Team HTC-HighRoad's Tejay Van Garderen crushed the competition today in the stage 3 individual time trial of the 2011 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah, finishing ahead of Team RadioShack's Levi Leipheimer and HTC-HighRoad teammate Patrick Gretsch.

"Tejay hit the first split with the fastest time and we new he was in the zone, he and Patrick [Gretsch] are both in great form," Team HTC-HighRoad sports director Allan Peiper commented after the stage and added "It was great to see Tejay take the win especially ahead of a talent like Leipheimer, and to have two men on the podium was even better."

Defending Tour of Utah champion Leipheimer took the overall lead after finishing second in today's time trial near Salt Lake City. Leipheimer finished five seconds behind Van Garderen and Team RadioShack rider and 2011 Vuelta a Espana challenger Jani Brajkovic finished 6th.

Race leader Columbian Sergio Luis Henao dropped 1 minute and 15 seconds and lost his yellow jersey to Levi Leipheimer who now leads with 27 seconds to Jani Brajkovic, making it one-two for Team RadioShack in the overall rankings.

Leipheimer, 37, rolled out of the start gate second-to-last and immediately went about taking over the race lead with two stages still to race. Racing on the flat 14.5 km / 9.7 mi asphalt road course, the riders raced over 23 turns of the motor track used for car, motorcycle and kart racing.

"It's always nice to pull on the yellow jersey," Leipheimer told Roadcycling.com and Roadcycling.mobi after putting on the yellow jersey. "I wanted to win today but this is even better and I'm happy about that. The next two days are going to be very difficult. I think tomorrow will be especially hard for our team to control but we'll do our best and I think it will be a great race.

"It's even better than last year," continued Leipheimer. "It's great to be at the Tour of Utah and to see this race come of age. I went to high school here and I have a lot of fond memories of being in Utah. And it's great to see the healthy communities that embrace this race."

Gretsch held the best time for the majority of the race before taking third and the most aggressive rider's jersey.

"Gretsch came out as the twenty fifth to go with 17:43 which was very impressive," Peiper commented and continued "He held that lead near to the end without much contest."