Phi Kappa Tau returns to race for first time since 1992

After the Phi Kappa Tau riders completed a successful qualification run, they couldn’t hide the excitement on their faces. Not only had they not qualified for the Little 500 since 1992, but their time of 2:28.92 left them in 10th place.

As three of the riders gathered together on the infield of the track, they struggled to remember the last time they had qualified for the race. One rider said it was the first time this millennium, which is somewhat true. Another rider said it was 20 years, which is not true. The real answer lies somewhere in between.

Phi Kappa Tau will wear its letters in the Little 500 for the first time in 15 years.

“It’s huge for us,” sophomore rider Nick Schatko said. “There are so many other fraternities that we have to compete against, and to know that we can compete at the same level as the other fraternities is really big for us.”

With a declining membership and growing debt, Phi Kappa Tau lost its charter several times during the last 40 years. In 2003, the fraternity regained its charter and moved into its current location off-campus.

“It’s a big positive step for us,” senior rider Adam Whitten said of qualifying for the race. “We’ve had a lot of setbacks – like not getting a house on campus – but to be in the race is a big step forward. It’s a big brotherhood event and that’s what we are based upon, is our brotherhood.”

For Phi Kappa Tau, a fraternity looking to establish its name within the greek community at IU, fielding a Little 500 team is essential to the process.

“It’s an accomplishment for us, not even just in the athletic sense for the riders,” senior Phi Kappa Tau member Barry Kaufman said. “It’s just a good thing for our house and it’s good for us to publicly show that we are committed to being a part of the greek community. It has always been a goal of ours as a fraternity to field a Little 500 team.”

Last year, Phi Kappa Tau missed qualifying by two seconds, leaving the riders motivated to do the training necessary to make the race.

“This year, we had a sense of urgency in trying to work together for a common cause,” Schatko said. “We know that there have been other guys in the past who wanted to get in the race and that has just made us work harder.”

Even after all its training, the team was surprised it placed 10th in qualifications.

“To go from not qualifying to qualifying top 10 puts us in a whole new level,” junior rider Jimmy Hodges said. “We never expected to qualify this well. We trained hard, but it surpassed our wildest dreams to qualify this high.”

As anticipated with a team qualifying for the first time in 15 years, the race-day expectations were tempered before qualifications. But a top 10 qualifying time leaves Phi Kappa Tau with loftier goals for the race.

“It definitely changes our goals,” Schatko said. “Instead of just getting in the race, we want to finish at the end. We want to make sure our efforts weren’t wasted. Everyone expects more of us after Quals and we want to place and get a trophy.”