Sports

As Indy’s first professional-basketball champions in 30 years, they’ll have a banner raised in their honor at Bankers Life Fieldhouse this month. But unlike their NBA counterparts, their post-title offseason was less than glamorous.

The honor comes during a busy month for the team, many of whose players are returning from overseas stints with other clubs for the start of the 2013 WNBA season in San Antonio on May 24.

Last week, 38 cases went home with attendees of a preview charity event in Speedway, according to Tom Blattler of Ed Carpenter Racing, which is sponsored by the vodka brand.

A complete photo gallery of all things kickoff week.

The past year has been an eventful one for the former star of the Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle, USMC. After having heart-valve surgery last spring, he came out of the closet in early 2013.

Music acts and costumes, belly dancers and superheroes—the Indy Mini has it all, with runners the world over all pushing themselves to the limit on the IMS track’s 2.5 miles of splendor and sweat. Then there are the other nearly 11 miles.

Plus, see the number of countries that broadcast open-wheel racing, by continent. You might be surprised.

When every other person passing you on the Monon offers some sort of greeting, it gets pretty old.

Sometimes described as a “garage band,” The Trumans play a mix of ’90s alternative, modern rock—Holloway has a special affinity for Kings of Leon—and, occasionally, pop country.

In a message to participants on April 29, organizers wrote that “in partnership with the Indianapolis Department of Public Safety, local, state, and federal agencies, [we] will be taking additional security and safety precautions … [that] may or may not be visible to event attendees.”

You can look all you want this May. But you’ll have to wait until the fall to call one of these babies your own.

Several months ago, American Way, the in-flight magazine of American Airlines, asked May Madness (and Yours Truly) to share some of our local expertise on the Indianapolis 500 and surrounding hoopla.

From the moment the green flag dropped at Bill Armstrong Stadium, the race maintained a dizzying pace. The top teams took turns at the front of the pack, riders looking over their shoulders more than at the track ahead of them. The attacks were fast and furious, stretching the field out so much so that at Lap 65, nearly half of the teams had fallen off the lead lap.

Bundled up and shivering, the racers were eager to get started. So much so that the 2013 race featured its first crash in just lap 3. Oddly, it has become a bit of an annual tradition to have a fairly scary crash in the first few laps before the bikers settle down and race cleanly. This crash left a Rainbow Cycling rider with a broken collarbone, leaving that team’s already-smaller squad with just two able-bodied riders for the remainder of the race. Remarkably, they stuck with the pack and finished the race in 14th place, earning the respect of the entire field.

Say you’re at the track and just realized that you don’t know anyone racing. Not a problem, just cheer for one of the favorites and look smart when they bring home the Borg-Warner Trophy. Here, on the heels of our list of first-timers’ do’s and don’ts, see our primer on the top riders to regard this weekend at the Little 500 bike races in Bloomington: