JUNIOR NATIONAL CYCLING : U.S. Faces Last-Minute Test in Team Pursuit : Finals: The winner of this meeting will be wearing red, white and blue when the race is over.

In cycling, it’s easy to spot the national champions. They’re the guys wearing stars-and-stripes jerseys.

But things could get a little confusing today after the final of the 4,000-meter team pursuit at the U.S. Cycling Federation Junior Nationals, scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. at the velodrome in Balboa Park.

A team that has spent the summer representing the United States will face a strong challenge from one that also wants to be wearing red, white and blue when the race is over.

The challenge came forward Tuesday morning, when, at the last minute, Team Last Minute was formed.

OK, so they didn’t spend a whole lot of time coming up with a name. What counts is who’s behind it.

There’s Paul Abrahms of Orange, last year’s criterium champion (17-18 division); Glen Milano of Media, Penn., a national team member up until a couple months ago, and two guys who earlier this week finished fourth and fifth in the 2,000-meter individual pursuit, Ben Edwards of Goleta and Mike Orr of Seattle, Wash.

The foursome presented a scare to the national team when it clocked the fastest qualifying time Wednesday morning (4:48.11) to earn the top seeding in the semifinals, where it easily disposed of the Campagnola/Gatorade team.

The U.S. national team, referred to by cyclists as the “world team,” finished just behind Team Last Minute in qualifying at 4:48.30 and handily disposed of Cannondale/MAVIC in the semis.

The times were considered slow, but Team Last Minute had four members who had never raced together, and one world team cyclist, Chris Coletta of Addison, Ill., dropped out after five laps.

Coletta had been racing nonstop since Saturday and said he dropped simply because he was tired. But he also said his energy should be renewed by this morning and that the world team--which also consists of Mark Hanlon of El Toro, Eric Harris of Colorado Springs and Ryan Oelkers of Ramsey, N.J.--is capable of going 10-15 seconds faster.

Harris agreed. “We didn’t warm up real well this morning,” he said. “And we sort of thought of it as a joke. We knew we just had to qualify.”

But the other guys also think they can go faster.

“If I were among them, I’d be nervous,” Abrahms said. “We’ve only been together for 10 minutes; they’ve been together for four months.”

Harris wouldn’t use the word nervous, but . . . “I think those guys can give us a run for the money,” he said.

Abrahms would also like to give a jab at national coaches who left him and others off the team.

“Some of us got screwed at world trials,” he said.

Milano left the team a few months ago because of a personality conflict despite being considered the strongest rider on the team, according to one coach and a cyclist.

Harris isn’t shy about naming himself as the other involved in the “conflict.”

“He’s just real mellow, and I’m not mellow,” he said.