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Fly V Australia’s Day Avoids Crash, Keeps Lead
March 28, 2010
Redlands, Calif. – Fly V Australia’s Ben Day narrowly avoided a pile-
up on Stage 2 on the way to maintaining his overall lead heading into
the final day of the 26th annual Redlands Bicycle Classic.
Day, who has led the four-day National Racing Calendar event since
winning Thursday’s prologue, remains sixth-tenths of a second ahead of
Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell Pro Cycling) and one second ahead of Will
Routley (Jelly Belly Cycling presented by Kenda) in third place.
Overall, 11 riders are within 30 seconds of the lead with only the
94.1-mile (151 km) Beaver Medical Group Sunset Loop Road Race remaining.
“It's going to be a pretty interesting day,” Day said. “Sunset Loop is
such an iconic and difficult stage to race anyways and there’s a lot
at play with the time bonuses. I expect there are going to be plenty
of fireworks.”
The ninth-year Australian professional said the crash that took down
more than 40 riders in the last half of Saturday’s 90-minute race
through the streets of Downtown Redlands was a close call.
“Fortunately, I stayed out of trouble today,” Day said. “That was a
fairly sketchy criterium toward the end. The last 20 or 30 minutes
were quite intense. I was just trying to stay upright.”
Bernie Sulzberger was the only Fly V Australia rider to go down, but
he suffered only minor scrapes to his leg and will start Sunday’s
final stage.
As the 170-rider field wound its way around the nine-corner course
Saturday, Fly V Australia did its best to maintain control. Only a
handful of times did riders escape the grips of the peloton and the
mid-race time bonus sprint was not contested by any riders who were a
threat to Day’s overall lead.
“The boys did a great job on the front today,” Day said. “The guys are
sacrificing their own chances to win. Now it's up to me to finish the
race off for them.”
Hilton Clarke (Bahati Foundation Pro Cycling) won the stage in a field
sprint while Fly V Australia’s Jonathan Cantwell finished seventh.
Somewhat surprisingly, Fly V Australia’s Jay Thomson overtook Rob
Britton (Bissell Pro Cycling) for the lead in the sprint competition
simply by riding on the front in Day’s defense. The Republic of South
Africa rider will wear the green jersey on the final stage.
“It’s not the jersey we’re going to defend,” Thomson said, “but it is
nice to have.”
Fly V Australia Director Sportif Henk Vogels said the team will have
to ride extra attentively since there are three opportunities for time
bonuses on the final stage. Two are intermediate time bonus sprints
with values of 3, 2 and 1 second while bonuses of 10, 6 and 4 seconds
are up for grabs at the finish.
“The Sunset Loop is one of the hardest days on the American race
calendar,” Vogels said. “The Fly V Australia boys have worked very
hard the past couple of days, but I have no apprehensions that they
won't be able to do it.”
Fly V australia's Ben Day leads Redlands heading into the final stage
by a mere 6 tenths of a second, be sure to follow the final stage to
see if he can make history and lead the race from start to finish.
— Fly V Australia —
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