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O’Neill hangs on for victory at Elk Grove
Health Net-Maxxis rider Nathan O’Neill kept up his winning ways over the weekend at the Alexian Brothers Tour of Elk Grove, held outside of Chicago. The Australian time-trial specialist took the overall at the two-day, three-stage event as he has done many times this season, by winning the race against the clock and defending his lead over the two remaining stages.
The event, now in its second-year with a prize purse totaling $152,000, changed its format from a one-day criterium to include a 4.5-mile prologue and an 80km circuit race held on Saturday, August 11, and a 110km criterium over a 1.7-mile course held on Sunday, August 12.
In addition to Health Net-Maxxis, top domestic teams such as Navigators Insurance, Toyota-United, Priority Health-Bissell, BMC, Colavita-Sutter Home and Kodakgallery.com-Sierra Nevada sent squads to the NRC event, as did continental professional team Slipstream-Chipotle.
Also on hand in Elk Grove where Americans Predictor-Lotto riders Chris Horner and Freddie Rodriguez. Horner placed sixth in the prologue, 12 seconds behind O’Neill, while Rodriguez was 22nd, 27 seconds down. Slipstream’s Mike Friedman, fourth in the national time trial championships last year, took second in the prologue three seconds behind O’Neill, followed by his teammate Timmy Duggan in third, six seconds down.
With only two flat stages to determine the overall classification, race directors kept things interesting by offering up primes as high as $1500 as well as significant intermediate and finish line time bonuses
Although Kelly Benefits-Medifast rode aggressively to set up sprinter David McCook — who is returning from a broken hand injury — Rodriguez won the stage 2 circuit race, gaining 20 seconds and moving into fourth overall. Heading into the final stage criterium, Rodriguez looked to be a safe bet for the stage and overall win.
“Freddie probably woke up this morning thinking ‘Today is my day,’” O’Neill said. “I woke up today thinking it was his day, too. But it didn’t work out that way. That’s bike racing.”
Instead, a modified version of the Toyota-United lead-out train helped deliver Ivan Dominguez to victory Sunday in the final stage.
Dominguez won a close bunch sprint at the end of the 68-mile (110 km) Gullo International Criterium to score his 12th win of the season and finish fifth overall. Taylor Tolleson (Slipstream-Chipotle) held on for second in the sprint while Martin Gilbert (Kelly Benefits Strategies-Medifast) was third.
Near the halfway point of the race, a group of six riders escaped the clutches of the peloton and gained more than 90 seconds’ lead. But a combination of sprints for several lucrative primes and the chasing efforts of Slipstream and Jittery Joe’s brought the break back. From there, Toyota-United organized at the front to control the final minutes of the race that was run under a blazing sun with temperatures in the mid 90s.
Three of Toyota-United’s lead-out specialists – Ivan Stevic, Henk Vogels and Caleb Manion – are out with injuries. But filling in for them were Chris Baldwin, Heath Blackgrove and Justin England. The trio set the stage for Sean Sullivan and Chris Wherry, who piloted Dominguez into position for the final lap of the 1.7-mile course.
“I told the guys that as long as they kept me safe to the last turn, I would be OK,” Dominguez said.
Dominguez honed in on Rodriguez’s wheel with about 20 laps to go.
“[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.
It was Dominguez's third win in the past four weeks. Rodriguez finished fifth to wind up fourth overall, tied on time with Dominguez. If either Friedman or Rodriguez had finished in the top three on the final stage, O’Neill would’ve lost the lead to one of them. Instead, they finished fourth and fifth respectively in the stage
“We lucked out a bit this week,” said O’Neill after wrapping up an improbable overall win. “It’s amazing to think that we could win a prologue and gamble that all the time bonuses the next two stages wouldn’t go to certain riders. The second stage Saturday evening, we tired to be aggressive, but it was too fast. We were just hurting ourselves. So today, we gambled and just tried to follow wheels, and see what happened. Frankly, with all the time bonuses, we expected to lose the lead today.”
O’Neill added that the format of the Tour of Elk Grove, with all the time bonuses available, made for an exciting finish. “It was great for the promoter,” he said. “The race came right down to the wire.”
With a prize purse totaling $152,000, the Tour of Elk Grove continued a green August for Health Net-Maxxis. After Frank Pipp took home the $25,000 winner’s check at the Presbyterian Healthcare Invitational Criterium in Charlotte last weekend (with Karl Menzies picking up a decent chunk of change for his fifth place), the team took home about $35,000 more from Elk Grove, led by O’Neill who earned $26,000 for the overall win, as well as another $5,000 for taking the opening stage prologue.
This coming weekend, instead of racing for green, the team will be looking to snag some red, white and blue, with the criterium national champion’s jersey on the line at the USPRO Criterium Championship, just down the road at Downer’s Grove, near Chicago.
Tour of Elk Grove Overall Results
1. Nathan O’Neill (Aus), Health Net-Maxxis
2. Mike Friedman (USA), Slipstream-Chipotle, at 0:03
3. Timmy Duggan (USA) Slipstream-Chipotle, at 0:06
