All rookie Forest makes cut at Little 500 Qualifications

The Forest all-rookie men’s team makes up its own practice techniques. They don’t take them from anybody.

“It’s a pride thing,” junior Zack Clark says.

They’ve never done this before, never trained, never competed.

Four of the six team members have never even seen the race — they’ll watch a tape of the 2004 race to prepare. But as they sit in the Forest Quad recreational room a few days before Little 500 qualifications, the team is all smiles.

They’re ready.

“Until we qualify, quals is our race day,” freshman Bo Henderson says.

This past year, team captain Neal Ward started a team for the residence center, but it failed to qualify. They were the only team to fault out of quals. When he decided to restart the team this year, two of the original members had switched to other teams, and the fourth member had quit. Ward needed fresh riders.

Clark and sophomore Jon Silverthorn, both transfer students, live in Forest and joined the team early in the year. Three freshmen — Henderson, Kyle Swain and Austin Portolese — joined in January.

Most of the Forest members have been riding for a couple  of years but not competitively. Silverthorn calls them “casual cyclists.”

But their rookie status doesn’t phase them. As they hang out and practice, they joke more than they talk seriously.

“It’s good to have serious and fun,” Clark says. “When we get on the track, we’re all serious. I put my game face on, usually. Want to see it?”

His face goes still, his mouth a hard, straight line. He cracks after a few seconds.

While the team hasn’t been training together that long, having fun has brought them closer.

“We might be rookies, but we’re family,” Clark says. “Have you ever seen that movie ‘Up’? We’re like that. We’re very empathetic to each other. Like, when he got hurt” — he points to Swain, who broke his elbow in practice while exchanging with Ward — “we made Neal feel bad to make him feel better.”

On Saturday, as the team waits on the field, it’s a different story. Clark’s game face is permanently on. The team is quieter than it was a few days earlier.

Clark, Silverthorn, Portolese and Henderson stretch, readying themselves for quals. Ward stands next to them.

While he’s the team captain, he says the four other members are better at exchanges than he is: He’s not sad he has to sit out.

In a whirlwind few minutes, the team is herded from one station to the next — team photos, warm-ups, a quick pep talk, then onto the track.

Henderson, the shortest of the four, is up first.

As he rounds the third corner of his slow lap, a women’s rider mistakenly warms up on the track in front of him.

“Get that girl off the track,” Silverthorn says, waving at her teammates.

She exits just as Henderson rounds the last corner, speeding into his single lap.

Clark steps onto the track. Because he, Silverthorn and Portolese can all ride the same bike height, he takes a bike to switch out.

The exchange, which they’ve been practicing for months, goes off without a hitch, and Clark speeds around the track. As he exchanges with Silverthorn, however, Clark falls.

On the sideline, Portolese and Henderson pause, watching as time slows down. Clark sits where he fell on the track, holding his right arm. His game face deflates as he stares down at the track.

The team’s coach, Don Meyer, approaches him as Clark begins to stand. Meyer holds out his hand to Clark, who’s still holding his upper right arm.

“Don’t touch me,” Clark says, throwing his helmet on the track with his left hand.

In the stands, a woman yells, “Yeah, Forest! That’s an all-freshman team.”

The race continues, and in no time, Silverthorn and Portolese have finished their laps and are back on the sideline looking for Clark.

As Clark’s teammates stand around him, an emergency medical technician wraps gauze around Clark’s arm and back to keep his arm from moving. Henderson holds their white time card — 2:29.78. Good enough for 13th at the time they finished, 20th at the end of the day.

“Head on over to the emergency room, dude,” the EMT says after wrapping Clark’s arm.

“First, we’ve got to get a picture of this sexy guy,” Silverthorn says, putting his hand on Clark’s left shoulder and walking toward the time board.

It’s bittersweet for the team, but they did it. As they stand under the board, smiling for the camera, they have the biggest prize they could get.

They’re moving on to the next race day.