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Saturn stays hot in Georgia, with 7UP right behind

By Bryan Jew, VeloNews assistant managing editor
Published: Apr. 22, 2003
O'Neill
O'Neill
Photo: Casey B. Gibson

As he sat under a shade tree along the start-finish straight of the Tour de Georgia prologue, John Lieswyn couldn’t help but reflect on the last major professional stage race in the U.S., the Tour du Pont. "This is just as professional as the Tour du Pont, and it’s only the first year. They’re obviously using the same blueprint for this race," he said. And while the Georgia race has a long way to go before it reaches du Pont proportions, it still had Lieswyn and all of the other 139 starters excited for the upcoming six days. "I don’t get nervous before a race anymore very often," Lieswyn added.

After watching Saturn’s Nathan O’Neill and Chris Horner set the two fastest times early on, 4:58.22 and 5:02.55 respectively, Lieswyn would have to wait another two hours as rider after rider took aim at the two Saturn riders on the technical, 16-turn course on the streets of Savannah. Horner and O’Neill, Saturn’s first two riders on the course, returned with good reviews for the course. "That was a great course, ideal," said Horner. "It’s the way a prologue should be."

O’Neill generally agreed, although a mishap in the second corner could have cost him the win. "I screwed up in the second corner," he said. "I hit a hole and it almost knocked my front wheel out from under me. It was always in the back of my mind in the 14 corners after that. I just had to make up the rest of it on the straightaways."

As it turned out, O’Neill would be the only rider on the day to go under the five-minute barrier on a warm, sunny day with a light wind swirling around on the 2.6-mile course. The next closest after Horner was Lieswyn’s 7UP-Maxxis teammate, New Zealander Greg Henderson. The New Zealand track rider posted a solid 5:02.800 to nearly match Horner, but even more impressive was that he rode the bulk of the course with his rear tire going flat after hitting a pothole on the same corner that gave O’Neill his problems.

Henderson
Henderson

"I whacked it pretty hard," said Henderson. "Half-way around the course I found myself bottoming out, and with a kilometer to go I was bouncing the whole way. I was trusting my mechanic that my tires were glued on well, and I hit that last corner pretty hard."

When asked how much time he estimated he lost, Henderson laughed, "How much did I lose by?"

After Henderson, no one else challenged the five-second barrier, with Lieswyn coming closest with a time of 5:04.070. After that came two more Saturn riders, Eric Wohlberg in 5:06.750 and Phil Zajicek in 5:08.230, followed by Navigators’ Chris Baldwin and Prime Alliance’s Danny Pate.

While Pate’s eighth-place finish was a good start for Prime Alliance, the squad also suffered a couple of setbacks. Svein Tuft was 10 seconds late for his start, and with the Canadian posting a finishing time of 5:22.430, recovering that 10 seconds would have put him inside the top 25. The team’s biggest problem, though, came with the day’s final rider, Jonathan Vaughters. The Coloradan crashed in turn No. 2, had to change bikes, and ended up losing more than a minute to O’Neill. "The race was going to be won or lost today in the turns, and I lost," said Vaughters, who finished in 6:07.480.

With 10-, six- and four-second time bonuses for the top three, O’Neill leads the overall by eight seconds over Horner, with Henderson at 10 seconds and a potential threat on stage 1, which has two mid-race time-bonus sprints. However, with a tough climb on the finishing circuit (ridden three times) in Macon, those sprint bonuses might not come into play.

"After 136 miles, it that climb’s even reasonably hard, there won’t be any sprinters left," said Horner.

Wednesday’s stage begins at 10 a.m. in Augusta with three opening laps of 3.3 miles, 120 miles of open road between Augusta, and three laps of a 1.8-mile finishing circuit. Check in with VeloNews.com for complete coverage, including live coverage of the final two hours into Macon.

To see how today's stage unfolded, click here to bring up our live update window.

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