have sliced, white sandwich bread.”

Davi’s routine was like a lot of the team’s support staff – late to bed, early to rise.

“I’m not really a morning person, but the sport of bike racing seems to be,” he said. “I’d set my alarm to wake up and unlock the door and then try to go back to sleep. But every time someone gets on board, the bus tends to lean a little to one side, so I was pretty much up after that.”

Davi will close out the season the same way it began – tooling down the freeway. Only this time, look for him behind the wheel of a rental car and not the Toyota-United bus.

Len Pettyjohn and Scott Moninger.
Newport Beach, Calif. — Two of the most successful individuals in the history of American bicycle racing will lead the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team in 2008.

Veteran pro cycling team director Len Pettyjohn will be joined by 17-year pro Scott Moninger to work as Toyota-United’s new director and assistant director, respectively.

Pettyjohn, 66, has worked with some of the most successful U.S. cyclists (Greg LeMond, Davis Phinney, Alexi Grewal and Moninger) while directing a number of domestic teams, including the dominant Coors Light squad of the early 1990s.

Moninger, 41, has 275 victories to his credit and was the winningest active U.S. racer until announcing his retirement last week.

Toyota-United Owner Sean P. Tucker said the pair’s hiring came after an intensive, worldwide search.

“These two gentlemen have a 21-year history together,” Tucker said. “No one is more qualified to lead a team than Len while Scott knows the races and the racers having just capped off a spectacular career of his own.”

Pettyjohn has been living in Boulder, Colo., and working in race promotion since retiring from active team directing in 1994. He has managed the CyberBike Indoor Race Program since 2001 and put on the challenging, one-day Saturn Cycling Classic from 2001 to 2003. His experience as a director includes the Coors Light team (1989-94), Crest team (1988-90), the Lowrey’s women’s team (1987-89), the Lowenbrau team (1985-87), the American Savings/Dia-Compe team (1982-84) and the Panasonic team (1980-81).

“I’ve considered a number of team offers over the past decade, but nothing remotely of the caliber that Toyota-United had to offer,” Pettyjohn said. “For Scott and me to join such a high-level organization, with a world-class sponsor and a stellar group of riders that are a force in ProTour caliber races, is just exceptional.”

Moninger is a four-time winner of the Cascade Cycling Classic and the Nevada City Classic, a two-time winner of the Tour of the Gila, the Redlands Bicycle Classic, and the International Tour De ‘Toona. He was twice the individual champion of the National Race Calendar series, in 1992 and 2005. He raced for six different professional teams during his pro career: Coors Light (1991-94), Chevrolet-Los Angeles Sheriff (1995-96), Navigators Insurance (1997-98), Mercury (1999-2002), Health Net presented by Maxxis (2004-06) and BMC (2007). Born in Atlanta, Ga., he grew up in Wichita, Kan., and now lives in Boulder.

“I am confident that Scott and Len will ambitiously take us to the next level in our quest to continue to be the leading domestic team in pro cycling,” Tucker said. “Both have competed and managed athletes at the sport’s highest levels. I can’t wait to see what they can accomplish with the talent we have on our roster for 2008.”

Megan Gillam, engagement marketing manager for the team’s title sponsor, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., echoed Tucker’s enthusiasm for the new hires.

“We are thrilled to welcome Len and Scott to the Toyota-United family,” Gillam said. “Their collective experience and passion for the sport of cycling will be a powerful catalyst in driving this incredible team to an even higher level of success.”

Toyota-United’s 2008 roster will include three powerful new riders – Ben Day and brothers Hilton Clarke and Jonny Clarke.

“In Ben Day, we have a proven stage racer and elite time trialist,” Pettyjohn said. “Hilton Clarke has demonstrated he is one of the fastest sprinters in North America and Jonny is a versatile young rider with a great deal of potential.”

Toyota-United returns the core of its roster that scored 37 victories and 105 podium finishes in 2007. The squad was the only domestic pro cycling team to win races in all three “grand tour” bicycle races in the United States: the Amgen Tour of California, the Tour de Georgia and the Tour of Missouri. In 2008, Americans Chris Wherry (2005 USPRO road champion) and Chris Baldwin (2003 and 2005 national time trial champion) will join Cuban sprint sensation Ivan Dominguez (14 wins) and B World Road Race Champion Ivan Stevic of Serbia, along with veteran Australian strongman and lead-out specialist Henk Vogels.

“The key goals for Scott and me were to add some additional strength and speed to an existing group of champions,” Pettyjohn said. “With Ben, Hilton, and Jonny on board, we are pretty comfortable that Toyota-United will bring some serious horsepower to the peloton next season.”

Newport Beach, Calif. — The man who helped lead the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team in its first two seasons is saying goodbye.

Harm Jansen, 39, will direct his final race for Toyota-United at the World Criterium Championships in Las Vegas on Thursday, Sept. 27. He has been with the team since its founding in 2005 and served as co-director with Frankie Andreu in 2006 and Kirk Willett in 2007. For the past 18 years, Jansen has been involved in pro cycling as a competitor, coach and team director.

“This has been a very difficult decision because my heart is with cycling, but it is time to move on,” Jansen said. “These are two years I will obviously not forget. I was fortunate to be in a position to build this team to where it is today and I feel fortunate to have several choices of what I will do next.”

Toyota-United Team Owner Sean P. Tucker said Jansen’s contributions to building and growing the team would not soon be forgotten.

“He has been part of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team since the early days of its existence in 2005,” Tucker said. “His commitment to the program made the team an instant success and a force on the domestic circuit.”

Under Jansen’s guidance, Toyota-United won 92 races, including 55 in its inaugural season. The team also captured stage wins at all three of the “grand tours” in the United States in 2007 (the Amgen Tour of California, the Tour de Georgia and the Tour of Missouri), as well as three stage victories in both grand tours in 2006 (Amgen Tour of California and Tour de Georgia).

Jansen said being a team director helped him appreciate what a good staff can do for a cycling team.

“It’s something that is highly underestimated,” he said. “I had seen it from a bit of a distance as a rider, but witnessing it up close as a director made me fully understand their importance. I was fortunate to have been able to choose from so many talented athletes and to be around such a good group of personalities – both staff and riders.”

Jansen is a former Dutch National Champion and the 2001 USPRO Champion who won more than 180 races during his career. He completed his thesis at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and has a masters degree from the Civil Engineering and Geosciences faculty (graduating cum laude) at the Delft University of Technology (DUT) in The Netherlands. He lives with his wife, Amy, and son, Nico, in Los Angeles.

A list of links to some of the feature stories specifically written about the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team during the Tour of Missouri...

From Spare Cycles:
Justin England: "Favorite Tour of Missouri RIder"

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Riding With Toyota-United

From the Kansas City Star:
For Cyclist, It's Been A Long Road To A Sweet Life"

From Tour de France Lanterne Rouge:
England is Lanterne Rouge

From the Columbia Daily Tribune:
The View Rarely Changes From The Team Car
A Ringing Endorsement: Dominguez Wins First Stage"