May 22, 2004 (Japan) – The Jet Fuel Coffee team is several hours away from
the opening stage of the Tour of Japan. The eight-day-long race will have six stages and will cover 815km. The first stage in Osaka starts at 10:00pm EST Saturday night (noon Sunday in Japan).

Jet Fuel Coffee was the only team invited from North or South America to the event. The race has eight foreign and eight Japanese teams in the event.

All the races are run on circuits which should help negate some of the Japanese teams home field advantage. The fifth stage on the Utsunomiya circuit looks like the key stage with over 2000 meters of climbing.

The Tour of Japan website contains more information about each stage and it already has some pre-race photos posted on the site: www.toj.co.jp

Jet Fuel’s Team at the event consists of:

– Matt Hansen

– Kevin “Buck” Miller

– Andrew Randell

– Ryan Roth

– Thorben Wieditz

Manager: Kevin Field

Mechanic: Neil Callahan

Masseur: Letti Kemp

Paul Kotyk was scheduled to take part in the event but an injury prevented him from making the trip.