New Team Is Making a Favorable Impression

The Tour of California was expected to be a coming-out party for the Toyota-United cycling team. Instead, it has become something of a coronation.

Two weeks after the team was formally announced, J.J. Haedo won the inaugural cycling race’s opening stage Monday in San Jose. Three days later, he became the event’s first two-time winner by taking the fourth stage in San Luis Obispo.

“An absolute dream start,” said Harm Jansen, one of the team’s two directors.

Haedo was in the hunt for another victory Saturday during the sixth stage, from Santa Barbara to Thousand Oaks, but ran low on energy in the last 200 meters and finished 25th.

Olaf Pollack of the T-Mobile team won the stage and Floyd Landis, a Murrieta, Calif., resident racing for Phonak Hearing Systems, retained the overall lead, by 29 seconds over David Zabriskie of Team CSC.

Haedo is only 98th overall, but the sprint specialist will be among the favorites in today’s final stage, a nine-lap circuit race in Redondo Beach.

“It has been a great week for us,” said Haedo, a 25-year-old from Buenos Aires who began training in the U.S. in 2000.

Team owner Sean Tucker began brainstorming the idea of forming a U.S.-based cycling team 11 years ago, initially trying to determine a way to fund a team without depending on sponsorship money. He considered making the team a public corporation before settling on a plan to sell memberships, hoping to raise funds and also bring the public closer to the team. He built spreadsheets and compared the sport’s pros and cons with football, baseball and basketball.

“I had 100 ideas,” he said.

About a year ago, his plan picking up momentum, Tucker decided to abandon his 5-year-old consulting company so he could devote all his time and energy to the cycling team. He hired Frankie Andreu and Jansen as directors and they set out to form a team that was strong competitively and characteristically.

“We put together a list of the strengths that we wanted and who we wanted and we kind of put that together,” said Andreu, a former professional cyclist. “The most important factor is the rider’s personality, making sure these guys would all get along and have fun.”

Haedo, who won 12 races last season, has been surprised by the team’s chemistry.

“We have a lot of fun off the bike, which is real important,” he said. “Nobody has any kind of issues. That’s what I think is the key for a good team, you’ve got to have fun.”

The strong chemistry has been evident on the course as well. To win both stages, Haedo had to depend on his teammates to form drafts within the peloton to minimize his exposure to oncoming air.

Tony Cruz, a 2000 Olympian who was born in East Los Angeles and lives in Long Beach, said the team’s early victories have been the talk of the tour.

“All the other teams and directors were blown away. ... It’s cool when you can pull some big wins right off the bat for your sponsor,” he said.

Tucker hopes to continue developing Toyota-United and, at the same time, work on bringing more events like the Tour of California to the U.S. He ultimately hopes the U.S. can develop its own national race, similar to the Tour de France.

“All of the other European countries have their own tour, why can’t we?” he said.