Indiana Simply Needs To Be Better: The Pacers Are 0-4 When Hosting The Indianapolis 500 And An Eastern Conference Finals Home Game

You can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning, and you can't win a basketball game that night if you do. The Indiana Pacers are 0-4 whenever the running of the Indianapolis 500 and an Eastern Conference Finals home game fall on the same day. Basketball and Indy Car on the same day is a Hoosier's wet dream, and when the two line up perfectly like a solar eclipse it's called Pacers and Racers. Unfortunately the greatest spectacle in racing leads to a Pacers game that Indy fans would rather not witness. 

This is the history of Pacers and Racers ...

1999 ECF: Knicks beat the Pacers

2004 ECF: Pistons beat the Pacers

2013 ECF: Heat beat the Pacers

2025 ECF: Knicks beat the Pacers

Not too many days out of the year do Hoosiers get to be not only the capital of racing, but the capital of the sports world. I didn't want to be the guy to rain on anyone's good time, because saying Kiss The Bricks, Beat The Knicks sounds incredible. BUT, in reality - how the fuck is the Indiana crowd supposed to survive when they start drinking when the gates of the speedway open at 6am and tip for ECF is at 8pm. This is a harder feat than double duty with the Indy 500 and the Coke 600. 

  

    

      

    
  
Indiana has perfected race day partying, but the basketball game adds an extra hurdle that Hoosiers drunkenly stumble over every time the two things coincide. I need sports scientists in the lab researching how to perfect the double up. If by this time next year we haven't hooked electrodes hooked up to some inebriated dude they've pulled out of Turn 3 to study how to keep him on his feet and loud enough to cheer for 18 hours straight, then we can't have these two events scheduled for the same day. Are their PED's we need to be using? I know Crystal Meth isn't good for you, but maybe for one day and one day only the state legalizes it? Going to be hard to hear Thibs call up plays when you've got 17,000 tweakers screaming about cobras in the 300 level of Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe we should just enjoy the fact for one day, win or lose, all eyes are on Indianapolis.