Little 500

On Saturday April 24, Tom and I attended one of Indiana University's most popular traditions....the Little 500. It is a bicycle race founded in 1951 and was modeled after the Indy 500. Racers compete in teams of four, racing relay-style for 200 laps (50 miles) along a quarter-mile cinder track. Thirty-three teams are selected in qualifications trials to compete in the main race.

When we moved here, my mom rented "Breaking Away" for us because she remembered it was about Bloomington. For those of you who haven't seen it, it is a 70s movie staring Dennis Quaid about a group of Bloomington townies who enter the race as the "Cutters" (which is their nickname for the local Indiana limestone stone cutters) to defeat the favored fraternity team. The movie is based on the Little 500 bike race.

Anyway, the Little 500 is a major social event especially for the fraternities and sororities on campus. Each fraternity proudly wears its teams colors all week. They have banners hanging on the houses to honor all past winners. And the drinking and partying apparently lasts all week...obviously we didn't participate in any of that though. We did see some crazy college kids though...as we walked into the race, there was a kid being taken out of the stadium in handcuffs before the race even started. Our friends the Carlstons were given tickets from a Bosch alumni and attended the women's race the day before. They let us use the tickets for the men's race. We got "VIP" tickets and so didn't have to sit with the drunken college kids which made viewing the race a little more pleasurable. It was a lot of fun and we loved being able to participate in the school's tradition for our last year here.

The pace car lead a 3 lap warm up to begin the race

There are 33 teams and each team is given two Schwinn bikes, here you can see two teams about ready to switch riders. The pink team just switched riders but kept the same bike, whereas the red team is going to switch racers but using different bikes.

This was our last IU event before graduation. We can't believe we are leaving in 2 weeks!
Hmm...look who is a sponsor for the race? Oh, it's BOSCH! Yeah!

By about the 80th lap, it started to sprinkle, by the 90th lap it was pouring. We ran under the bleachers but the drunken undergrads were not even phased by the rain. They would cheer louder every time the thunder roared.
They called the race at 104 laps due to the rain. The Cutters (just like in the movie!) were currently in the lead so I guess they won. We were disappointed that we didn't get to see the last few laps, because apparently it gets pretty intense. All teams that are not in the lead lap are pulled off the track to allow more room for teams to compete for the win.

When the race was over we had to make a run for the car, we were soaked by the time we got there. It was a lot of fun.
Thanks so much Carlstons for giving us your extra tickets as well as watching Ainsley for us. We love you guys!