25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indianapolis Star
'Energy in Indy is insane': Pacers & Racers attendees hope for thrilling 500, electric Game 3
INDIANAPOLIS -- Rob Rudicel accumulated a perfect wardrobe over the years for this particular Sunday.
For the afternoon, a blue T-shirt adorned with a gold basketball with wings between the words 'Indiana Pacers.' For the evening, another blue tee, with two checkered flags crossed above the words 'Pacers & Racers' in white and gold.
Rudicel planned to attend his third Pacers & Racers combination Sunday. He watched Alex Palou's victory from Stand J coming out of turn four. After an early evening family get-together at Portillo's in Fishers, he planned to head downtown to his seats in Section 13 of Gainbridge Fieldhouse for Eastern Conference Finals Game 3.
When it came time to split up playoff tickets with his fellow seat owners, Rudicel quickly requested Sunday's game. Even for a Pacers & Racers veteran, the novelty had not worn off even a little.
'No hesitation,' Rudicel said. 'It's a super fun day. That's why when this was a possibility of maybe happening today, I was like, 'Ooh, I want those tickets.''
Sunday marked the fourth time an Indy 500 coincided with a Pacers home playoff game – all since 1999. Along with Cailtin Clark and the Indiana Fever playing a home game Saturday, basketball magnified Indianapolis' Memorial Day weekend identity as the center of the sports world.
The Pacers & Racers experience is not only for locals. Actor Terrry Crews said in a pre-race interview he will pair the 500 with a now highly anticipated and potentially pivotal Game 3. At least a few fans attended Sunday's race in Knicks garb.
If the Pacers win to go up 3-0 in the series, they'll end an 0-for-3 history when sharing a Sunday home playoff game with the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
From the early arrival necessary to beat the Indianapolis Motor Speedway traffic to the approximate three-and-a-half-hour gap between events to a 10:30 p.m. regulation ending for Game 3, attending both becomes its own endurance competition.
'Hopefully I can handle doing both,' said Thomas Evans, a Brownsburg resident attempting doing Pacers & Racers for the first time. 'I'm excited to do both for sure.'
David Pierce, chair of Indiana University's department of tourism, event and sports management, said Indianapolis is almost 'spoiled' by the frequency with which it hosts major sports events. It's central to both the city's economy and its global identity.
An economic impact analysis by the Indiana University Public Policy Institute – commissioned by IMS – determined the track's month of May activities brought $480 million to the community. A Visit Milwaukee study of the economic impact of the Bucks' 2021 NBA championship run measured a $13 million influx from the Eastern Conference finals alone.
'You have the media visibility and storytelling and image creation in kind of one bucket,' Pierce said. 'The other bucket is the actual visitors from out of town who inject new money into the community.'
Those contributing to that economic impact eagerly traded it for an emotional one.
Sean O'Reilley put on his throwback Reggie Miller jersey Thursday morning and headed to the airport. From his home in Ventura, California, the Cathedral grad boarded a flight out of Santa Barbara, spent a four-hour layover in Las Vegas and landed in Indianapolis early that evening.
O'Reilley flies out every Memorial Day weekend. He even flew out in 2020 and watched from a friend's garage with race attendance restricted by COVID-19.
His father, Steve, took him to his first Pacers & Racers combination in 2004. Tornado warnings hampered the race experience. A dreadful offensive night spoiled the basketball.
Yet he did not hesitate to jump on a Ticketmaster presale to lock up Game 3 tickets. He's taking his father, to pay him back for that first double-up memory.
Accustomed to blocking out four hours of travel time to see the Pacers play in Los Angeles – a mere 50 miles away – O'Reilley was not sweating Sunday's logistics.
'One of the pleasures of living in Indianapolis was how easy and accessible it was to do things like this,' O'Reilley said after disembarking his plane Thursday in Indianapolis.
Despite the approximately 350,000 fans expected Sunday, those planning to be downtown for tipoff said they feared only weather delays or multiple cautions. The former hit prior to the race, pushing the scheduled 12:45 p.m. start back to 1:20. The latter triggered several yellow flags, contributing to a race time of 2:58.
Even for Pacers and Racers attendees from central Indiana, the undertaking requires extra planning.
When Zack Knopp won Pacers tickets from Fan Duel and had his choice of Game 3 of 4, he chose to make a long day of Sunday. He used a parking pass for the Virginia Street garage next to Gainbridge Fieldhouse. A friend picked him up there to head to the track.
They planned to use a ride share service back to Gainbridge after the race. On Saturday night, Knopp was putting off thoughts of what that might cost.
This will be Knopp's first Pacers & Racers experience. He knows there's no guarantee it will happen again soon. After seeing clips of the vibe inside Gainbridge for Friday's watch party, he knows he made the correct decision.
'The energy in Indy is insane right now,' Knopp said. 'All those people going from the track to the game -- it's probably going to be chaos in there. Now that the Pacers won (Friday) night, it's probably going to be even more crazy than if they had lost.'
Mark Buckley spent part of his childhood in Speedway, where his father, Bruce, served as pastor of the United Methodist Church on 16th Street. Back then he walked to the track. Now the Carmel resident relies on the time-tested and closely guarded 'little ways to get around' the neighborhoods surrounding the track.
This year, Buckey waited to find out whether his son, Brock, and his Indiana Wesleyan baseball teammates would advance to the NAIA World Series in Lewiston, Idaho. When the Wildcats fell one game short of advancement, Buckey scrambled for tickets on the secondary market.
Buckley, his sons Brock and Corbin, and son-in-law Colin Riley will attend the race and head downtown together for the game.
'I don't care how tired I am. I don't care what the weather is,' Mark Buckley said. 'It's about cheering for the race and cheering for the Pacers. How often does this come around? It might be their best chance ever to actually win the NBA championship. I'm not going to miss it.'
For his first Pacers & Racers, Evans knew he'd be in for a marathon, not a sprint. He planned to leave Brownsburg with wife Davina, daughters Eowyn and Sadie and son Dietrich by 5 a.m. to be at the track by 6:30. They watched from the infield – an economical choice for families since children 15 and under receive free infield admission.
After the race they'll drive back towards the western suburbs and intercept his mother, Rita, a Pacers season ticket holder since 2009. She and Evans will split off and head to the game – hopefully with time for dinner before tipoff.
'I'm gonna drink a lot more water – and maybe a little extra caffeine,' Evans said.
Indianapolis' fourth experience with the game day/race day combination should ease the logistical burden. A city which hosts Final Fours regularly and sprinkles in events ranging from NBA All-Star weekend to Super Bowl XLVI to the College Football Playoff national championship stays in practice for days of this magnitude.
Pierce said Indianapolis built an international reputation on sharing resources and coordinating the necessary public infrastructure.
'It is very common when I go to conferences or other events, people are talking about the real challenge in other markets to get the owner of the track and the owner of the pro sports team to be pulling together in the same direction, whether with police, with hotels, other city services,' Pierce said.
'It is in the culture and the habit of Indy to get everyone working on the same page together. It's one competitive advantage we have when bidding for events and continuing to bring in events.'
Evans assumes he and his mother will not be able to make their usual pre-Pacers pit stop at Big Woods restaurant in Speedway. Sunday, though, will be about making other memories.
The chance to potentially help the Pacers to a 3-0 series lead feels very immediate. When a friend texted before the series he already hated the Knicks again, Evans shot back, 'I never stopped!'
Yet the nostalgia of his first 500 experience since 2000 had begun to settle in by late last week. Back then he attended thanks to the generosity of Bob Wood, the father of one of his friends.
Wood died in 2014. Evans was drawn back to the track by the chance to attend with 10-year-old Dietrich, a big racing fan.
'Every time I drive by the Speedway, I think of my friend's dad and how much he meant to me,' Evans said. 'He was like a second father. The emotion of all of that comes back to me.'
The Buckleys have held Saturday night race parties for years. They held remote control car races and draw names for a driver's pool. The tradition continued after they started having children. It continued after their children started having children.
The fanfare began to die down in recent years. Buckley and his wife Susan – a former 500 Princess – decided the tradition would end. Until a couple of weeks ago, that is, when the kids started calling to ask about the party.
Buckley said one of his favorite photos is one of him and his sons and son-in-law from last year's conference finals against the Celtics. They'll carry Sunday with them long after any commemorative T-shirts wear out.
