The ‘Month Of May’ Means Racers And Pacers In The State Of Indiana

The State of Indiana’s two greatest passions are the annual 500-Mile Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the game of basketball, at any level from high schools to college to the National Basketball Association.

Another “Month of May” is underway and this year, it means “Racers and Pacers.”

The racers are in town for Tuesday’s Opening Day of Practice for the 109^th Indianapolis 500. It’s the most historic and famous race in the world and it also is the largest single-day sporting event on Earth, with 350,000 spectators jamming the largest stadium in the world, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Pacers are the Indiana Pacers of the NBA, back for another spectacular run in the NBA Playoffs including Sunday night’s 129-109 blowout victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 4 of the NBA Eastern Semifinals.

The Pacers tied an NBA record for most points in a half when they took an 80-39 into the locker room after the first half.

When Pacers guard Bennedict Mathurin was ejected for a Flagrant 2 foul less than eight minutes into the game, the Pacers ignited like an IndyCar engine in the Indy 500, racing past the Cavaliers like Josef Newgarden speeding past Pato O’Ward in Turn 3 on the final lap of last year’s Indianapolis 500.

Actually, the game wasn’t that close.

The Pacers take a 3-1 lead into Cleveland for Game 5 on Tuesday night. Earlier in the day, the 34 cars and drivers entered in the 109^thIndianapolis 500 will hit the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first day of practice.

^{The Birth of “Hoosier Hysteria”}

When it comes to basketball, the game may have been invented in Springfield, Massachusetts, but it was perfected in Indiana.

The first Indiana High School Athletic Association State Tournament began in 1911. The first Indianapolis 500 was May 30, 1911.

Crawfordsville High School won the first Indiana State Championship 24-17 over Lebanon High School.

Ray Harroun won the inaugural Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day.

Since that time, the sporting landscape in Indiana has been dominated by the Indianapolis 500 and the game of basketball.

Although the Indiana Pacers have never won the NBA Finals, it was the class of the American Basketball Association with three ABA Championships in 1970, 1972 and 1973.

The players from those old Pacers ABA teams remain legendary in Indiana including Roger Brown, Mel Daniels, George McGinnis, Billy Keller and Donnie Freeman.

Before the Pacers began as a franchise in 1967, Indianapolis was a sleepy, rundown town that woke up for three events a year. The first was the Indiana High School Basketball Tournament, culminating with the Final Four at Hinkle Fieldhouse on the campus of Butler University in late March.

The IHSAA state basketball tournament was a month-long, survive and advance format that pitted every school in the state regardless of size in a single-elimination tournament that started with the Sectionals, then the Regionals, then four Semi-States and the winners of each Semi-State met at Hinkle Fieldhouse to settle it all on a Saturday in late March.

The semifinals were in the morning and early afternoon and the state championship game was later that night.

It became known as “Hoosier Hysteria.”

It would remain a single-class system until 1996, when it was divided up by class size to create the current multi-class format. That was also the same year the IndyCar race was “split” when CART teams boycotted the Indianapolis 500 over the creation of the Indy Racing League.

The two sides finally came back together in 2008 to create today’s IndyCar Series.

Back When It Truly Was A “Month Of May”

The second time the city would be revived with energy was the “Month of May” when the world came to Indianapolis for the biggest auto race in the world.

In the old days, the track would open on May 1 with two full days of practice leading into Pole Day. There were four days of Time Trials spread out over two weekends, which meant a third week of practice leading into the third day of qualifications and Bump Day the following day, always a Sunday.

The Indianapolis 500 was always held on Memorial Day, May 30, regardless of what day that fell on the calendar with the exception of Sunday.

When President Richard M. Nixon moved Memorial Day to the last Monday of May to create a three-day weekend. The Indy 500 was held on Saturday in 1971 and 1972 and scheduled for Monday in 1973.

The 1973 race was ruined by horrible weather and a series of fatalities including drivers Art Pollard in practice and Swede Savage in the race. A crewmember, Armando Terran was killed on pit lane when he was struck by a safety vehicle rushing the opposite way down pit lane to tend to Savage’s mangled car at the head of the front straight.

Although the race was scheduled for Memorial Day Monday, day-long rain delayed the start until early evening and a major crash at the start that badly burned driver Salt Walther and injured dozens of spectators when hot, flaming methanol spewed into the crowd during the wreck.

There was more rain on Tuesday, the face finally got underway on Wednesday but was marred by the crash that ultimately claimed Savage’s life one month later. The race was stopped after the crash, but restarted later, only to be stopped once again by rain and called official.

Gordon Johncock won the first of his two Indianapolis 500s, but instead of celebrating the win, he visited Savage, his badly burned teammate at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was able to get approval from area churches to move the race to Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend beginning in 1974 and it has scheduled on that date ever since.

The Indiana State Fair And The Hoosier Hundred

The third major event that revived Indianapolis back in the day was the annual Indiana State Fair held at the Fairgrounds on 38^th Street every August. The State Fair was a time to celebrate Indiana’s rich agricultural heritage and the days of summer coming to an end.

One of the highlights of the Indiana State Fair was the “Hoosier Hundred” – a USAC Sprint Car race held on the dirt horse track with fans jamming the grandstands to watch AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, and the Unsers go wheel-to-wheel.

The “Hoosier Hundred” began in 1953 and concluded in 2019.

After the conclusion of the Indiana State Fair in August, Indianapolis would plod along in a nap-like status as interest shifting to Notre Dame football in South Bend, Purdue football in the glory days of quarterbacks Len Dawson, Bob Griese, Mike Phipps and others and Indiana University basketball, especially with the revival of the program under Coach Bob Knight.

Enter The Pacers

The Pacers were the showcase team of the ABA, but as that league started to experience financial difficulties, its four top teams merged with the NBA including the New York Nets, the San Antonio Spurs, the Denver Nuggets and the Pacers.

In its early days in the NBA, the Pacers were mediocre at best until they drafted Reggie Miller, who became the NBA “Face of the Pacers.”

He led the Pacers into the NBA Finals in 2000, but they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers with Shaquille O’Neal 4 games to 2.

Twenty-five years later, it’s “Racers and Pacers” again and Indianapolis is decked out in a variety of colors including the famed black-and-white checkerboard for the Indy 500 and the Pacers Blue and Gold.

When it comes to games, the Pacers are incredibly popular in Indiana. But when it comes to races, there is no other motorsports event in the world that has the history, tradition, heritage, drama, speed and even danger than the Indianapolis 500.

Hitting The Track

The “Month of May” has already had one IndyCar Series race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as Alex Palou scored his fourth win in the first five races this season in the May 10 Sonsio Grand Prix on the IMS Road Course.

The following night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, such IndyCar stars as Scott Dixon, Conor Daly and former driver Dario Franchitti and others were in the crowd to show their “Pacers Pride.”

On Tuesday, May 13 at 12 noon, 34 IndyCar drivers will hit the track to begin their quest of victory in the 109^th Indianapolis 500.

Later that night, the Pacers will hit the court at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland attempting to eliminate the top-seat in the NBA’s Eastern Conference and advance into the Conference Finals.

The “Racers and Pacers” have taken over the city of Indianapolis, and the state of Indiana, making this Midwestern city the focal point of sports for the “Month of May.”