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RELATED: Final practice results | 10-lap averages | Full schedule at Chicagoland Coors Light Pole winner Kyle Busch backed up his show of speed in Friday qualifying by leading Saturday’s final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series final practice at Chicagoland Speedway. Busch propelled the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota to a best lap of 180.252 mph in the 50-minute final session. He’ll lead the field to the green flag…

England The eight mile, family-friendly Brean Down Way in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, opened in July 2017 after 18 months of volunteer work and fundraising. It follows a newly-opened sluice-top road, crosses the River Axe, skirts a wetland nature reserve and mud flats, and takes in numerous cafes, before finishing at Brean Down Fort. Originally built to defend against Napoleonic invasions, the fort is now a National Trust site documenting life on…

On stage, Wenger expressed his amazement at the transformation. He could never have foreseen a time, he said, when Americans owned roughly a dozen of England’s clubs. He was, he said, delighted by it. Polite applause rippled among the guests. Outside that room, though, the picture is rather more complicated. Barzun might have wanted to celebrate the special relationship that had brought so much American influence into the Premier League,…

NASCAR is my favorite brand of racing, but sadly, no developer/publisher has taken full advantage of the license. Monster Games is trying hard to change that narrative, and NASCAR Heat 2 is the beginning of a new chapter. Credit: Monster Games NASCAR Heat 2 After a rocky start with NASCAR Heat, Monster and 704 Games offer an imperfect but drastically improved sequel. Here’s the best, the worst and the bottom…

NASCAR is my favorite brand of racing, but sadly, no developer/publisher has taken full advantage of the license. Monster Games is trying hard to change that narrative, and NASCAR Heat 2 is the beginning of a new chapter. Credit: Monster Games NASCAR Heat 2 After a rocky start with NASCAR Heat, Monster and 704 Games offer an imperfect but drastically improved sequel. Here’s the best, the worst and the bottom…

England The eight mile, family-friendly Brean Down Way in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, opened in July 2017 after 18 months of volunteer work and fundraising. It follows a newly-opened sluice-top road, crosses the River Axe, skirts a wetland nature reserve and mud flats, and takes in numerous cafes, before finishing at Brean Down Fort. Originally built to defend against Napoleonic invasions, the fort is now a National Trust site documenting life on…

Seattle Brad Evans makes the list of the 11 most in-demand soon-to-be free agents in MLS at the end of this season. Major League Soccer RSL Soap Box is back again with their Power Ranking Averages, and the top three are holding strong, with Atlanta United making moves right behind. Atlanta United is looking to break some attendance records, including the single-match MLS record (previously held by LA Galaxy’s inaugural…

RELATED: Full qualifying results | See every car, team rosters | Scenes from Chicago JOLIET, Ill. – Fresh from a Twitter war with Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch proved a point with his pole run at Chicagoland Speedway—and may just have proved Keselowski’s. “We are all in for a rude awakening,” Keselowski tweeted two hours before Friday’s knockout qualifying session at the 1.5-mile track, site of Sunday’s Tales of the Turtles 400,…

It’s been a particularly busy news week for driver Aric Almirola, as his Richard Petty Motorsports team announced neither he nor longtime sponsor Smithfield Foods will return to the organization next season. Speaking to NASCAR.com, Almirola said he was informed he would not return to RPM weeks ago and has been looking at employment opportunities with other Monster Energy Series teams ever since. “Actually I was rather shocked when I…

It’s been a particularly busy news week for driver Aric Almirola, as his Richard Petty Motorsports team announced neither he nor longtime sponsor Smithfield Foods will return to the organization next season. Speaking to NASCAR.com, Almirola said he was informed he would not return to RPM weeks ago and has been looking at employment opportunities with other Monster Energy Series teams ever since. “Actually I was rather shocked when I…

Furniture Row Racing owner Barney Visser told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Thursday night that he is selling the charter for his No. 77 Toyota team. “It’s being sold right now,” Visser said. “We think there’s going to be a lot of charters on the market.” “It’s sold,” Visser added later in the interview. “It’s all contracted for right now.” The No. 77 has an open seat for next year as…

Ovechkin in Sochi in 2014. Photo: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images All along it’s been clear that NHL players wouldn’t take part in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and all along, Alexander Ovechkin insisted that he’d play for Russia, no matter what the NHL said. But in a statement released by the Capitals today, Ovechkin admitted that it just won’t be possible. It’s a long statement, and I like…

Cycling Australia has been forced into an embarrassing backflip over selections for next week’s road world championships in Norway after drawing criticism for failing to fill its quota of female riders. Selectors picked a five-woman team for the championships in Bergen, two less than its quota, prompting complaints from the country’s top cyclists. Chloe Hosking and Rachel Neylan successfully appealed their omissions to an independent panel on Wednesday and the…

Alexander Zhukov is president of the Russian Olympic Committee and an IOC board member Russia expects to compete at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang next year, the country’s Olympic chief has said. Last year, an independent report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) found evidence of state-sponsored doping in the country. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is yet to issue sanctions, but 17 national anti-doping organisations want Russia banned…

Cycling Australia has been forced into an embarrassing backflip over selections for next week’s road world championships in Norway after drawing criticism for failing to fill its quota of female riders. Selectors picked a five-woman team for the championships in Bergen, two less than its quota, prompting complaints from the country’s top cyclists. Chloe Hosking and Rachel Neylan successfully appealed their omissions to an independent panel on Wednesday and the…

All I’ve done for the last 15 years is race — and when that gets pulled out from under you, it’s scary as hell. It started when Roush Fenway Racing told me it would no longer run my No. 6 XFINITY Ford, leaving me without a ride for the rest of the 2017 season. I’m not like normal 23-year-olds; I’ve got a mortgage on my house, a car payment and…

Rankings below are based on a mixture of expected output and DraftKings NASCAR salaries for that day. The ordering is not based on highest projected fantasy totals, but rather by the value of each driver. FPPK = Average fantasy points per $1,000 of salary. 1. Martin Truex, Jr. ($10,700) – The biggest dig on fantasy NASCAR is that it’s volatile. Anything can happen. Anyone can wreck. An ambulance took out one…

All I’ve done for the last 15 years is race — and when that gets pulled out from under you, it’s scary as hell. It started when Roush Fenway Racing told me it would no longer run my No. 6 XFINITY Ford, leaving me without a ride for the rest of the 2017 season. I’m not like normal 23-year-olds; I’ve got a mortgage on my house, a car payment and…

Finally, the initial questions and wondering are through. The 16 drivers who will compete for the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series championship have been decided. At Richmond, Va., on Saturday, there was one final win-and-you’re-in slot up for grabs, with drivers such as Erik Jones, Clint Bowyer and Dale Earnhardt Jr. looking to squeak into the playoffs. Instead, Kyle Larson – who had already won three races this season – won…