The Individual Time Trials, the first of three Spring Series events leading up to the Little 500, took place Wednesday at Bill Armstrong Stadium.
The ITTs give a sense of who the best individual riders are for the men’s and women’s races in preparation for the Little 500, which takes place in three weeks. The women’s race is 4 p.m. Friday, April 21and the men’s is the following day at 2 p.m.
The ITTs consist of four-rider heats that must complete four laps around the approximate quarter-mile track once they hear the sound of the horn. Each rider begins in a separate corner of the cinder track.
On the men’s side, 148 of the 172 riders finished in under three minutes, with senior Gavin Goode of Black Key Bulls finishing with the best time of 2:24.91. Black Key Bulls is just one of five teams that will not be in the field of 33 teams in the Little 500 along with Godspeed, Phi Gamma Nu, Americana and Sigma Chi. Riders on these teams can still participate in any of the Spring Series events.
Black Key Bulls, which finished ninth in the Little 500 last season, was penalized in each of its three attempts in qualifications and thus did not qualify for the main race. Black Key Bulls had three riders within the top 10 of ITTs, with sophomore William Wagner and junior Jack Handlos finishing eighth and ninth, respectively.
Goode finished exactly half a second ahead of sophomore Luke Naas of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Behind Naas were a pair of riders from CUTTERS, which finished first in qualifications and will be on the inside part of the track for the race on April 22. Sophomore Judah Thompson (2:25.66) and senior Torin Kray-Mawhorr (2:26.42) finished within one second of each other. Last year, Kray-Mawhorr finished fifth in ITTs and finished fourth in the Little 500 with CUTTERS.
Rounding out the top five on the men’s side was junior Will Pitts of Sigma Phi Epsilon with a time of 2:26.56. Sigma Phi Epsilon, which finished second in last year’s race, will line up to the right of CUTTERS in the Little 500 as it qualified second this year.
The defending champions of last year’s race, Phi Delta Theta, had its top rider finish 28th. Junior Eli Konow finished with a time of 2:35.22, just over ten seconds slower than Goode. Phi Delt boasted last year’s ITTs winner in Jimmy Kulik, who also crossed the finish line first in the Little 500 race to win it for the fraternity.
On the women’s side, only 35 of the 135 competitors finished under the three minute mark. Senior Jenna Rodgers of Alpha Chi Omega paced the field with a time of 2:47.28, just three hundredths of a second ahead of senior Grace Washburn, who is competing with the reigning champion Melanzana Cycling. Alpha Chi Omega sits on the pole of the women’s race after leading the field in qualifications with a time of 02:54.55.
Of the top ten riders in ITTs, there were eight different teams represented. Rounding out the top five are junior Audrey La Valle (2:48.19) of Kappa Alpha Theta, freshman Allison Edgar (2:48.76) of Teter and freshman Allison Wozniak (2:51.08) of SKI.
La Valle and Washburn finished first and third, respectively, in last year’s installment of ITTs. Both riders significantly improved their times in the four-lap competition, as La Valle shaved off over 11 seconds, whereas Washburn was quicker by nearly 17 seconds.
The Spring Series continues on Saturday with Miss N Out, another individual race which pits riders into heats of six and will eliminate one rider after each of the three laps. The bracket-style format will continue until someone is crowned a winner. The final Spring Series event is Team Pursuits, which takes place Saturday, April 8.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to specify the correct number of five teams that did not qualify to correct information provided by race administrators.
