Acacia rider makes strides

Acacia rider and junior Kevin Vanes realized something after his first Little 500 race last year: "I needed to learn how to ride the bike."\nAs a rookie, Vanes was clueless about many of the intracasies that go along with the 200-lap race around the quarter-mile cinder track in Bill Armstrong Stadium.\n"I didn't realize how much work it would have to be," Vanes said. "I thought, 'I'm athletic, I could ride a bike.' But that's not how it is. Not at all."\nAfter the race ended with Acacia in 11th position, Vanes assessed his first try and constructed goals for the 2001 season.\nHigh on that list was to finish in the top five in Individual Time Trials.\nIt took a little work -- and a little growing up on the bike but Vanes met his goal, finishing third.\nNow he's working on another goal: winning the entire race. He'll get his chance starting from the 22nd spot Saturday afternoon.\n"We've trained really hard and our goal is to win this race," Vanes said. "We had a bad day on quals day. But we're going to put that behind us."\nBut after a poor qualification run, more than 18 seconds behind pole-sitting Phi Gamma Delta, Acacia and Vanes began to compete like they were expected to all along, Vanes said.\nVanes finished .44 seconds behind Fiji rider Todd Cornelius, finishing third in ITTs. He followed that up by making the semifinals of Miss-N-Outs. He pushes his Acacia teammates just as hard as he pushes himself.\n"He pushes everyone really hard, it gets aggravating sometimes but in the end it's all worth it," sophomore Tyler Burke said. "The bottom line is that we all trust him as the team leader and we know that he'll never let us down." \nVanes said he hopes he and his teammates can parlay that success to race day, where Acacia wants to make a quick start to avoid potential wrecks and climb toward the front. \n"As soon as you get to the outside, you can just haul ass straight to the front," Vanes said. "We have four very good riders who are capable of riding all day long in the lead.\n"Physically, you worked all year, you're not going to improve at this point, now it's a mental game. And that's what the race is going to boil down to. Who's mentally tough?"\nAlongside Vanes, Acacia features two other riders with Little 500 experience. Junior Kirk Habegger was a member of the 2000 Acacia team, while Burke rode for second-place finisher Ashton last season. The fourth member of the team is sophomore Ryan Brown, who has no previous race experience. \n"Tyler needed some direction, but he had a good base," Vanes said. "He knows what the race is like, which is a big help, we just had to focus him more on some details. He's working really hard."\nBurke said Vanes' help has been instrumental in his maturation as a rider.\n"Kevin taught me a lot about the technical aspects of riding and that riding smart is just as important as riding hard," Burke said. "Kevin is really admirable in that he leads by example. Anything he asks you to do he would do himself and twice as hard."\nAnd while Vanes has pushed his teammates, hoping for a top finish in this Saturday's race, he's pushed himself into the upper-crusts of Little 500 riders this season, Habegger said.\n"He has trained like a mdaman since last July and it is definitely paying off," Habegger said. "There is no shortcut or magic pills when it comes to success, just hard work"