'Poster boy'

In 2000, as a high school senior, Hans Arnesen came down to Bloomington from Minnesota and witnessed the Cutters lap the field en route to their sixth Little 500 championship.\nFive years later, in his final Little 500, the Alpha Tau Omega senior lapped the field 39 laps into the annual cycling race and never looked back. One hundred sixty laps later, despite attempts from Cutters, Dodds House, Phi Gamma Delta and Acacia to catch up, Arnesen took the checkered flag still in front by a lap.\nWith the race all but decided with five laps remaining, Arnesen showed his emotion as he completed his Little 500 career.\n"Going through those last five laps I had the biggest grin on my face and I couldn't hide it with all the emotions running through me," Arnesen said. "I just wanted to get across that finish line before I started celebrating."\nGetting up a lap so early on was not the strategy heading into the race for ATO, but Arnesen took advantage when the opportunity presented itself, coach Norm Houze said.\n"The first 15 or 20 laps he was just out there getting warmed up," Houze said. "Then all of the sudden, within a couple laps, there were some crashes that put some really good teams down and some bad exchanges, then the yellow flag. We found ourselves out front, our iron man was out there, and then you have to \ndecide if you go or not. We just happened to have the guy to do it."\nArnesen got ATO off to its hot start by logging 40 laps to begin the race, shaking off a few attempts from his coach to exchange during his first set.\n"He's in control, and I'm just his coach," Houze said. "I let him do his thing. I would love to have a rider like Hans every year."\nIn total, Arnesen peddled 123 of the 200 laps for ATO while displaying emotion throughout his time on the bike. As he lapped second-place Dodds House, Arnesen held up a No. 1 sign to the cheering ATO fan section as he got off the bike after his first set.\n"I knew I had a lot in my legs and that first set had to be strong and I had to make something happen," Arnesen said. "We did not plan it like that, but it happened and I can't complain."\nDodds House failed to defend its yellow jersey as last year's champions, but won the sprint for second place. Acacia, Phi Gamma Delta and Cutters rounded out the top five.\nArnesen's championship performance on the bike completes a historic career for the senior rider. In his Little 500 career, Arnesen set the Individual Time Trial record, garnered Rookie of the Year honors, captured two ITT titles along with a Miss-n-Out crown and was the race's Most Outstanding Rider in 2004.\nWhile he has had many accomplishments on the track, before today two notable race-day incidents had defined Arnesen's career. In 2004, ATO had the championship taken away from them when Arnesen was penalized for impeding on the final lap against the Cutters. Last year, Arnesen crashed on the first lap, taking out several riders in the process.\nFor Arnesen, Saturday's performance more than makes up for his previous race day disappointments.\n"This is absolutely surreal right now," he said. "It hasn't sunk in right now, but I'm sure it will tonight. This has been four years in the making and we are finally here. This makes up for everything and anything that has happened here, no question about it."\nFalling behind a lap early caused pre-race favorites Cutters and Dodds House to change their race strategies to catch-up. Despite their best efforts, no team was able to catch ATO.\n"It didn't quite go as we expected," Cutters rider David Caughlin said. "We tried as hard as we could to catch everybody. We put it all out there. (Hans) is a phenomenal rider. He's a really strong rider. He got that lap early, so congrats to him."\nWhen Arnesen was not on the bike, his teammates had to keep Dodds and Cutters in check to make sure they didn't gain ground.\n"We just had to stay on their wheels," freshman Steve Ziemba said. "I just kept that thought in my head and made sure we held our lead."\nArnesen said he was impressed with his teammates' performances. \n"They were unbelievable today," he said. "They did exactly what they needed to do. Once we got around the field, all they needed to do was maintain the pace, ride safely and make sure they were keeping an eye on what other teams were doing."\nWith all the success he has had, Arnesen's teammates wanted to make sure their leader left IU with a Little 500 Championship.\n"What we did was, whatever Hans did we tried to match," sophomore Brigs Patterson said. "We tried to make this memorable for Hans and make it easy for him so we went out and put it all out on the track. We wanted him to leave with a trophy. He's such an amazing rider, such a great teacher and if it weren't for him I wouldn't have been able to back him up."\n-- Staff writers Brian Janosch and Michael Sanserino contributed to this story