Columbia, Mo. ? Cycling fanatic Walker Deibel didn’t think twice about spending more than $1,600 for the chance to mingle with some of the world’s top cyclists at the inaugural Tour of Missouri.

For Deibel, a St. Louis printing company executive and amateur racer, that’s a small price to follow the six-day race across the state while riding parts of the course with a private tour operator. Not to mention doing his part to help promote Missouri to other cycling fans.

“Having a third international pro event in the States is really saying to the world that we’re here and ready to play,” he said. “It really puts Missouri in a leadership position.”

Politicians, tourism boosters and small business owners have similarly high hopes for race, which begins Tuesday in Kansas City and concludes Sept. 16 in St. Louis.

The race features 120 riders, including 2007 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador of Spain and Discovery Channel teammates Levi Leipheimer, who took third in the French tour, and George Hincapie, the reigning U.S champion. Teams from Belgium, Canada, Germany, Mexico and Spain will also compete.

With an annual influx of $1 million from state government, organizers expect the race to join established tour events in California and Georgia as a top annual destination for cycling’s elite.

“It’s like the World Series for baseball, but it goes all over the state,” said Team Slipstream member Brad Huff, who grew up in Fair Grove and expects a large contingent of family and friends in nearby Springfield, site of the second-day finish.

But unlike the World Series, college basketball’s Final Four and other big-ticket sporting events in this country, admission to the 600-mile tour is free.

Organizers hope to foster an all-day tailgating experience along the route, with autograph sessions at the starting line and live broadcasts of the race’s conclusion on an oversized movie screen at the finish line.

Crowds of up to 50,000 are expected in Kansas City and St. Louis, with thousands more lining country roads and city streets for a glimpse of what Deibel called “riders going 30 miles per hour (passing by) for 10 seconds.”

The race includes an 18-mile time trial in Branson on the third day, a 133-mile stage from Lebanon to Columbia the following day, and a 126-mile trek from Jefferson City to St. Charles through Missouri wine country.

The tour’s final day, a Sept. 16 circuit race through downtown St. Louis, is poised to be its biggest, attendance-wise: Both the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Rams have home games that day, and race boosters anticipate a large spillover effect.

A Missouri tour was first suggested by Cary Summers, a prominent Springfield businessman and avid cyclist who pitched the idea to Gov. Matt Blunt. The race is operated by the Hawthorn Foundation, a nonprofit economic development agency affiliated with Blunt.

In a cycling world beset of late by doping scandals, canceled races and disinterested corporate sponsors, anticipation over the first Tour of Missouri has been a welcome and needed distraction, said Huff.

“It’s a huge opportunity to be able to race this caliber of an (event) in my home state,” he said.

Though the choice of mountain-free Missouri as a cycling showcase may strike some as odd, the state has plenty of rolling hills – and actually boasts a storied history in the sport.

St. Louis has long been a bicycling hotbed, hosting the world championships three times in the 1950s and ’60s. Its 120-year-old cycling club is the country’s oldest continually active racing and touring club.

Long before Lance Armstrong dominated the Tour de France, Springfield native and three-time Olympian John Howard was the first American to win a major international bicycle race, earning a gold medal in 1971 at the Pan American championships in Colombia.

And the same year the St. Louis club formed, top racers, known then as wheelmen, descended on the banks of the Mississippi River for a world championship race in Clarksville.

“There is a tremendous history here,” said Mike Weiss, an amateur racer in St. Louis and owner of the Big Shark Bicycle Company.

In the corporate sector, enthusiasm has been more muted. Despite the participation of such Missouri businesses as Monsanto and financial adviser Edward Jones, organizers were unable to attract to a title sponsor – a shortcoming that has led other nascent U.S. cycling races to fold.

The race will be the curtain call for the Discovery team, which will disband after this season, in large part because of the taint attached to the sport in the business world after a string of doping woes.