Prix.

Toast of the town following his stunning win in the Conyers, Dill and Pearman Classic on Thursday, the Island's top cyclist ran into a buzzsaw in the form of the Saturn team over a weekend of world-class professional cycling.

The $20,000 event ended yesterday with American Mike McCarthy retaining his yellow leader's jersey in the final-stage criterium in Hamilton. But then if it wasn't him it could've been any of his three Saturn team-mates: Bart Bowen, Frank McCormack or Chris Wherrey.

"Really, we had the pick of the litter,'' McCarthy said afterwards.

All four began Saturday in the top ten and then yesterday the team merely had to prevent anyone wearing a different colour jersey from jumping out to a big lead over the 90-minute street course.

And that spelled doom for Hubbard and his Navigators team -- or anybody else for that matter.

Although Hubbard turned in a respectable showing in Friday's time trial, he was a minute behind heading into Saturday's road race, where he lost another 17 minutes to the leaders and ended up finishing 12th overall.

"Our strength is our team-work,'' said McCarthy. "We're probably the most well-oiled machine out there ... We believe in strength in numbers and we used that to our advantage every time and today was a good example of that.'' Saturn are the second-ranked team in the US, behind Mercury. So deep are they that McCarthy, a former world champion who's having a terrific 1998, was actually a late replacement for Canadian Brian Walton, a double gold-medallist at the 1995 Pan-Am Games.

He was second, 14 seconds behind Shaklee's Olin Bakke, going into the road race and it was widely anticipated that Saturn would attack Bakke and try and get McCormack, second after the time trial, the yellow jersey for Sunday.

Instead, they used him as a decoy.

"Everybody else stayed with Frankie, and it allowed Bart and I to ride up the road by ourselves,'' said McCarthy.

McCarthy ended up finishing second to Hincapie in the St. David's 75-miler, with Hubbard team-mate Robbie Ventura third. Bowen, the 1997 US road racing champion, was sixth.

McCarthy's crown From Page 25 While Jonathan Wirsing was in third place overall going into yesterday's race, it was Hincapie, fourth and 45 seconds behind, who was deemed by Saturn as the primary threat to their lead. McCarthy didn't just have to put it in cruise control; his assignment was also to mark Hincapie as insurance.

"Basically it was just a matter of not making any big mistakes today,'' he said.

Hincapie was without his Europe-based US Postal Service team-mates for the Grand Prix and acknowledged that going against four Saturn riders was a daunting task.

"All I could do was follow their wheels and stay out of trouble,'' he said.

Anti-climactic as it was for the overall title, yesterday's race saw a mad sprint to the finish, as McCormack, second to Hubbard on Thursday and second to Shaklee's Olin Bakke in the time trial, finally got a win of his own when he nosed out Hincapie.

Bowen was second overall, ten seconds back, followed by Wirsing, a top amateur from Snow Valley, another 28 seconds behind. Hincapie was fourth.

The only bit of danger to the Saturn squad came during the handful of lap prizes, or primes. One $400 bonus in particular caused their machine to become somewhat unglued but McCarthy wasn't making any apologies for the momentary flash of greed.

"It's racing,'' he said. "That's how we make our living. I mean we're here for fun but there's also a lot of pride and obviously there's some financial incentive.'' As for Hubbard, he barely had enough time to wave a quick goodbye to family and friends after the race before rushing to the airport.

He and his three Navigators team-mates -- Ed Beamon, Adam Laurent and Ventura -- had to catch an afternoon flight to Spain, where they'll hook up with the rest of the squad for a brief European tour.

Hincapie will also rejoin his team in Spain today.

MELLOW YELLOW -- Saturn's yellow-jerseyed Mike McCarthy (centre) follows George Hincapie of the US Postal Service (left) during yesterday's criterium.

Photos by David Skinner FOLLOW THE LEADER -- The pack heads down Front Street during yesterday's third and final stage of the Bermuda Grand Prix.