Cutters win Little 500 for 5th year straight

The Cutters won the 61st running of the men’s Little 500, earning the team its fifth-straight victory — a feat no other team in Little 500 history has accomplished.

Just 45 laps into the 200-lap race, the defending champions found their rookie rider Kevin Depasse in a wreck after a Sigma Nu rider knocked his handle bars.

Once they recovered, they found themselves a lap down to Phi Delta Theta, the race leaders.

Phi Delt finished second in the 2010 race. It was senior Phi Delt Steve Sharp, Chris West and Sven Gartner’s last shot at the Borg-Warner trophy, and they spent the next 154 laps defending their position at the front.

However, the legs of a whole team pulled the Cutters out of their one-lap deficit.

“We just were kind of patient, tried to not get too uptight, just got from there and just take it a bit at a time,” senior Cutters Zach Lusk said. “It just shows you it’s a crazy race. Anybody can crash. Anything can happen. Luckily it happened early, so we had a lot of time to catch up.”

By lap 175, 130 laps after the wreck, the Cutters were back in the lead lap and pulled to the front.

Eric Young got on the bike. He was set to pedal the final 10 laps of one of the most storied Little 500 careers.

He pedaled behind Phi Delt as it went in for two exchanges.

Then on Lap 199, Phi Delt shocked Bill Armstrong Stadium when the team went in for an exchange. This time, Young raised himself off his seat and pumped his legs, creating a gap between him and the Phi Delt exchange.

Young raced the final three turns with no competition, pedaling to his team’s 12th title in its 27-year existence.

“It’s everything,” he said. “Getting lapped and un-lapping yourself. Five years of winning in a row. It being my last year ... I didn’t expect us to get a lap down but I also didn’t expect us to get a lap back either.

“It came down to a race of who was the strongest team. I knew we could do it.”
After the race, Young announced his decision to turn pro. He will join the BISSELL Pro Cycling Team.