The 61st Men’s Little 500 Race – (Live Chat begins at 2 p.m.)

While the Little 500 races this weekend are for the biggest bragging rights, the teams have been competing against each other for weeks leading up to this weekend in the 2011 Spring Series. The best performing men’s and women’s teams across all events win the honor of wearing the white jersey during the actual race. However, this year’s winners, the Cutters for the men and Teter for the women, also have the option of wearing yellow jerseys as the defending champions.

QUALIFICATIONS
The Spring Series started with an underdog qualifying first in the men’s competition and a perennial powerhouse taking the pole for the women.

The sun had barely risen when the Cutters set the bar at 2:26.46. It was not until the sun was high in the sky that Sigma Nu, the team that finished eighth in the 2010 Little 500 after qualifying 21st, took this year’s pole position with a time of 2:25.91.

Delta Gamma, which is paired with Sigma Nu, also qualified first, beating out defending champ Teter by three seconds with a time of 2:44.76. Delta Gamma qualified and finished third in last year’s Little 500 and won the race in 2008.

INDIVIDUAL TIME TRIALS
In 2010, the two top finishers in the ITTs were Teter’s Caitlin Van Kooten on the women’s side and Eric Young of the Cutters on the men’s side. The same two riders occupied the top spots in their respective races again in 2011 in a slightly more impressive fashion. Young improved his time by .09 of a second and Van Kooten finished .62 of a second faster than she did in 2010.

Both winners had teammates in the top 10 as well: Emma Caughlin of Teter finished ninth and Kevin Depasse of the Cutters was fourth. Top qualifier Delta Gamma had two finishers, Kayce Doogs and Kelsey Kent, in the top ten, while Sigma Chi tied the Cutters with the most top-ten finishers with two, Adam Fish and Andrew Morrow.

MISS-N-OUT
The top spots in the 2011 Miss-N-Out competition looked similar to those of the ITTs. Van Kooten rolled to victory, as did Young. It was Young’s first Miss-N-Out title, while Van Kooten successfully defended her 2010 victory.

Both riders won by significant margins, though for a time, it looked as if the men’s race was going to come down to the final stretch. Coming around the penultimate turn, Phi Delta Theta’s Steve Sharp and Black Key Bulls’ Jordan Bailey were neck-and-neck with Young. With a burst, Young took the drama away from the finish and won easily.

TEAM PURSUIT
Rain delayed the start of the final event of the Spring Series before the Little 500, but it could not slow down Teter and Delta Tau Delta. The two teams each won the event Saturday, but in different ways.

Teter qualified for the finals with a time that was 25 seconds faster than the second-place Delta Gamma team and went on to win the final race by a convincing 10-second margin. Sigma Chi qualified two seconds faster than Delta Tau Delta to lose in the finals by a slim three-second margin.