McLane Pacific Classic Weekend Women's Report
Colavita/Cooking Light's Dotsie Bausch attacked her break-mates in the last kilometer to win this 1rst NRC Spring Classic of the season. McGuire’s Laura Charmada, Victory Brewing's Laura Yoisten, and T-Mobile’s Christine Bekker Criterium, Results and photos

By Jim Williams

The colors of The Colavita/CookingLight cycling team emerged victorious today, as Dotsie Bausch launched a late race attack from a breakaway group of 12 and held on for the win. The second race of the NRC season took place today on a cold and cloudy day in Merced California. The Foothills Road race is a difficult early season test, comprising 3 laps of a 24 mile circuit for 72 total miles.

With teams jockeying to get the first win of the season and start the year off right, all the top women's teams showed up at the start line. The move of the day occurred on lap 2 when a group of about 12 riders were able to breakaway. Present in the break were riders from TEAm Lipton, Victory Brewing, T-Mobile, Webcor, Cheerwine, McGuire, Colango-Pro, and Colavita/Cooking Lights Dotsie Bausch and Sarah Tillotson. With almost all the major teams represented and the break working well together they were able to stay clear of the 70 plus strong chasing pack.

Not wanting to take her chances on a sprint with sprinters like Laura Van Gilder (TEAm Lipton) and Laura Yoisten (Victory Brewing) present in the break; Dotsie Bausch launched her a attach with about 1 Km to go on a slight rise before a downhill finish. She was able to gain a gap and then put her head down and drag raced to the finish, behind her Kim Anderson of T-Mobile was charging hard but was unable to come around Lipton's Van Gilder.

"I'm really excited with today's win, said Bausch, Not only did my team ride great to help me but all my family are here to celebrate my dad's birthday and this win is a present for him."
The next stop on the NRC tour is next week for the Central Valley Classic in Fresno.

Women Elite 1 / 2 / Pros
1 Dotsie Bausch (Colavita/Cooking Light)
2 Laura VanGilder (Team Lipton)
3 Kim Anderson (T-mobile)
full results to follow

McLane Pacific Cycling Classic
Saturday Down Town Criterium

Victory Brewing's Team Report.
Victory Brewing’s, new addition to the team, Laura Yoisten sprinted into second place in today’s  Downtown Criterium and Brenda Lyons just behind her in fourth. The two sprinters had a full team of  support in the exciting race to the finish line.

The McLane Pacific criterium is known to be one of  the fastest criteriums to start off the NRC series. It is an eight corner, wide open circuit with multiple ‘hot laps’ for cash in the first few laps of the event.

In the corners photo c.  B. Johnson

Victory Brewing waited for ten laps before opening fire on the rest of the peloton. “We decided to wait for the first section of the race to see how the rest of the field was doing, then we hit  the field hard with multiple attacks after the tenth lap,” said Director Mike Tamayo.

Victory Brewing riders Leigh Hobson, Katharine Carroll, and Chrissy Ruiter lit up the race until nine laps remaining when Hobson detached herself from the rest of the field. She maintained a 10 second lead forcing TEAm Lipton into a chase. Lipton chased hard catching Hobson with three laps remaining.

The sprint McGuire's Charmada leads, Yoisten and Bekker  photo c. B. Johnson

Victory Brewing went to the front to start their lead out for the two sprinters Yoisten and Lyons. It was a very close finish between Team McGuire’s Laura Charmada, Victory Brewing’s Laura Yoisten, and T-Mobile’s Christine Bekker finishing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively.

Other notable happenings including a crash at the halfway point of the race causing approximately 20 riders to go down including Yoisten and Bowles. Webcor’s Christine Thornburn was active in trying to get off the front.

McLane Crit Podium photo c.  B. Johnson

Women's line honors were taken by Laura Charameda of the Bay area McGuire Cycling team with Laura Yoisten of Victory Brewing and Christina Becker T-Mobile filling out the podium.

Womens Downtown Grand Prix Results:
Place First Name Last Name Team Bib Number
1 Laura Charameda McGuire Cycling Team 217
2 Laura Yoisten Victory Brewing Team 272

T-Mobile Pre Race photo c.  B. Johnson
3 Christina Becker Tmobile 205
4 Brenda Lyons Victory Brewing Team 242
5 Laura VanGilder Team Lipton 268
6 Nicky Wangsgard Colnago Pro Team 285
7 Lara Kroepsch Team Lipton 238
8 Nicole Freedman Velo Bella-Kona 225
9 Gina Voci Cheerwine 269
10 Alena Hetsman third pillar racing team 231
11 Jennifer EYERMAN Morgan Stanley 223
12 Broda Miller PABW/TIBCO 250
13 Liza Rachetto Team Lipton 255
14 Laura Downey Americas Dairyland 219
15 Anna Webb Karl Strauss/SDBC 270
16 Taitt Sato McGuire Cycling Team 260
17 Audrey Lemieux Colavita/Cooking Light Cycling Team 241
18 Lori Alvarez Easton Specialized 284

19 Katharine Carroll Victory Brewing Team 215
20 Kristin DRUMM PROMAN/Paradigm 220
21 Susan Hedstrom mcguire 230
22 Marcela Smid Metromint 276
23 Laurel Green Team Mack Paper Company 229
24 Ashley Dymond HDCC Bike Shop 282
25 Christine Thorburn WEBOR-PLATINUM 264
26 Cat Malone Webcor-Platinum 245