Today's stage was a 180.9km race from Ste. Genevieve to Cape Girardeau and saw a number of attacks come to nothing.
Then Francois Parisien (Planet Energy), Timothy Duggan (Garmin-Slipstream) and Kiel Reijnen (Jelly Belly) were allowed to get clear and the trio built up a lead of over four minutes.
Again Carvelo and Team Colombia HTC closed them down and eventually swept up Parisien and Duggan with 7km to go.
Into the final kilometre and David Veilleux brought Thor Hushovd to the front of the pack. Mark Cavendish followed before flying off the Norwegian's back wheel to storm to the finish line and take the second stage as well as picking up a ten second time bonus to lead the General Classification.
"The guys really looked after me again today," said Cavendish to his team's Press Office after the stage. "It was a bit hectic in the last kilometres, but George [Hincapie] kept me out of trouble."
Stage Three is from Farmington to Rolla.