As the “World’s Greatest College Weekend” draws closer, the first series event for the Little 500 began at Bill Armstrong Stadium on Saturday. The men’s qualifications featured 39 teams vying for 33 spots in the famous race.
The qualifications consist of four laps, one for each team member. Peaceful transitions between riders are paramount considering they must occur within the exchange zone — a small box at the start and finish line. If a fault occurs due to an unsuccessful exchange, the team is granted another chance, with each team afforded three opportunities to complete the attempt. After three faults, the team is eliminated from qualification.
The festivities began at 8 a.m. with temperatures settling around freezing, but that didn’t deter any of the fans of Phi Gamma Delta — more commonly known as Fiji — from attending the first qualification run with energy. Many fans of other teams throughout the day followed suit, with cheers and claps lasting until the final attempt at 4:30 p.m.
Sigma Phi Epsilon finished the qualifiers at the top of the leaderboard with a time of 2:26.934. The squad has been no stranger to success, placing top 10 in nine separate years since 2013 and winning the Little 500 in 2015.
Rounding out the top five with Sigma Phi Epsilon are Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Black Key Bulls, Lambda Chi Alpha and Chi Alpha.
Reigning champion CUTTERS is notably absent from that list, although it sat just one position off in sixth place. The squad lost seniors Torin Kray-Mawhorr and Peyton Gaskill from its 2023 winning team, but a sixth-place finish won’t bother the riders or their coach Jim Kirkham.
“I’ve been around long enough to know that every year is different, every team is different,” Kirkham said after the qualification run. “We did graduate two seniors that were really impactful and helped bring the team back after COVID, which was really hard on our team. We miss them, but we just gotta move on, and whoever shows up and sticks around — that’s your team.”
Black Key Bulls, a perennial powerhouse, failed to qualify in 2023 after top 10 finishes in every race since its formation in 2006 along with two wins in 2014 and 2017. With that failure still on its mind, the squad used it as motivation to achieve a third-place finish and head back to the big race.
“Last year I was on the quals team, and we had some stuff happen in quals and unfortunately, we didn’t qualify,” junior Will Wagner said after the qualification run. “We put in that extra work, put in all that time doing exchanges … We came in today and told ourselves we’re going to get one attempt done and we did just that.”
RelatedBlack Key Bulls cycling aims for redemption in 2024 Little 500 eventsEvery year since its inception into the IU Little 500 race in 2006, the Black Key Bulls cycling team has placed in the top 10, even winning the race in 2014 and 2017.
A smaller success story featured the rebooted men’s Mezcla team, which achieved qualification for the first time since 2001. Sebastian Breña-Ochoa — the founder of the rebuilt team — feared inexperience would overcome the squad, but it finished 26th in its first competitive event since 2005.
“Going into this race, none of the guys who just participated in quals had any experience,” Breña-Ochoa said after his qualification run. “This whole experience is new to us, and I feel like we did better than we could’ve ever imagined.”
The six teams that failed to qualify were IUDM, Kappa Delta Rho, Evans Scholars, Tau Epsilon Phi, Chi Phi and Wild Aces Cycling. The margin between IUDM and Army Cycling — the last team to make the cut — was .250 seconds.
Before the men’s race kicks off April 20, all riders will have a chance to compete in the other events of the “Spring Series.” The Individual Time Trials will take place March 27, followed by the Miss-N-Out event April 6 and the Team Pursuit on April 7.
Here are the final qualifications results.
1. Sigma Phi Epsilon
2. Sigma Alpha Epsilon
3. Black Key Bulls
4. Lambda Chi Alpha
5. Chi Alpha
6. CUTTERS
7. Pi Kappa Alpha
8. Phi Gamma Delta
9. Beta Sigma Psi
10. Sigma Nu
11. Alpha Sigma Phi
12. Delta Tau Delta
13. Cinzano
14. Theta Chi
15. Phi Delta Theta
16. Phi Kappa Psi
17. Grey Goat
18. 3PH
19. Human Wheels
20. Forest Cycling
21. Delta Sigma Pi
22. Phi Sigma Kappa
23. Novus
24. Godspeed
25. Alpha Kappa Lambda
26. Mezcla
27. CSF
28. Americana
29. Bears
30. Ghost
31. Sigma Chi
32. Beta Theta Pi
33. Army Cycling
