The Little 500 at Indiana University-Bloomington has been described as one of the greatest college events in the country. While the bicycle races are designed to increase school spirit and generate student scholarship funds, the festive parties and events surrounding the races are characterized by intensive alcohol use and situation-specific beliefs related to sexuality. Little empirical evidence has been collected regarding the change in alcohol use and sexual behaviors during special college events of this nature.

The purpose of this study is to consider the unique context within which sexual behaviors occur during alcohol-intensive college events, and how these events might impact sexual decision making and contribute to sexual health outcomes.

A total of 228 college students were recruited to participate in a 21-day internet based daily diary study to assess drinking and sexual behaviors during the week of the special event, as well as the weeks before and after. Prospective data was taken from 4261 daily diary reports.

The findings suggest that there is a pronounced change in drinking behaviors during a special event week, but not in students’ sexual behaviors. All indicators of high-intensity alcohol use peaked during the event week, but the only effect on sexual behavior was an increase in drinking before sex. Predictive models were constructed for various sexual and alcohol use behaviors, suggesting that high-intensity drinking patterns and past experience with non-relationship sexual partners are predictive of high-risk behaviors.