It’s "The Tortoise and The Hare" all over again. Cutters held the pole position to start the race and hoisted the trophy at the end, keeping its pace while others ran through their reserves.
Full of lead changes, crashes and excitement, the 72nd running of the men’s Little 500 Saturday was decided by just 0.133 seconds.
The first quarter of the race saw two big crashes to start off, including a yellow flag on lap 53 after a wipe-out on Turn 2. Cutters, Sigma Phi Epsilon and Sigma Alpha Epsilon used the crashes to create some separation from the rest of the pack.
Sigma Phi Epsilon opted for a sprint strategy, and second place Cutters saw Sig Ep 21 seconds ahead by lap 83. But Cutters have tradition and, most importantly, experience.
Cutters was created in 1984 after the fictional "Cutters" featured in the 1979 Academy Award-winning movie “Breaking Away.” The film shows the story of a group of Bloomington teens who joined the Little 500 and named themselves after the stone-cutting industry in Southern Indiana.
After its creation, the team went on to win 14 titles, including five in a row between 2007 and 2011. Besides that, they have been on the podium in 21 of its 38 races and in four of its last five races.
The winningest team in Little 500’s history stuck to its strategy, playing the long game from the beginning. Keeping their pace, Cutters’ Torin Kray-Mawhorr, Peyton Gaskill, Jacob Koone and Judah Thompson let Sigma Phi Epsilon tire themselves out and slowly cut the lead. By lap 119, the lead was down to only nine seconds.
For the first half of the race, Cutters kept their pace at about 40 seconds per lap. Sig Ep was recording 38-seconds laps but eventually grew tired. On the second half of the race, their pace was at about 42 seconds per lap. That was when Cutters saw its chance and took it.
“You go in with a strategy, but after lap 10 it gets thrown out the window” Sigma Phi Epsilon’s cyclist Max Martin said. On lap 147, Cutters retook the lead. The leading pack was composed of five teams separated by just 0.5 seconds.
“It was just being patient in the end,” Kray-Mawhorr said.
With a neck-to-neck race, the leading pack was dismantled as Delta Tau Delta crashed on the main straight on lap 163. Now, it was down to Cutters and Sigma Phi Epsilon.
With perfectly timed exchanges, Cutters was able to keep its pace and follow its strategy. Even with a change during lap 183, which dropped them two seconds behind the leader, Cutters did not flinch.
Then, another obstacle came in their way. On lap 188, Beta Theta Pi’s Tokelo Makape collided with the boards in the pit just out of turn two during a change and the yellow flag waved. The runners-up now had time to catch up with Cutters.
With a five-team leading pack separated by just half a second, the green flag appeared for the last 10 laps.
With their steady pace throughout the whole race, Cutters was more rested than the other teams and managed to hold on to the lead and take the title home for the first time since 2019.
“It feels great,” Thompson said. “I just can’t process this.”
Cutters has won their 15th title in the team’s history, almost double the number of titles than Delta Chi, the second in the roster with eight titles.
“We were confident that we were the fastest team,” Kray-Mawhorr said.
