In the calm after the crash, Brad Huff and his teammates on Slipstream-Chipotle gathered around a digital video recorder to watch the replay of Huff’s horrifying crash Sunday in the sprint finish of Stage 6 at the Tour of Missouri.

At about 45 miles an hour, making a move on the outside, Huff touched handlebars with Kodak Gallery-Sierra Nevada’s Dominque Rollin … and was catapulted over the top of the bike and onto Market Street in front of Union Station.

As fate would have it, the handheld video was shot by a spectator right at the point of contact. The video, which may find its way onto YouTube, shows Huff in pursuit of the stage leaders, then the contact with Rollin and then Huff going airborne.

“Brad goes right over the camera,” teammate Timmy Duggan said, shaking his head.

Duggan had seen the drama unfold at full speed within the peloton.

“It was a full-on Brad sprint, like he does out on the road,” Duggan said. “I thought, ‘Oh, man, he’s going to win,’ then, whoosh, he’s going down. I thought, ‘Oh, my God, there’s no way he’s going to be OK.’ “

After Toyota-United’s Ivan Dominguez crossed the line as the stage winner, a gasp went through the crowd as the spectators and race announcers realized what had happened. Slipstream-Chipotle riders quickly made their way back up the road to check on Huff, who lay stunned along the barriers in front of Union Station while his bike was in the middle of Market Street.

The medical car reached the Springfield native within seconds. With the help of medical personnel and teammates, Huff got up, climbed on his bike and rode it across the finish line and back to the team RV a block away.

“The pavement got the worst of it,” Duggan said. “Brad is tough.”

Later, Huff was counting his blessings. As a soigneur treated the cuts on the knuckles of his left hand, Huff described himself as “lucky.”

“It helped that I had said a prayer,” said Huff, a Christian. “Before the start of every sprint, I do that.”

After flipping over the handlebars, Huff landed on his head and his shoulders. His helmet was destroyed, and he had scrapes and bruising on his left shoulder, in addition to the abrasions on his knuckles and road rash on his legs.

“I was coming up fast, and I touched bars with Rollin and it sent me flying into the barricade and right on my head,” Huff said. “I hit the ground and slid on my ass about 50 meters. It was a hard hit.”

Teammates marveled that Huff escaped without serious injury.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Michael Friedman said. “His feet must have been four feet in the air. He did a complete somersault, a complete flip at 70K per hour, and landed on his ass sliding down the road.”

“Only Brad or Friedman could survive that kind of crash,” team leader Danny Pate said, noting that both are stocky compared with him. “That would have killed me.”

It also might have killed Huff, if not for his prayer to a higher power.

Race director Kevin Livingston was among those who made their way to Slipstream’s RV to check on Huff. After watching the crash video, a rider from HealthNet spoke for many when he shook hands with Huff and said, “I’m glad you’re talking.”

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