Pacers and Racers: Indiana will be epicenter of sports world this weekend

The Indiana Pacers are set to begin the Eastern Conference Finals on Wednesday against the New York Knicks, giving them a chance to earn their first NBA Finals’ berth since 2000. While the first two games of the series will be played in New York at Madison Square Garden, for Game 3 on Sunday, May 25, the action will shift to Indianapolis and the Gainbridge Fieldhouse. 

On the same day, starting that afternoon, is the annual Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" happening on the same day that the Pacers host an Eastern Conference Finals game is a real rarity, and makes for a massive sports day in Indianapolis that’s difficult to match.

The Indy 500 and the Pacers are linked beyond just sharing a schedule for a major event, however. The inaugural Indianapolis 500 race was run all the way back in 1911 — with its first INDYCAR event in 1996 — so, by the time that the team that would become the Pacers was getting its start in the American Basketball Association in 1967, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and motorsport, were already a significant and established part of Indiana’s history. 

Richard Tinkham, Chuck Barnes, Bob Collins, John DeVoe, and Chuck DeVoe were the original owners of the then-unnamed ABA team, which Indianapolis was granted the rights to thanks to their collective purchase of a franchise. When the team name was announced, general manager Mike Storen, per NBA.com, stated that, "we feel we will set the pace in the ABA, we will be playing at the Fairgrounds Coliseum across the street from where the (harness racing) pacers race at the fair, and the pace in auto racing is set in Indianapolis each May." Indiana’s long history of harness racing wasn’t honored just