Sunday’s 32nd Annual Cherry Pie Criterium’s Elite Pro 1-2 Category race was something to see.

Half-way through the 60-minute race, eventual winner David Vitoria of the BMC Racing Team pulled away from the peloton with two other cyclists and sprinted uphill to notch his first Napa victory.

The event was presented by the Eagle Racing Team in conjunction with Team Spine and took place on a 1-mile closed loop in Napa Valley Corporate Park in South Napa.

The Swiss rider is in his first year with BMC — which mostly races in Europe but is in Northern California for next week’s Amgen Tour of California — and doesn’t typically race in criteriums because they’re scarce overseas. BMC is one of the world’s top 18 professional cycling teams and is based in Santa Rosa.

“It was pretty hard until the breakaway, then the rhythm eased it up until the sprints at the end,” Vitoria said through a translator.

The course was comprised of a moderate hill at the start/finish line with a 180-degree turn at the top of the hill, three 90-degree turns and one looping turn. It was the same track as last year’s except in the opposite direction.

Team TIBCO’s Brooke Miller had an extremely tough race in the Women’s category, but the 30-year old rode strong to finish on top of the podium in her first Cherry Pie Criterium.

Miller, who shares her time in Los Altos and Chicago, is in her second year with TIBCO but first as a full-time rider. In between cycling, she is studying evolutionary biology for her PhD at University of California at Santa Cruz.

She was the lone rider from TIBCO, while teams such as Colavita-Sutter Home had 11 riders to help strategize. Colavita-Sutter Home’s Tina Pic finished second.

“It was a really, really hard race, a really strong field,” Miller said. “It was ridiculously hard for a local race with no money. (It had) everything to do with the Colavita-Sutter Home women.

“That win was particularly big for me. Tina Pic has just been my hero. I’ve learned so much from watching her ride. That was a huge win. I wasn’t expecting to have such a big race. It was really fun to race with Colavita-Sutter Home. They made the race really hard and forced me to be really smart. It made me analyze the race.”

Napa resident Dean LaBerge, 36, took his third straight win in the Masters men 35 and older 1, 2 and 3 race. The AMD/Discovery Masters Team member said this victory was especially nice since he’s cut back on his training as of late to spend more time with his family.

But Sunday was a family day for the LaBerge family. Two of his sons, James and Chris, raced in the Junior 13-14 category and James took home his very own cherry pie for crossing the finish line first.

“They did great,” LaBerge said of his two sons. “Their plan was to attack every lap on the (finish) hill (but) it didn’t pan out for them. James was able to jump on that last turn and hold it.”

Dean LaBerge credited his teammates for helping his finish.

“This one was made a lot easier by the work of my teammates,” he said. “They kept it together at the end when the attacks were on their way. Larry Nolan led it out for me. He took it up ‘til l300 meters to go.”

He said that Nolan is a seven-time world track champion.

“I knew I was in good hands with him leading me,” LaBerge said.

LaBerge said he races in about 50 races a year, about 40 of them criteriums. He said the Cherry Pie is one of his favorites, though he admits a love/hate relationship with the Downers Grove Criterium in the Chicago, Ill., area. The love comes from the course, the hate from the fact he’s never won there.

Other Cherry Pie winners included Wincent Owens (Category 3), Russell White (Category 4), Joe Amon (Category 5), Ryan Hostetter (Masters 45+), Larry Wolff (Masters 55+), Andreas Freund (Junior 15-16), Ben Barsi-rhyne (Junior 17-18), Katrina Howard (Girls 10-14) and Alicia Halpern (Girls 15-16).

Each rider who notched a podium finish received a Marie Callenders cherry pie, provided by the Eagle Racing Team. All Top 3 finishers who were age 21 or older were also given a bottle of Cycles Gladiator wine. Prize money was also presented in the adult categories for the top finishers.