Team Inferno Pro Cycling based out of Macedonia, Ohio, USA, has released its official 2008 roster. Building on 2006 and 2007 successes when the team was known as Abercrombie & Fitch Pro Development Cycling Team, Inferno Racing has signed some rising talent riders as well as some veterans from the professional peloton.
The team added has added experience to its sin the names of Jeff Hopkins, former Jr. World Champion and long-time Jittery Joe's member, and Remi McManus, a former US National Elite Road Race Champion. While offers remain with two other named riders, the young team built around its new leaders will challenge the bigger teams in their goal of winning the USA Crits Championship Series title.
Team Inferno Pro Cycling still has designs on being a continental team and desires to move higher within a short period of time, while making no disguise of their specialty. "We are a criterium based team," said the team's manager Chad Thompson. "We have signed some of the best criterium riders in the US, if not the world. We want to win what we should have won in 2007; The USA Crits Championship Series title." The team also plans to stack up as many NRC points as they can in the process, all while actually racing for charitable efforts.
This season, the team won the Athens Twilight criterium, the USA Crits Series SE and led all competitions within the USA Crits Championship Series until its leader Mark Hekman crashed at the US Criterium National Championships.
The 2008 roster is as follows: Andy Applegate, Bennet van der Genugten, Chadwick Thompson, Christian Parrett, Jaime Gandara, Jeff Braumberger, Jeff Hopkins, Jim Baldesare, Josh England, Marco Aledia, Matt Winstead, Remi McManus, Rich Harper, Ryan Gamm, Ryan Rish and Tim Swain.
