Cycling After 7-Eleven Takes a Big Gulp : La Jolla Grand Prix: Company that ‘put sport on the map’ is no longer a sponsor. But racing seems healthy as ever.

Back in the early 1980s, when the sport of cycling was still learning to walk, there probably wasn’t a bike race in America that didn’t have a 7-Eleven at the starting line. In fact, there were few races that didn’t end with a 7-Eleven. It seemed like cycling was 7-Eleven, and vice versa.

7-Eleven sponsored a cycling team. The team won almost every race. The company built a velodrome for the 1984 Olympics. Several 7-Eleven racers won medals in those Olympics. 7-Eleven put the first American team in the Tour de France. 7-Eleven did everything in cycling but sponsor two-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond. Two years ago, 7-Eleven almost did that too.

“We were the Slurpee kings,” said Davis Phinney, former Tour de France stage winner, Olympic medal winner and 7-Eleven team member. “7-Eleven was a dynasty. We were definitely the American team.”

And for the sport of cycling, the American dream.

Phinney was one of the world’s premier sprinters. If there was a bike race in your neighborhood, it was probably Phinney’s green and red 7-Eleven jersey you saw blur across the finish line first. He was so fast and so good, his teammates nicknamed him “Cash Register.”

7-Eleven cyclists were featured on a 7-Eleven TV commercial. It was a proud time for anyone who worked the graveyard shift at 7-Eleven. The 1980s were a unique time of romance between one big business and one growing sport.

The sport that 7-Eleven helped build will be in full splendor Sunday at the 1991 La Jolla Grand Prix bike race. But 7-Eleven won’t be there.

Bike racing has apparently matured as a sport. But strangely, and quietly, late last year, 7-Eleven died as a sponsor. 7-Eleven’s parent company, the Southland Corporation, dropped the cycling program after it filed for protection from its creditors in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

A record 35,000 spectators are expected to attend the La Jolla race Sunday. It is the second stop in the California Classics series. The event, a fast and furious 66-lap men’s and 33-lap women’s criterium, is everything professional bike racing was built up to be. The total purse between the two races is $32,500.

Professional bike racing seems healthy as ever. This year’s Grand Prix--which starts at 12:30 p.m. and includes a wheelchair criterium and the first rollerblade skating criterium--promises to be the biggest and flashiest of any in its seven-year history.

However, with the demise of 7-Eleven, former 7-Eleven racers, like Phinney, and race directors, like La Jolla’s Richard Bryne, wonder about the future. They wonder if the foundation is gone.

“I hate to say it, but they absolutely put the sport on the map,” Bryne said. “They brought notoriety, legitimacy, color. They always had the creme de la creme of cycling on their squad. Wherever they showed up, they were the team to beat.”

“I think the sport will suffer a little bit,” said former 7-Eleven racer Jeff Pierce, a San Diegan. “After so many years of 7-Eleven being there and winning all the races, the things that most people identified with are missing. The guys are still there, they’re just wearing different jerseys.”

“When you lose something like 7-Eleven, you get a slap of reality,” Phinney said. “We were so successful for a long, long time. It’s going to be different. There’s a void there now.”

Pierce, 32, is now the lead rider for the up-and-coming L.A. Sheriffs Racing Team. Phinney, 31, now races for the strongest team in 7-Eleven’s aftermath, Coors Light. They are the two biggest names entered in Sunday’s 40-mile men’s race, which will be staged on a six-block street course in downtown La Jolla at 3 p.m. However, Pierce and Phinney are considered past their prime and are not favorites to win.

They learned how to ride back in the days of banana seats and sissy bars. But racing for 7-Eleven, they brought national attention to professional bike racing. Pierce, Phinney and LeMond are the only American riders to win a stage race at the Tour de France. Pierce, whose specialty is long-distance European road racing, sprinted to a victory at La Jolla in 1986. Phinney won two Tour de France stage races for 7-Eleven and the bronze medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

It was at those Olympics that 7-Eleven really made its presence felt, building the first of two velodromes and sponsoring the U.S. team, which took home nine medals . . . four gold.

In 1981, the year 7-Eleven signed on as the Olympic sponsor, team manager Jim Ochowicz enticed former gold medal speed skater Eric Heiden to anchor the team. Ochowicz, a former speed skater himself, almost put Heiden back into the Olympics. Heiden became an alternate for the 1984 Olympics when he finished second in a one-kilometer race at the San Diego velodrome in 1983. Heiden also raced in the first two La Jolla Grand Prix.

In 1986, 7-Eleven entered the first U.S. cycling team in the then 82-year-old Tour de France. While other teams were paying their cyclists $30,000 to $70,000, 7-Eleven was rewarding its riders with $50,000 to $150,000 yearly contracts. Andy Hampsten’s 11th-place finish for 7-Eleven at the 1990 Tour de France was the highest ever by a representative of a U.S. team.

“Every year, (7-Eleven’s program) just got bigger and bigger,” Pierce said. “It was incredible. I rode for 11 years with Schwinn, but it was always just limited to the biggest events in this country. 7-Eleven started the same way and just expanded. It was first class.

“I remember we would be sitting in a real plush hotel and other guys would come in from a three-day drive and have to sleep on someone’s floor. No one’s close, even now, to putting into the sport what 7-Eleven did. They were the pioneers that brought the U.S. to the big time.”

7-Eleven’s success at the La Jolla Grand Prix--three victories in six years--seems pale when compared to its worldly accomplishments. It led for most of the 66 laps and claimed several money laps before Coors Light’s Chris Huber slipped in front on the final lap to win the 1990 race.

Now Phinney and Huber will be trying to defend the championship as Coors Light teammates. But Phinney is not afraid to admit that things aren’t the same.

“I felt pretty good about going from 7-Eleven to Coors,” Phinney said. “They have great program. I may be on my way out the door, but maybe I can help them build. But 7-Eleven was a fantastic sponsor. They built this sport, immeasurably. I would be a crop duster or something without 7-Eleven.”

Ochowicz scrambled to get a new sponsor for his 23-member team last fall and came up with the Motorola Corp. But the roster has been trimmed to 12 racers and the focus is solely on Europe and the Tour de France. While 7-Eleven was the team in America, Motorola is a non-entity at home. Those racers who stayed with their old team won’t be at the La Jolla Grand Prix Sunday. They’ll be in Liege, Belgium.

Bryne said spectators can expect more parity Sunday. And though the smaller teams might be singing “Oh, thank heaven” now that 7-Eleven is out of the way, a question looms: Will cycling suffer without America’s team?

“I don’t think so,” Bryne said. “Because there are so many good guys now. I think it’s just going to get better. Hopefully, there will be other sponsors that will come in and enjoy the benefit of not having a monopoly there. It levels the playing field.

“But, frankly, I think (7-Eleven is) going to be sorely missed.”