Moments after propelling teammate Greg Henderson to the stage win and the leader’s yellow jersey in the Tour de Georgia, Big George Hincapie rolled up to the High Road motor coach with a huge smile on his face.

Next in was Andrei Greipel, who had ridden Hincapie’s slipstream with Henderson to second place in the stage.

“We were goin’!” Hincapie exclaimed in greeting to Greipel.

They had to be … initially to bring back the attacks of Health Net-Maxxis rider Rory Sutherland and Rock Racing’s Oscar Sevilla on the first of two short circuits in the finishing town of Gainesville, Ga., and then to drive Henderson to the stage win.

The circuit was just 2 miles, but it was undulating, with corners and a fast downhill finish. Sutherland and Sevilla took their best shot on the attack.

“It’s a hard finish, and we decided to have me go for it,”Sevilla said, using teammate Freddie Rodriguez as an interpreter. “We wanted to make the race as hard as possible” for the riders at the front of the peloton.

Rodriguez, who finished fifth inthe stage, added his analysis.

“If we couldn’t win with one of his attacks, then hopefully he’d set me up for a win,” Rodriguez said. “I wasn’t feeling 100 percent, so I knew them going harder (at the front of the peloton) would make it better for me or he’d get in the right move to win the race.”

Sutherland and Sevilla put the pressure on the peloton, but High Road was up to the challenge with captain Hincapie driving the surge.

“It was a good move,” Hincapie said. “But we knew we pretty much had them under control. (Kanstantsin) Siutsou did an amazing job, and I did pulled the last K and took Andy and these guys (with me). … It worked out awesome.”

After Hincapie’s pull, Henderson and Greipel pretty much were unchallenged to the finishing line for the last 300 meters. As Rodriquez explained it, High Road had pushed the pace so high and strung out the peloton to such an extent that no one could challenge Henderson after the left turn onto the downhill finishing straight.

“Downhill finish, that was a little different,” Rodriguez said. “Basically, it was going to be whichever team had the best lead from that corner, which was High Road. It’s hard coming off that corner to make up ground, because of the speed. You’re already going downhill and your legs are toast because you just did the hills.”

With Toyota-United’s Ivan Dominguez as the prime example of that. The Stage 1 winner and yellow jersey holder after two stages, Dominguez was among the riders dropped on the circuits, falling 1 minute 27 seconds behind the peloton and giving up the yellow jersey. Almost one-third of the field got spit out the back on the finishing circuits.

Henderson, a New Zealander, leads the Tour by 9 seconds over Tyler Farrar of Slipstream-Chipotle heading into the team time trial at Road Atlanta on Thursday in Stage 4.

Farrar finished third in the stage and is a threat to take the yellow jersey today, as Slipstream-Chipotle boasts U.S. national time trial champ David Zabriskie and Christian Vandevelde, who won the time trial at Circuit de la Sarthe.

“We have a strong team for it,” Farrar said. “We have a lot of good time trial riders. We have a lot of guys with good time trial experience. We’re motivated to win it.

The stage win Wednesday was a big payoff for High Road, which also was driving at the front of the peloton Monday and Tuesday in search of the stage win. Victories of major importance for the team, which is in search of a sponsor for next season and beyond.

“It’s always very important to Team High Road to win here in America - we’re an American based team - so we send a strong team to every American race and it’s important that we race strong and race well,” Henderson said. “At the moment we have a stage win, we nearly hit one yesterday, [we have] the yellow jersey and the sprint jersey so things are going pretty good at the moment.”

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