Stage 4 – Sunset Road Race – 100km

Quark Cycling Team News Release

Ina Teutenberg made it two in a row winning the Sunset road race today concluding the Redlands Progel bicycle classic.

The race had drama and excitement from the start as the top three places on GC were separated by only 7 seconds. To make things even tougher on the tired field was the fact that the first KOM came just 7 miles into the race with time in addition to points given. Webcor’s Erinne Willock drove the pace hard right as the flag dropped. She was assisted by T-Mobile’s Teutenberg and Quark’s Grace Fleury.

As the KOM approached Genevieve Jeanson was first to jump shadowed by Annette Beutler of Quark but the efforts of Webcor’s tandem of Christine Thorburn and Willock powered by to take 1 and 2 and the bonus seconds attached with Quark’s Beutler third picking up 1 second.  This gave Thorburn a 7 second advantage over T-Mobile Kim Baldwin and 8 seconds over Quark’s Beutler.  The chase for bonus seconds on the KOM split the field and a group containing Thorburn, Willock, Baldwin and Armstrong of T-mobile as well as Quarks Beutler and Monex rider Lynn Gaggioli formed an early break. T-Mobile and Gaggioli drove the pace and the break maintaining a lead of about a minute and a half.

Quark was unhappy about having Beutler in the break without any team mates so Laura, Helen and Grace pulled hard turns to close the gap. After 4 laps away the efforts of Quark was able to bring the gap down to 15 seconds as riders then attempted to bridge the gap to the leaders.  Teutenberg of T-Mobile was the only rider to make the jump and she then attacked the breakaway going solo. As Teutenberg was no threat on GC, Webcor and Quark and the GC riders of T-Mobile concentrated on watching each other and the chess game began.

After another hard lap of chasing by Quark, the field caught the break as Teutenberg continued to power away solo.

At the finish Teutenberg came across the line 57 seconds ahead of the field making it two in a row for the German.  But all heads stayed glued to the finishing stretch to see how the final GC would be determined. First around the finishing corner was Quark’s Beutler followed by teammate Tina Pic. Amy Moore of Victory Brewing came across the line for forth with a small gap to the yellow jersey clad Thorburn. Beutler picked up 6 seconds for her 2nd place and so the final GC would all depend on whether the officials deemed the gap to be big enough to give Thornburn a slower finishing time than Beutler.

In the end Thorburn’s last huge effort in the closing meters was enough to earn her the right to pull the final yellow jersey over her head, with Beutler 2 seconds behind, followed by Baldwin 13 seconds behind. In the team competition, Quark finished 3rd behind T-Mobile, while Quark’s Beutler went home in red for also winning the climbers competition.

1 Ina Teutenberg  ( T-Mobile)                          2:35:07

2 Annette Beutler Quark Cycling Team              @ :57

3 Tina Pic   Quark Cycling Team

Final GC

1 Christine Thorburn Webcor                      8:02:19

2 Annette Beutler  Quark Cycling Team                 @ :02

3 Kim Baldwin  T-Mobile                              @ :13

4 Erinne Willock                                  @  :44

5 Kristen Armstrong                              @  1:03

6 Tina Pic Quark Cycling Team                         @  1:34

18 Grace Fleury (Quark)
31 Helen Kelly (Quark)
44 Laura Van Gilder (Quark)