Brown leads Pi Beta Phi to 1st title

Pi Beta Phi rider Caroline Brown took the 2009 women’s Little 500 into her own hands Friday. Brown’s coach Tim Kolar called it “epic,” a “Hall of Fame ride.”

Given that she rode about three-quarters of the race, most Little 500 fans might agree.

Before Brown joined Pi Beta Phi, the team qualified last in a field of 33 that participated in the 2006 race. Now, in her second year riding, Brown is a Little 500 champion.

Brown rode the final 10 laps for her team along with more than 60 others. As the teams began the last curve off the backstretch, with Kappa Delta in the lead, she saw her opportunity to break from the pack.

“At Turn 3, I saw another wheel coming up on my right,” Brown said. “I just kind of knew, ‘It’s now or never. If I don’t go now, I’ll be boxed in.’ So I just went, and it worked out.”

After bearing witness to Brown’s finishes of 11th in Individual Time Trials and second in Miss ’N Out, rookie Pi Beta Phi rider Liz Mackey was not surprised by her performance.

“I kind of expected it out of her,” Mackey said. “I knew how good of a rider she is, and I just knew that she could do it.”

Brown needed to see the race tape for the win to sink in, she said. She said she was shocked.

“I was happy for the team,” she said. “Just looking over and seeing the faces of my teammates ... it was just an amazing feeling.”

Brown rode the majority of Pi Beta Phi’s laps because of how good she felt. In those laps, she showed determination on the track in more ways than one.

When her teammates were set for an exchange on the next lap, signaling with a single finger in the air, Brown would wave it off. Several times, she refused to come in for exchanges.

“There were a couple of times in the video where you can see me telling my coach ‘no,’” Brown said.

Kolar, who has coached Pi Beta Phi for nine years, said he was confident Brown could win the race for the team after she went back in on lap 90.

In his time coaching, he said he has never seen a rider like Brown.

“She’s just one of those girls that there’s nothing I could say or do that could make her better,” Kolar said. “She is self-taught and self-motivated. She just has that little extra that separates the good and great riders.”

Although she was on the bike for most of the race, Brown credits her teammates for putting her in a position to win.

“Nobody can ever say they won Little Five on their own,” Brown said. “It’s a team effort. I don’t care what anybody says.”