The Race to the Toyota Cup series men’s and women’s championships are on the line at the Toyota US Open at Dallas Sunday.
The prize money involved for this race is a total of $60,000, with $15,000 going to the men’s and women’s winners.
The prize money on the line for the seven race Toyota Cup Series will be $149,000, with total awards—including a 2011 Toyota vehicle—of $62,500 going to each of the men’s and women’s series winners.
On the men’s side, Cameron Dye leads the Race to the Toyota Cup. But this is misleading. The results from only 5 races will count. The winner of this year's Toyota Cup will certainly include his performance at this weekend's U.S. Open Triathlon—a double points race—as one of his five. Let's just look at each athlete's top-four results this year.
Employing this accounting, Andy Potts leads the series over Cameron Dye 40 points to 37. Potts has a clear path to victory, and can drive home from Dallas in his new Toyota.
But threads are showing through the rubber of Potts' season. The oft-racing strongman has been ragged of late. Dye, meanwhile, has recovered nicely from a bike crash in the Life Time race in Minneapolis, and won convincingly last week at the L.A. Tri.
Bottom line, if Dye were to take both the swim and bike primes—highly possible—and beat Potts in the race, Dye ends the series as its winner. Were Dye to take only one prime, and Potts the other, Dye would need to defeat Potts by two places to earn the series title.
Greg Bennett has an outside chance at the series victory. He'd need to beat Potts by 3 places, and Dye by two places in this weekend's Dallas race.
The U.S. Open Tri has a men's field thick with good racers, and this works in Dye's and Bennett's favor, allowing more of a possibility of finishers sliding in between whomever prevails and their closest series challengers.
In the field are Spanish superstar Javier Gomez, along with Andrew Starykowicz, Filip Ospaly, Chris Foster, Andrew Yoder, David Thompson, Stuart Hayes, and Tim Don.
On the women’s side, the big favorite for both the race and series victories is Sarah Haskins.
She has played her hand perfectly, winning four previous Toyota Cup Series races—she's so far been unbeatable in this series.
However, Alicia Kaye has positioned herself well in case Haskins falters. Were Kaye to finish three places in front of Haskins, she'd take home series first place honors, and with it a shiny new Toyota.
The women's field is also strong, so Haskins can't falter too badly or there are many candidates applying for the job of finishing in front of the talented American. Nicole Kelleher, Rebeccah Wassner, Becky Lavelle, Lisa Norden, Hollie Avil and Jodie Stimpson are all candidates.
Slowtwitch will cover this race live, as it has every race in the 2011 Race to the Toyota Cup. Our coverage of the U.S. Open Triathlon in Dallas will start at 7:20am Central (CDT) this Sunday morning. That's 5:20am Pacific time, 8:20 Eastern time.
