The Little 500 was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Patrick McKay, a member of Riders Council, tells a different story, claiming the races were “doomed” before the pandemic began.

The Indiana University Student Foundation (IUSF) cancelled all cycling events last semester at Bill Armstrong Stadium due to unfavorable track conditions as reported by IU NewsNet. IUSF said they applied treatments to the track and were not worried about the fate of the Little 500. McKay detailed his perspective of the events leading up to races.

“There was a lot of just talk. There was never really a whole lot of action. There was a lot of we’re going to try this, we’re going to try that. But then really no follow up,” McKay said.

Construction at Bill Armstrong Stadium caused the track issues as sand and debris mixed in with the cinders. The track became dustier than normal and developed a bumpier surface than normal. IUSF pursued different solutions in addition to chemical treatments.

“There was talk about going and looking at other tracks and seeing what they had been doing. There was maybe about getting a whole new cinders in. We were just kind of left in the dark for most of it,” McKay said.

McKay expressed frustration as Riders Council is normally heavily involved. The IUSF website deems the council as a “brain trust for new riders and as a sounding board for the IU Student Foundation.” According to McKay, that was not the case this year.

“There was a lot of we’re going to get to it. And this was back in the first few weeks of the fall when we first realized the track during the first skills clinic was just un-rideable. So we’re talking weeks, months, of times that just went by where we just heard nothing,” McKay said.

Andrea Balzano, the Little 500 Race Director of IUSF, declined an interview or specifics regarding the treatments. In a written statement, she wrote, “Rider safety is of paramount importance to IUSF.” She stated that the track was comparable to past seasons and there was no concern that the race would have taken place as planned.

McKay elaborated further on the situation in an editorial in the Indiana Daily Student. Track conditions, communication errors, and response time led to a difference in opinions between himself and IUSF.

“In my mind the idea of Little 500 is – you’ve seen the drone shots of everything where you look down, stands are filled, balloons are everywhere, the race is – that just simply wasn’t the image that was going to happen this year on the 70th running of the men’s, the bicentennial year. You would have thought if there was ever a race to showcase what the Little 500 is, this was going to be the race,” McKay said.