Orica Green Edge's Mark Cavendish made it two out of two with victory on the second stage of the Amgen Tour Of California.
A 193.1km stage with Mark Cavendish in the leader's yellow jersey, from Nevada City to Lodi started with an attack from Will Clarke (Drapac), Josh Berry (Jelly Belly), and Carson Miller (Jamis-Hagens Berman) but was soon caught and after an Oscar Clark spell on the front, Daniel Oss (BMC Racing Team) and Markel Irizar (Trek Factory Racing), took over the front running duties before being joined by Luis Romero of Jamis Hagens and Robin Carpenter (Hincapie Racing Team).
It was Carpenter who took the first, second and third sprints as the gap steadied at three minutes going into the final one hundred kilometres of the stage and the same time twenty five kilometres later.
Carpenter took the four points for the climb on Highway 49 as the four escapers continued to make their way towards Lodi.
Their lead stood at 2.45 with twenty five kilometres to go and down to 1.20 ten kilometres later.
With the World Tour teams controlling the peloton, the gap was down to forty seconds with 10.8kms left. Just after, there was a big crash with Warren Barguil of Giant Alpecin amongst those going down, following a touch of wheels.
Romero was jettison with two laps of Lodi to go as Drapac led the peloton with Graham Brown leading a strung out peloton.
The escapers were caught as they took the bell for the final 3.6kms lap with everyone trying to get to the front including Peter Sagan of Tinkoff Saxo and the race leader Mark Cavendish.
Under the flam rouge. Mark Renshaw was just behind Sagan ready to lead out Cavendish. They took the final right hander and onto the finishing straight.
Cavendish and Peter Sagan both went for the sprint and it took a photo finish for Cavenish to be given the win in 4.47.02 ahead of Sagan and Wouter Wippert, followed by Murphy, Danny van Poppel, Drucker, Haedo, Farrar, Kocjan and Waeytens.
Cavendish leads the race by eight seconds from Sagan and eleven seconds from Robin Carpenter, going into Stage Three which starts and finishes in San Jose and is 169.8kms long.