United in their goals; Toyota United for 2007

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Toyota United(Image credit: Steve Medcroft)

The 2007 Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team (from L-R): Kirk Willett (Team Director), Heath Blackgrove, Justin England, Jose Manuel “Chepe” Garcia, Stefano Barberi, Sean Sullivan, Caleb Manion, Henk Vogels (Team Co-Captain), Chris Wherry (Team Co-Captain), Ivan Stevic, Bobby Lea, Mark Scanlon, Chris Baldwin, Burke Swindlehurst, Ivan Dominguez, Harm Jansen (Team Director)(Image credit: Kathleen Poulos/Toyota United)

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Managed by former USPRO Criterium and Dutch National road-racing champion Harm Jansen and former pro Kirt Willet (who fills the spot vacated when the team parted ways with Frankie Andreau in 2006), the team is the middle of a ten-day stint in Thousand Oaks, California. "So far the feedback on the guys has been excellent," said team owner Sean Tucker, a California business entrepreneur who raced professionally in Belgium for three years in the mid nineties. "We took it easy the first couple of days because the guys were getting over their travel (some from as far away as Australia) but it will be a hard camp. We'll see who has form and where they stand."

Although 2006 team headliner JJ Haedo moved on to the European peloton (scoring a spot on Bjarne Riis' CSC squad), the core of Toyota United remains the same for 2007. The additions, say Wherry, serve to make that core more versatile. "We had a good team (last year) but I feel like we got stronger with the four new riders," he said. "With Henk, Mark, Caleb and Burke, we refined this machine a little bit. We sharpened it up."

Besides leadership within the team, Tucker Vogels says he brings the kind of experience he hopes will lead to more Toyota United victories in America's notoriously argy-bargy sprint finishes. "As the lead-out man for Robbie McEwen (in Europe during the last two seasons), we won six stages of the Giro" Vogels said. "I'm going to take that experience into the lead-out for Ivan (Dominguez); who I think is the fastest guy in America on paper."

Beyond adding to the competitive dynamic of American racing, Tucker made another impact on the sport with the way he organized the business structure of his team. In a sport filled with well-intentioned teams hanging by the thread of the support of a single primary sponsors, Tucker says he approached the sport with a business mindset first and a passion for racing second. "It began as an idea to address financial sustainability," he said about the unique ways he's trying to finance the team. "We wanted an alternative to the current model where X, Y and Z team is supported by a company and when that company decides that they're done with that team, the team is done."

Tucker says he saw how other sports weathered the volatility of sponsor dependence. "You look at baseball, football and most other sports; the fans support the sport," he says. "Whether its gate revenue, merchandise sales or TV revenue - it all starts with the fans. In cycling, we have the most die-hard fans of any sport but there's no gate; it's free to watch racing. I was trying to figure out a way to give the fans a platform to be part of the team, to contribute."

In another innovative move, Tucker also decided to sell bikes under the team's brand name rather than simply ride a traditional bike-company's product. In its first incarnation, those sales (of an Easton-built road bike) were made through the team's Web site. Since sales in 2006 weren't where Tucker thought they could be, he brought in a bike-company partner to produce and sell a United brand bike in 2007. "We really needed distribution," he said. "It was something we lacked last year. Fuji (the partner) has dealers all over the world."

Is all this alternative thinking making a difference? With a huge touring coach and small fleet of Toyota hybrid vehicles, the team definitely establishes a presence at races. "It's cool to have people come up to us and know who we are," Wherry said. "Sean has definitely taken a business model that seems broken and turned it around. Sean really wants the United Team brand to be around for a long time."

As for the racing side of the business (which Tucker says he leaves completely to Jansen and his team), Tucker says his goals are strictly domestic - there are no plans to take Toyota-United abroad. "Our goal is to be the best team in America. Just like in the days of 7-11 or the Coors Light team, we want to be known as the best team in American cycling. Until the world tells me that the team is, in fact and bar-none, the best team in America, we're not looking to (race in Europe)."

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