UnitedHealthcare goes one-two in Basking Ridge

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Robert Forster (UnitedHealthcare) took his first victory stateside at the National Racing Calendar (NRC) Base Camp International p/b Verison Wireless in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. The German fast-man won a bunch kick ahead of his teammate Hilton Clarke in second and Estonian veteran Jaan Kirsipuu (Champion System) in third.

"It was a great lead-out and we controlled the race for all the riders and my teammates did a great lead-out for, maybe, the last ten laps," said Forster who is gearing up for the TD Bank Philadelphia International Cycling Championships on Sunday. "It was a good sprint. I hope that I am in good form for the race in Philadelphia and all of our sprinters will be there."

Kirsipuu is a well known veteran sprinter who has raced for international teams as esteemed as Casino, Ag2R and Credit Agricole. He wore the yellow jersey at the Tour de France for six stages in 1999 after winning stage one. Along with several stage wins at the Grand Tour, he has also won stages of the Vuelta a Espana, Tour de Luxembourg, Tour Mediterranean, Tour de Pologne, Four days of Dunkerque and the Herald Sun Tour.

"Kirsipuu is a legend," Forster said. "He’s won several stages of the Tour. I know him and raced with him when I was young, he was also racing.

"He is a big bunch sprinter. I spoke with him today before the start of the race and I saw him earlier this year in Malaysia."

The Base Camp International p/b Verison Wireless offered valuable points toward the NRC along with 15,000USD. The Pro 1 men raced for a total of 64km on a highly technical, 1.7 km circuit that included eight corners and several chicanes and an uphill to the finish line. "The course was tricky and it was up and down and a lot of fighting in the corners, but it was OK," Forster said.

Several breakaways throughout the race were short-lived with the exception of a three-man move late in the race that included NRC winner Luis Amaran (Jamis-Sutter Home), James Williamson (Pure Black Racing) and Andre Diaz (Exergy). The trio held strong off the front of the field for the remaining nine laps, when Diaz made one last ditch effort to win the race and attacked his companions with two laps to go. UnitedHealthcare set up its lead-out train for sprinters Forster and Clarke during the closing laps and reeled in Amaran and Williamson along with Diaz on the last lap.

"We raced the whole race trying to get in a breakaway and several of our riders were in moves today," said Jamis-Sutter Home DS Sebastian Alexandre. "With ten laps to go, the three were off the front but UnitedHealthcare was controlling them and Luis sat on in the last coupe of laps. I knew that they wouldn’t let the breakaway get more the five to eight seconds gap. When I saw Luis jump and none of the UnitedHealthcare guys followed, I knew they didn’t want a breakaway and that they would ride tempo. This course is hard to ride behind. They were very strong and some other teams were behind them but nobody could do too much."

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