Cutters’ Young sprints to victory

A sprint-to-the-finish victory is nothing new for the Cutters.

But a sprint against one-third of the field on the final lap was a bit unexpected.

Throughout the men’s Little 500 on Saturday, 33 teams battled strong winds along the backstretch, forcing riders to rely more on drafting and bunching the lead group.

“The wind was rough. It was miserable,” Phi Gamma Delta’s Ted Boeglin said. “It was something you had to fight through and to share the work with the other teams around you.”

Because of this, 13 teams finished on the lead lap – nine within eight seconds of the Cutters.

In 2008, 10 teams finished on the lead lap, but the 10th place team crossed the finish line one minute and 51 seconds after the Cutters.

The year before, just five teams completed all 200 laps.

That set up an exciting finish.

With two laps to go, Phi Gamma Delta’s David Ellis had the lead and carried it through the first two turns of the 199th lap. But as the riders approached Turn 3, Team Major Taylor senior Kenny Parks became the first rider to make a significant move.

Parks – about 10 riders behind Ellis – moved to the outside of the pack and propelled himself into the lead.

“I figured with two laps to go, I’d be good,” Parks said. “But FIJI was dying, and I was dying, too.”

Parks’ lead lasted less than one-fourth of the track.

Cutters sophomore Eric Young mimicked Parks’ maneuver in Turn 4.

He jumped to the outside and powered past the field.

“I was trying to get good position,” Ellis said. “Young took off really early, with a whole lap to go. It took everyone by surprise, and once he gets a gap, it’s hard to catch him.”

Young had about a bike-length lead on Ellis as the teams took the white flag, signaling the final lap.

But it might as well have been the checkered flag.

Using the energy that gave him an Individual Time Trial victory, Young led the entire final lap, finishing one second faster than second-place Delta Tau Delta.

FIJI, Team Major Taylor and the Black Key Bulls rounded out the top five.

The Cutters’ final race time of 2:15:18 was more than five minutes slower than last year’s, even though the 2008 race featured cold and rainy weather.

One team absent from the lead lap was pole-winner Phi Delta Theta. While riding in the lead pack at lap 72, the team crashed into a front stretch accident that included the Cutters and Phi Kappa Psi.

The other two teams recovered, but Phi Delta Theta’s bike was twisted and damaged. Phi Delta Theta tried to regain its lost lap with about 50 laps to go but never fully caught up to the lead pack.

Later in the race, junior Nick Sovinski crashed in Turn 3, and the team finished 15th.

“We chased to catch back up – just to try to make it up,” Phi Delta Theta rider Baxter Burnworth said about the first wreck. “But we went a lap down, and that was pretty demoralizing.”

Mechanical failures also hurt the Black Key Bulls, a pre-race favorite among many riders. While riding in the lead pack, the team sustained a flat tire at about lap 150 and dropped a half-lap off the leaders.

“I was able to chase the pack,” Black Key Bulls sophomore Jordan Bailey said. “But chasing the pack between laps 150 and 200 really takes it out of you.”

None of the teams could match the Cutters’ performance.

“People lined up to see the Titanic sink,” Cutters senior Clayton Feldman said.

But Young made sure that didn’t happen.