By alley - Jun 24, 2017, 9:09 PM ET

Coyne's relationship with Chicago sports teams goes way back

Ed Jones' choice to honor former Payton-Coyne Racing team owner Walter Payton with a tribute helmet

, done with the colors and logo of the late running back's Chicago Bears, wasn't the first time the Illinois-based team paid homage to a home state sports team.

That honor belonged to team owner Dale Coyne back in 1991 at the Portland Grand Prix CART IndyCar race, when he dressed the red No. 19 Lola-Cosworth in a Chicago Bulls tribute livery after they recently beat the Los Angeles Lakers to win their first championship with Michael Jordan.

The Bulls beat the Lakers on June 12, just days before the Detroit Grand Prix, but it took Coyne some time to get approval from the team and the NBA to use the Bulls logo, which pushed the celebratory livery's debut to June 21 at Portland. On their road to the NBA Finals, the Lakers beat the Portland Trailblazers in the Conference Finals...

"We had Mi-Jack as a sponsor back then, and it was their idea and we thought it was really cool," Coyne told RACER. "So we went through all the approval process and got it ready for Portland, which the fans didn't really appreciate. We called it the 'eggs and tomatoes special' because we expected all the Blazers fans to throw eggs and tomatoes at it every time it went by."

Eric Bachelart was in charge of driving the despised DCR entry at Portland and brought it home 24th among the 25 entries. Although Bachelart's on-track performance did little to draw attention to the team, Coyne recalls the Chicago-area media paid attention and made mention of it on the local news broadcasts.

"It was good. TV stations showed it and talked about it quite a bit. It was good timing," he said.

With two big Chicago teams having been represented on a DCR Indy car since 1991, Coyne says he wouldn't mind adding a third.

"Back then we were known as the Chicago Cubs of IndyCar. We were the underdogs that never won," he added. "Things are changing now. The Cubs won the World Series and we're also winning."