The second round of the 2008 Speed Week Series arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina on Tuesday the 29th of April for the Beaufort Memorial Cycling Classic, with Toyota-United’s Hilton Clark and Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home) taking top honors.

Set in the heart of what’s known as South Carolina’s “low country,” hundreds of top elite and professional cyclists raced around the “Queen of the Carolina Sea Islands,” and the state’s second oldest city.

Coming only two days after a tough edition of the Athens Twilight Criterium, riders tore through the streets of downtown Beaufort on a cool, breezy night while several thousand spectators looked on. The 75-lap men’s race was run at a spectacularly hard pace, which very often strung out the field into single file.

Early players in the evening’s action proved to be the men from the Kelly Benefit Strategies squad, along with Kyle Gritters of the severely under represented Health Net team and Colavita-Sutter Home’s Davide Frattini all gave their best efforts to separate themselves from the rest of the pack.
After some minor re-shuffling of the field, Kyle Wamsley (Colavita-Sutter Home), Diego Gravito (AeroCat-Latino Cycling Team), John Freddy Parra (Toshiba-Santo), David Veilleux (Kelly Benefit) Frattini, and Candelario were off the front with about 10 seconds on the pack. The group worked well together to maintain their lead and, despite efforts by riders like Dave Fuentes (Battley Harley Davidson), the gap remained.

That is, until a few heavy hitters began to make their presence known in the peloton. Direct from a week of racing at this year’s Tour De Georgia, Canadians Eric Wolberg, Svein Tuft and Cameron Evans (all riding for the Symmetrics squad) combined forces with Clarke to motor at the front of the chase group along with some help from Under-23 National Criterium Champion Keith Norris (Toshiba-Santo).

To make matters worse for the pack, the field was eventually lapped by these strongmen who showed no signs of fatigue as the evening came down to the business end of the race. This set up a challenging situation where riders who were actually ahead of the game, now needed to fight through traffic for the key positions needed to ensure victory.

With no teammates to assist him Clarke, the lone Toyota-United rider among the 44 finishers, pulled a great technical move from somewhere near seven wheels back to take the win.

The women’s race, held earlier in the evening, was also marked by a series of attacks from several hopefuls. Kelly Benjamin (Cheerwine), and Tiffany Cromwell (Colavita-Sutter Home) had a go at escaping the main field, but only the top-shelf trio of Benjamin’s teammate Laura Van Gilder, 2008 Athens Twilight Champion Rebecca Larson, and National Criterium Champion Pic could manage a workable split.

The women's podium at the Beaufort Memorial Cycling Classic.

The three chief rivals of the women’s peloton battled each other for more than half of the race while never gaining more than 15 seconds on the chasers who simply refused to give up hope of catching the escapees.

Efforts were made by Holli Steelman (Juice Plus-NC Cycling), Shannon Koch (Metro VW Cycling), and Kele Murdin (Vanderkitten), but were ultimately unable to organize enough of a chase to shut down the break.

The gap to the leaders held as the laps counted down and, on the final, all three made it clear that they were ready to duke out the finale. Van Gilder jumped her companions on the left side of the course while Pic jumped right for the win.

But Pic and Van Gilder will once again get an opportunity to revisit their rivalry when the series continues this evening at the Downtown Walterboro Criterium in Walterboro, South Carolina.

Beaufort Memorial Cycling Classic Results

Men
1. Hilton Clarke (AUS), Toyota-United, 1:32:54.900
Colavita-Sutter Home 2. Kyle Wamsley , Colavita Sutter Home, at 0.100
3. Keven Lacombe (Can) Kelly Benefit Strategies, at 0.400
4. Sebastian Haedo (Arg), Colavita Sutter Home, at 0.600
5. Jake Keough CRCA-Sakonnet Technology at 00:1.000
6. John Murphy , Health Net, at 00:1.300
7. Keith Norris , TOSHIBA-Santo, at 00:1.400
8. Alex Candelario , Kelly Benefit Strategies, at 00:1.800
9. Kyle Gritters , Health Net, at 00:2.100
10. Kenneth Hanson , California Giant, at 00:2.200

Women
1. Tina Pic , Colavita-Sutter Home, 1:11:41.6
2. Laura Van Gilder , Cheerwine Cycling, at 00:0.600
3. Rebecca Larson , Aaron's, at 00:2.300
4. Kelly Benjamin , Cheerwine, at 00:4.500
5. Anna Lang , Aaron's, at 00:4.800
6. Shontelle Gauthier , Colavita-Sutter Home, at 00:4.900
7. Nichole Wangsgard , Colavita-Sutter Home, at 00:5.000
8. Tiffany Cromwell , Colavita-Sutter Home, at 00:5.300
9. Jennifer Wilson , Vanderkitten, at 00:5.900
10. Jenny Trew , Vanderkitten, at 00:6.100