Young Pioneers is the first and only all-Asian team to race in the Little 500.

In 2015, this young team formed and first participated in qualifications. Because they were then self-coached, with no funds and little equipment, they failed the qualification that time.

After their first try, the Bloomington Herald-Times wrote an article about the founder of the team — Bingbing Zhao. It mentioned the team’s faltering condition. The story caught Carl Field’s attention in the fall of 2015.

“After reading that article, I thought, ‘ I need to help these guys’.” Field said. “ I am an experienced cyclist, an experienced coach. Based on that, I contacted Bingbing.”

Time was limited to get the team ‘up to speed.’

“Last year, when they qualified, I had only been coaching them for three to four months,” Field said. “Since there was a sense of urgency there, everybody worked really hard.”

Young Pioneers  first qualified in 2016 and got a 24th place in that year’s final race. That experience means a lot to the team.

“After we qualified, we can prove to the Little 500 communities that we are serious about this game, ” said Richard Xu, the leader of Young Pioneers. “And we proved we can do it.”

This year was the last chance for Richard to be in the Little 500 race. As a senior, he is about to graduate. But the team fared worse this year than last.

“He was having trouble to take the leadership role, but he really worked with it,” Field said. “I was proud of what he did this year.”

“But, for some other members, they got a little complacent and overconfident,” he said. “Last year that uncertainty made them work harder.”

That showed on the qualification day.

Failing to make a good exchange in first two attempts, Young Pioneers’ third try was pushed back to around six o’clock. Unfortunately, heavy rain just came when they started warming up.

“In our last attempt, we had to make sure we have a clear exchange,” said Eric Liu, one of the team members. “I tried to ride faster than before because there is some air resistance by wind and some water resistance in the ground that would slow my speed.” Even though they tried hard, a fraction of a second kept them out of final race.

“I feel embarrassed and I think I need to say sorry to Richard,” Eric said. “This is his last year to participate in Little 500 race.”

“They ultimately got what they earned,” Field said.“It is easy to say they got a bad weather for that third qualification attempt. The same time, they got perfect conditions in their first two attempts. And they didn’t take advantage of that.”

Field felt bad for the team, especially for the leader Richard. “I hope (not qualifying) this year is the wake up call,” he said. “These guys need to motivate themselves and get to understand they cannot do just enough.”

Now, the team has six members and they are looking for new members to join them. At the same time, if you are interest in the team, they are looking for funds.