Little 500 Quals to kick off race season Saturday

The Little 500 track can’t be too dry. It can’t be too wet. It’s almost like porridge; it has to be just right.

Qualifications, the first spring series event of the Little 500 season, will take place Saturday at Bill Armstrong Stadium. On the men’s side, 46 teams will try to qualify for 33 spots. On the women’s side, 32 teams will attempt to qualify.

The forecast is predicted to be a high of 44 degrees with a 30 percent chance of rain, according to www.weather.com. Even a small amount of rain will make the track surface tighter, making it a faster track. That is the track condition Teter rider Caitlin Van Kooten said she likes.

“When we broke the Quals record a few years ago, it had been sprinkling on and off all day,” said Van Kooten, whose Teter team has taken the pole three of the past four years. “You want it good and damp — so when people ride on it, it creates a groove and it’s hard like cement and you can glide across it.”

Track conditions are important for the riders. A dry track is loose, slow and hard to ride. An extremely wet track ends up being sponge-like and also slow.

For teams that are close in times, the weather conditions are extremely important. For others, it’s the quality and pace of exchanges.

“For the field as a whole, Quals will also be about riding ability and control,” Van Kooten said.

Another theory on qualifying includes what the best time of day is to try and qualify, morning or afternoon.

Phi Kappa Psi rider Pat Kinn said the afternoon is the best time to ride.

“Going late in the day, we don’t have to sit around all day and watch our time get bumped, and then we can see how many teams we’re above when we qual,” Kinn said.

Last year, Phi Psi Cycling finished second in the pole, 1.05 seconds behind the Cutters. This year they have their qualifying time at 5:05 p.m., while the Cutters will make their qualifying run at 8:20 a.m. Phi Psi has qualified for every one of the 60 Little 500 men’s races, and the team is confident about its 61st race.

“We just got to do exactly what we do in practice,” Kinn said. “Total, it’s really only 2.5 minutes long, but it’s the true countdown to race day and the first chance to see how your team stacks up against the others.”