A New Cycle

The first test for Little 500 riders begins Saturday. Qualifications -- the most exclusive and most important of the Spring Series Events -- is the first of four events that tests rider's skills individually and as a team. The real exclusivity of qualifications comes when there are more teams than spots to fill. This year 35 men's teams will take to the track with racing hopes, but as Little 500 tradition will have it, only 33 teams will make the cut.\nPutting together a good qualification ride is essential for a team -- the place a team receives at qualifications sets the stage for the actual race on April 16. To qualify, each team, usually made up of four riders, has three chances to make a clean ride. Each rider completes a lap and then exchanges their bike with the next rider without fault. The final results line up each team in rows of three; the team that places first in qualifications will have the pole position. \nSince spring break, teams have been preparing for their first racing situation of the season. Alpha Tau Omega, who qualified fourth in 2004 with a time of 2:24.63, along with Kappa Delta, traveled to Georgia to compete in competitive races and then on to Florida for training during their week off. The teams trained on a high school running track and practiced exchanges in the infield. After last year's training, senior ATO rider and Riders Council member Hans Arnesen said the team has seen a difference in its overall time, which is promising for a good qualifications performance.\n"We're pretty confident this year, actually amazed that our time this year on spring break was three seconds faster than our fastest last year," Arnesen said. "So if all goes well we could be getting a better quals time this year than we did last year. Actually it's pretty exciting to see that a lot of our times from last year's spring break are faster this year."\nOther teams didn't travel to sunny weather over spring break but are relying on their traditional training schedules as a winning formula for a successful qualifications run. Sigma Nu, which placed second with a time of 2:23.50, has been sticking to its same training of sprints, short intervals and speed training. \nJunior Sigma Nu rider Matthew Ryan said with the winning combination the team had last year at qualifications and a good performance at the race -- Sigma Nu placed 11th -- they haven't drifted far from the familiar.\n"I have real confidence in our team this year," Ryan said. "We haven't strayed from what we were doing last year, the training that we were doing last year and what we have been doing this year. There's no point in changing things if we did well last year at quals."\nVeteran riders like Arnesen and Ryan aren't too nervous about qualifications, but for rookie riders, the first time out on the track can be scary. Freshman Dodds House rider Daniel Houchens said Saturday will be a mixture of excitement and nerves.\nHouchens will ride alongside three teammates who are veteran riders and placed 13th at qualifications last year with a time of 2:28.48 and 10th place in the race. Although Houchens said he's getting nervous for his first official Little 500 event, he said his teammates couldn't be more prepared. \n"They are all excited," Houchens said. "I'm scared to death."\n-- Contact Senior Writer Katie Schoenbaechler at kmschoen@indiana.edu.