From riding trikes to racing bikes like the men: The story of the first women's Little 500

Editor's note: This story was originally published in 2024. We are republishing it as part of our coverage of the 2026 event. Kerry Hellmuth showed up to Bloomington in the fall of 1987, an 18-year-old Wisconsin transplant who had fallen in love with the Indiana University campus, which on a sunny day was stunning with its flowering dogwoods, sugar maples and yellowwood trees.

She had visited other schools, and could have gotten into most of those schools, but IU was the only one she applied to. When she walked by the buildings crafted from the same limestone used to construct the Empire State Building, surrounded by majestic gardens, it felt like she was walking into the middle of a beautiful painting. "I felt an immediate connection," said Hellmuth, now 54.

"It was almost like a paradise. " When Hellmuth arrived to her room on the 11th floor, the top level of Willkie North, an all-female dorm tower which was the counterpart to the all-male Willkie South tower, her dad helped her unpack the family's VW Rabbit. She and her roommate barely had time to settle in when a resident assistant, a senior named Crystal, called a welcome meeting for the 11th floor.

As the women sat with their entire college careers in front of them, Crystal talked about campus life, academia and extracurricular opportunities. She was particularly excited about a bike race Hellmuth had never heard of, the inaugural women's Little 500. "Crystal said, 'We're going to have a dorm team and who wants to do it?