Rashaan Bahati delivered his first-year Rock Racing team its biggest win yet on Saturday afternoon in Arlington, Virginia, blazing to the head of a field sprint to take home the 10th edition of the CSC Invitational.

Laura Van Gilder (Cheerwine) won the women’s race, outsprinting race-long breakaway companion Rebecca Larson (Aaron’s Corporate Furnishings). Sarah Uhl (Cheerwine) was third.

Bahati in the heat
With temperatures hovering around the 90-degree mark, it was once again a race of attrition on the notoriously difficult 1km, five-turn course, which winds its way through Arlington’s Clarendon district of bars, shops, and restaurants.

In the men’s finale, it was the Toyota-United squad that seemed to have the upper hand, with Henk Vogels bringing Ivan Stevic into the final turn in perfect position with just 200 meters to go.

CSC was running its train toward the finish, hoping to set up Haedo

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

But Stevic, filling in as team sprinter while 2006 CSC Invitational champion Ivan Dominguez recovers from a bad crash, tried to come around Vogels on the outside of the turn, rather than on the inside, as he usually does. As Stevic was momentarily pinched by Vogels, Bahati saw his opportunity and jumped around Stevic to the win.

“I should have told [Vogels] I was coming on the inside. It was my mistake. I can usually do the corners really tight, so I usually go to the inside,” said Stevic. “[Bahati] saw my mistake and jumped, and there was no way to catch him then.”

Despite the miscommunication, Stevic held on for second place ahead of Navigators' on-form sprinter Hilton Clarke. Clarke, already a winner at the Kelly Cup and the Tour of Somerville over the past week, saw his luck interrupted when a rider fell in front of him in a Wednesday-night training race in New Jersey, but shook off the scrapes and bruises to bring home a third-straight National Racing Calendar podium spot.

Navigators’ work started early, when Viktor Rapinski leapt away alone with 89 laps remaining in the 100-lap men’s race. Eleven laps later, the Belorussian strongman had forged a gap that had him sitting just 20 seconds off the back of the chasing peloton. While a number of teams threw riders into the chase, it was Rapinski’s own efforts that finally got the better of him, and after 21 laps off the front, he rolled back into the field.

Aggressive racing saw a number of small moves form and dissolve before Jonny Sundt (Kelly Benefits Strategies) and Kyle Wamsley (Navigators) squeezed out a five-second gap. They were joined by Allen Johansen, representing the CSC ProTour team in its sponsor’s stateside event.

With Johansen, the break hovered in front for several laps before drawing out a six-man counterattack, but when the groups merged, the break became too unwieldy and returned to the field. The same fate befell another promising move several laps later that included Clarke, Rapinski, Gustavo Artacho (Colavita-Sutter Home), Henk Vogels (Toyota-United), Emile Abraham (Priority Health), and Chad Hartley (BMC).

Clarke and teammate Ben Brooks (Navigators), Stevic, and Shawn Milne (HealthNet) carved out an eight-second gap in a move that lasted several laps, but were caught with 25 laps remaining, sparking a counterattack by Sebastian Haedo (Rock Racing).

Haedo’s move attracted the attention of Oleg Grishkin (Navigators) and Colavita’s Luca Damiani, who joined up with the young Argentinian and carved out a 20-second gap. Alas, family ties apparently don’t count for much in cycling, as it was Haedo’s older brother J.J.’s powerful CSC squad putting five men on the front of the peloton, hoping to bring the elder Haedo a valuable win in front of the sponsors after an early exit from the Giro d’Italia.

CSC’s chase brought the gap down to 12 seconds before the move began to implode on its own, with first Damiani and then Haedo returning to the field. Grishkin forged ahead on this own for several more laps, hoping to keep his Navigators teammates rested for as long as possible before the coming sprint finish.

Grishkin’s time ran out with seven laps remaining, and Stevic’s Toyota-United and J.J. Haedo’s CSC traded leadership of the peloton several times before giving way to the Navigators’ train with one lap remaining.

From there, the stage was set for Bahati, who took his biggest win since winning both the national elite and junior criterium championships in 2000 in Downer’s Grove, Illinois.

“Yeah, it’s big,” said Bahati, “I don’t really have a lot of words. My cheeks just hurt I’m so happy.”

Van Gilder, times three
While the men’s race consumed break after break on the way to a field sprint, the 50-lap women’s race featured only four laps without a break, and no breaks without Laura Van Gilder.

After several probing moves, Van Gilder went away with Larson with some 40 laps remaining. The pair worked together well, as did their respective Cheerwine and Aaron’s Corporate Furnishings teammates, who quickly extinguished any hopes of a concerted chase or bridge attempt from the field.

At the halfway mark, Larson and Van Gilder had 25 seconds in hand, enough time to be totally out of sight of the field, even on the long finishing straight.

Once out of sight, the break expanded its advantage further, coming within 15 seconds of the tail of the deflated field.

“I don’t think it was in either of our interests to lap the field,” said Van Gilder. “Once you do that, it can get messy. You can have a hard time keeping track of each other, and you bring the teams back into it.”

The pair instead used the insurmountable gap on the final lap, with Larson refusing to come around Van Gilder despite slowing to a crawl. With no other choice save a trackstand, Van Gilder led out the sprint just after the final corner. Larson drew nearly even with just meters to the line, but didn’t have the extra punch to topple the two-time CSC Invitational champion.

Just as they had for the majority of the race, Aaron’s and Cheerwine riders dominated the field in the sprint for the remainder of the placings, with Cheerwine’s Sarah Uhl and Kelly Benjamin nipping Aaron’s Sarah Caravella at the line.

With her win this year, Van Gilder becomes the only three-time champion in the history of the race. The Pennsylvania native appears to be sticking to winning the CSC Invitational every two years, having won in 2003 and 2005 as well. Two other riders have taken two victories each: Germany’s Ina Teutenberg (2001, 2002) and the late Nicole Reinhart (1999, 2000).

CSC Invitational
Arlington, Virginia
Men
1. Rashaan Bahati, Rock Racing
2. Ivan Stevic (Sb), Toyota-United
3. Hilton Clarke (Aus), Navigators
4. Shawn Milne, HealthNet
5. Alex Candelario, Jelly Belly

Women
1. Laura Van Gilder, Cheerwine
2. Rebecca Larson, Aaron’s Corporate Furnishings
3. Sarah Uhl, Cheerwine
4. Kelly Benjamin, Cheerwine
5. Sarah Caravella, Aaron’s Corporate Furnishings