Little 500 teams bring abundance of different strategies

Every spring for the past 51 years, many students have experienced the thrills and spills of Little 500 racing. \nAlthough the crowd only sees the sprints to the finish and bone-crunching crashes, much more exists behind the scenes of the race touted as the "World's Greatest College Weekend."\nStrategy plays just as important role in the outcome of the race as speed and precision exchanges.\nAfter 50 races, no single strategy has emerged from the ranks as the preferred approach for racers. This is because race strategies are based on the relative strength of the field compared to the strength of the team, Little 500 race coordinator Jonathan Purvis said.\nSome notable strategies differentiate themselves from other generic plans. \nPhi Delta Theta took the checkered flag in 1996 by implementing a plan based on the team's speed. Two Phi-Delts earned the top two spots in the Individual Time Trials, so at the end of the race, each team member sprinted two laps to break away from the competition.\nIn 1998, the crowd witnessed a Little 500 first. The Dodds House became the first residence hall team to win the Little 500, but Purvis said he and his teammates had to play it safe because of the close opposition.\n"We had a very deep team, but so did four or five other teams," Purvis said. "So our strategy was to control the race by riding up front, but not to try to dominate it by going off the front. Instead, we rode up front, led a lot, but ultimately waited for a sprint that we felt we could win because we had the fastest rider on the track in Greg O'Brien."\nAt the 50th annual Little 500 last year, the Cutters provided fireworks at the expense of their competitors. For the first time ever, the Cutters lapped the entire field behind the force of Chris Wojtowich.\nBut the Cutters did not enter the race with the plan of lapping the field, and this shows how plans change during the race.\n"We had talked about lapping the field, but we decided we would rather play it safe and wait until the last few laps because we had the fastest sprinter (in Wojtowich) out there," former Cutters rider Todd Bagwell said. "Then he saw an opening and took it. No one went with him, and after that he did a lot of the work himself, to first get a big gap on the field, then close it back down after going up a lap."\nNot every team has a rider who can overpower the competition single-handedly, and that's where strategy and intelligence comes into play. Purvis calls these riders "students of the race." They watch the other teams closely so they can capitalize on their weaknesses.\nPurvis said he believes that with the potential for a slow track this year, teams with only one fast racer can hang around the front and create a stir toward the end of the race.\nBut the focus for many of the favorites is to prevent a blowout like last year's experience.\nPole-sitters Phi Gamma Delta, finished a distant second to the Cutters last year. This year they are relying on coach Troy Lewis to create the perfect strategy and put the pieces of the puzzle together, while the racers work on their technique.\nJunior Andrew Wilson of Fiji still knows they have to be careful of any over-zealous competitors who try to duplicate the Cutters' accomplishment.\n"I have a feeling that if something like that happens again, the pack will be very anxious this year and not let it happen again." Wilson said. "If someone were to take off, the pack won't let them get very far."\nA good sign for the field is that so far the Cutters are not considering a repeat of last year's race strategy, because they are more concerned with joining the 1988 and 1997 Cutters teams that came from 20th and 19th starting position respectively and won.\nAfter watching his friend Jon Carlson win with the Cutters last year, senior Henrik Wahlberg said he hopes he can help lead the Cutters to its seventh Little 500 victory since 1984.\n"I think we're going to see a slower race overall because of the track, so our first strategy is getting out of our 25th starting position," Wahlberg said. "That should take us one or two laps, so that's not going to be a factor at all. Then what it is going to come down to is what the race looks like on the last 10 laps, and we see what teams are left"