IU’s famed collegiate bike race carries a culture and excitement of its own, but its inspiration is easily traced to another Indiana competition of laps and wheels — the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race. The almost seven-hour car race, a yearly spectacle since 1911, became the framework for the University’s own yearly battle of patience and determination.
Similarities
- Racers qualify for 33 spots in the field.
- An Indianapolis 500 Pace Car leads competitors for a few laps for an equal starting momentum.
- Howdy Wilcox Jr., executive director of the Indiana University Student Foundation in 1951, modeled the bike race after the car race his father won in 1919.
- Competitors race with identical makes and models.
- Racers wear helmets and other gear for safety.
Little 500
- Multiple team members race relay-style, making 10 exchanges for the men’s race and five for the women’s.
- Wheels turn on cinder.
- 0.25-mile track
- Risk of crashing and cinder burns
- Spectators can be seen inebriated, and wearing neon.
Indy 500
- Drivers race on their own without relay.
- Wheels turn on asphalt (originally brick).
- 2.5-mile track
- Risk of crashing into other cars, or walls, and engine fires
- Spectators can be seen wearing headphones to hear turn-by-turn radio broadcasts, and eating turkey legs.
