Rock Racing’s Tyler Hamilton, Oscar Sevilla and Santiago Botero were barred from the Tour of California because their names have been implicated in the two-year-old Opercion Puerto scandal, tho none have been charged with a doping violation relating to Puerto.

Yet, they’re racing on the U.S. national circuit and kicking serious butt.

Sevilla won a stage last week at the San Dimas stage race and finished second overall by just 1 second. And Friday, Botero attacked his five compatriots on the day’s breakaway to win 85-mile criterium that serves Stage 1 of the Redlands Bicycle Classic.

“I am still not on my best form because I have only been training the past five months and I have not yet raced this year,” a team release quoted Botero as saying. “I wanted to win today for (Rock Racing owner) Michael Ball, who gave me a chance to continue my career.”

Said Ball, according to a team release:  “What we did here was what would have happened at the Tour of California. We were shortchanged and the fans were shortchanged. But there are more great things from this team to come.

“If they allow us to race domestically, you’re going to see results like this time and time again. We have a tremendous amount of talent that has come onto this team to support the guys we had last year.”

And now the real reason 10 Speed likes to write about Rock Racing: kitschy “Rock” music videos!

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/OAkfHShATKY" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

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