To Save a Sport: Team Slipstream/Chipotle

Blood and urine roll call starts at 6:30 am sharp. As the men report a few at a time, sleepy-eyed yawning cyclists sit down at a desk, verify personal paperwork, and offer their arm up to have blood drawn. On the floor close by, a centrifuge machine hums steadily, spinning red blood cells away from serum for analysis. The process of performing transfusions, testing EPO's, steroids, and other performance enhancing drugs has been a standard for years in hotels similar to this one. However, Team Slipstream/Chipotle is unique. By using an open-door policy, this team has pledged it's honesty by being open about all operations pertaining to tests and results. Slipstream has an unusual vision of restoring faith in a sport which is currently surrounded by scandal and rampant drug use. The team's commitment to riding clean and honest is not only a warchant, but a business plan. It's attempt to show not only fans but sponsors that this team practices what it preaches. Therefore a new question presents itself: Is it plausible to build loyalty and trust in a sport that has poisoned itself?



Jonathon Vaughters is Slipstream's 34-year-old director and former member of two top cycling teams; U.S. Postal Service and France's Crédit Agricole. In an era of drug-riddled witch hunts, Vaughters became increasingly aggravated trying to compete in an market of cheaters. After a decade long career, he retired in 2003. The open-door policy is only part of Team Slipstream/Chipotle's blueprint. The director believes that team unity is crucial, keeping his riders together in a team environment as often as possible. The pressing idea which is aimed to repair the face of cycling has never been so clear. If riding clean can become "cool" and cool things sell, it will in turn sell to both distraught fans and skeptical corporate sponsors who have dropped a plethora of teams and riders because of positive drug tests and the black clouds that come with it. In the same right, if being "cool" can truly become appealing to young athletes, Vaughters' feels he will be able to get the best young riders, and if these youngsters win, and win clean; he feels that would be beneficial to all parties involved.

If this innovative move towards honesty proves to work, the team believes it will persuade other organizations to join in with similar core believes. According to Vaughters, "It's not about finger-pointing, it's not about being better than anyone else. It's saying, 'Well, we're gonna do it this way, and if this works, you should join us.'" Now all Vaughters has to do is prove his theory as cycling limps into the 2008 season with a reputation as one of the dirtiest games in the world.

Team Slipstream is front and center to American fans, with an American owner, and an American director. They are also the only American team with a legit wild-card invitation to the Tour de France. Race organizers have all but rolled out the red carpet for the team.
-DP.