Sport

The field for the Round of 8 in the 2017 NASCAR XFINITY Series Playoffs was set in Saturday’s elimination race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, with Ryan Reed beating Brendan Gaughan by a single point for the last transfer spot. Alex Bowman, who will be driving the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet full-time in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series next year, won the race. Brennan Poole was the highest-finishing XFINITY…

Health workers spray insecticide to combat Zika-carrying mosquitoes under the bleachers of the Sambódrome in Rio de Janeiro in January 2016. Leo Correa/AP hide caption toggle caption Leo Correa/AP Health workers spray insecticide to combat Zika-carrying mosquitoes under the bleachers of the Sambódrome in Rio de Janeiro in January 2016. Leo Correa/AP In the spring of 2016, there was a frenzy over the threat of Zika virus at Brazil’s Olympic…

Rain has wreaked havoc with NASCAR’s opening race for the second round of the playoffs. All practice was canceled Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and the start of Sunday’s race has already been moved up an hour to give NASCAR a bigger window to complete the 500-mile event. It’s not the Chamber of Commerce weekend that Charlotte officials had hoped for when they rearranged the schedule. This event has traditionally…

USA TODAY Sports’ Brant James previews this weekend’s race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. USA TODAY Sports

Since 1990, the U.S. men’s national team has qualified for the World Cup, the quadrennial soccer spectacle, seven successive times, making it one of only seven countries in the world to do so. This uninterrupted success is due, in part, to the fact that the United States, situated in a region that has few soccer powers, typically faces relatively weak opponents in its qualifying tournament. On Friday, however, in Orlando,…

MOUNT SKOKOMISH WILDERNESS, Olympic National Forest — Once common here, martens — sleek, bright-eyed mammals less than half the weight of a small house cat — appear to have virtually disappeared from their mountain redoubts. Or have they? Scientists are trying to find out what is going on with the elusive native of these mountain forests, and why. In the past 16 years, in remote camera surveys in which hundreds…

As riot police clashed with huge crowds in Barcelona during last weekend’s banned Catalonian independence referendum, the city’s soccer team played a game in front of 98,000 empty seats after closing its Camp Nou stadium amid safety fears. Hours later, Real Madrid kicked off another game to the cheers of supporters waving Spanish flags and placards declaring “Todos somos España” (We are all Spain) and “Viva España!” (Long live Spain!)….

Kyle Busch was the king at pole position in the first round of the NASCAR playoffs (he won it twice in three races and came second last week at Dover), but his streak of excellence came to an end Friday night. None of that is to say that Busch was poor, as he still qualified fourth. But Denny Hamlin, currently seventh in the standings, was better and took the pole…

It’s getting harder nowadays for sports organizations like NASCAR to just stick to sports. Even as they face the challenge of wooing an increasingly diverse and distracted fan base, politics keep trickling in. The issue has been highlighted recently with NFL players protesting during the national anthem. President Donald Trump brought new attention to the controversy when he reprimanded protesting players while praising NASCAR fans who did not kneel. Like…

Kyle Busch was the king at pole position in the first round of the NASCAR playoffs (he won it twice in three races and came second last week at Dover), but his streak of excellence came to an end Friday night. None of that is to say that Busch was poor, as he still qualified fourth. But Denny Hamlin, currently seventh in the standings, was better and took the pole…

It’s getting harder nowadays for sports organizations like NASCAR to just stick to sports. Even as they face the challenge of wooing an increasingly diverse and distracted fan base, politics keep trickling in. The issue has been highlighted recently with NFL players protesting during the national anthem. President Donald Trump brought new attention to the controversy when he reprimanded protesting players while praising NASCAR fans who did not kneel. Like…

It’s getting harder nowadays for sports organizations like NASCAR to just stick to sports. Even as they face the challenge of wooing an increasingly diverse and distracted fan base, politics keep trickling in. The issue has been highlighted recently with NFL players protesting during the national anthem. President Donald Trump brought new attention to the controversy when he reprimanded protesting players while praising NASCAR fans who did not kneel. Like…

Kyle Busch was the king at pole position in the first round of the NASCAR playoffs (he won it twice in three races and came second last week at Dover), but his streak of excellence came to an end Friday night. None of that is to say that Busch was poor, as he still qualified fourth. But Denny Hamlin, currently seventh in the standings, was better and took the pole…

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (October 6, 2017) – NASCAR and The Weather Company, an IBM Business (NYSE: IBM), announced today a multi-year agreement that will optimize the weather-related decision process for NASCAR as it incorporates hyper-local weather data and forecasts into their races to improve race-day operations and fan engagement. As part of the agreement, The Weather Company, via The Weather Channel brand, becomes the Official Weather Partner of NASCAR. RELATED:…

It hasn’t been easy for Martin Truex Jr. to get to this point. It hasn’t been easy for Kyle Larson, either. But despite their different histories, the different routes they’ve taken to reach Sunday’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, they’re both here this weekend as viable threats to win. And not just this race either – they’re two of the favorites to win the entire Cup Series…

The field for the NASCAR Brickyard 400 makes its way past fans in the stands in the first turn at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis on July 23. From tens of thousands of empty seats at the tracks to dwindling ratings for those watching at home, NASCAR has a popularity problem.

It’s getting harder nowadays for sports organizations like NASCAR to just stick to sports. Even as they face the challenge of wooing an increasingly diverse and distracted fan base, politics keep trickling in. The issue has been highlighted recently with NFL players protesting during the national anthem. President Donald Trump brought new attention to the controversy when he reprimanded protesting players while praising NASCAR fans who did not kneel. Like…