The first feeling was so nice they had to do it twice.
Black Key Bulls senior rider Will Wagner passionately threw his arms in the air as he crossed the finish line on lap 200. He showed off the “Black Key Bulls” on his shirt before mimicking a bull, placing his index fingers on his white helmet.
The BKB faithful swarmed the track post-race, showering their riders with love as they climbed the mountain a second time in the men’s Little 500 on Saturday at Bill Armstrong Stadium in Bloomington.
In the world of the Little 500, BKB has placed far above the rest, becoming a dynasty over the past two editions of the famed race.
“That was my last lap on the track,” Wagner said post-race. “And there’s no other way I would’ve had it.”
In 2023, BKB infamously failed to qualify for the Little 500. In 2024, it completed the ultimate turnaround to win it all. That, by itself, was a great story.
In 2025, it attempted to run the story back, this time with a much larger proverbial target on its back.
Sophomore rider Wiley Close said the first 100 laps were rough, and that it was hard to escape from the pack. But once a crash occurred on lap 81, the whole race got shaken up. After that, he said only SAE was truly “putting a target on our back.”
Early in the race, BKB fought hard to claw its way to the front of the pack, as several teams led for brief spells.
However, as the race progressed, BKB and Sigma Alpha Epsilon broke away and gained a large lead over their peers. SAE fought BKB step for step for a large chunk of the race: from the crash on lap 81 that took down seven riders to allow BKB and SAE to race ahead, to an SAE exchange around lap 160.
BKB chose not to go for an exchange alongside SAE, allowing Close to race into its largest lead yet. BKB seized control from then on, slowly increasing its lead to as many as 30 seconds.
“At about 165, 170 we were kind of setting up for a double exchange, as we had done all day,” BKB director Jordan Bailey said. “At that point, Wiley was on the bike, and we gave him time to pull the pin, time to go full gas and just crush it.”
When a full lap separated BKB in first and SAE in second, it seemed as if BKB winning was inevitable. That turned into reality as Wagner crossed the finish line with the checkered flag waving.
“To quote Jack Handlos, ‘it means everything,’” Wagner said.
Handlos was a senior rider in 2024, helping BKB win its first championship since 2017. This time, the wait for another was not nearly as long.
“It’s BKB’s fourth win, and it’s the first time they’ve ever gone back-to-back,” Bailey said. “And the fact that they rode one of the gutsiest races possible and put an entire lap up on the rest of the field by the end of the race was just amazing.”
BKB may have come out victorious, but that leaves 32 other teams disappointed. Perhaps no team is more disappointed in its finish than SAE, which stayed neck and neck with BKB for a majority of the race before falling behind.
“There’s nobody else on this track that I’d want to see win except SAE,” Close said. “They are by far our fiercest competitor, but off the track, we are very respectful. We honor the fact that they’re an extremely strong team, just as strong as us.”
BKB has managed to find itself in esteemed company. It’s the first team to win back-to-back titles since CUTTERS did so in 2018 and 2019.
“It’s the first time BKB has ever done it,” Bailey said. “There are very few teams in the history of the race that have been able to do back-to-back and now we are one of them, and we’re in the history books for that.”
BKB certainly has managed to enter the history books. From missing the race in 2023 to lifting the bike as victors two years in a row, perhaps no team has ever had as steep of a turnaround in such a short time in recent years as BKB.
Relentless in its pursuit of greatness, it now clung to them as it paraded around the track to the tune of Queen’s “We Are the Champions”. The riders slowly rode around the track a final time, soaking in the moment. As the BKB faithful celebrated behind them, they gleamed with pride at their achievement.
Following the victory lap, the riders stayed out longer than anyone else, sharing their joy with family and friends who couldn’t be prouder.
From disappointments, to underdogs, to champions, to the dominant force, BKB is on top. After a year of gunning to defend its title, the team can now sit back and celebrate.
As the song that plays after every race suggests, Black Key Bulls are the champions.
