Elliott continues NASCAR success on road courses
Chase Elliott won the NASCAR Cup Series race at Road America on Sunday to continue his uncanny success on road courses and wrap up a playoff spot.
Kyle Busch took a brief lead on a restart on the 46th of 62 laps, but Elliott caught up to him at Turn 11 and had passed him by Turn 12.
Elliott stayed in front the rest of the way for his second road-course victory of the year and seventh overall. He won by 5.705 seconds over Christopher Bell. Busch was third, followed by Kurt Busch and Denny Hamlin.
Elliott won after starting way back in the 34th position as a couple of cautions hampered his qualifying tries.
“I just never felt like I got in a real good rhythm all of yesterday,” Elliott said. “For whatever reason there, about halfway through the race, I started finding some of that rhythm and was able to put it together.”
His seven wins on road courses put him in sole possession of third place in NASCAR history. Jeff Gordon won nine times, and Tony Stewart eight. NEWGARDEN EARNS INDYCAR WIN >> Josef Newgarden snapped his streak of late race misfortunes to win for the first time this season, earning the first IndyCar victory of the year for Team Penske on the same weekend the storied organization celebrated the 50th anniversary of its first win.
Newgarden led all but seven of the 80 laps at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The two-time IndyCar champion dominated the two races leading into Sunday, but late yellows altered the outcome and denied Newgarden two trips to victory lane.
The American insisted nothing needed to change on the No. 2 Chevrolet team because the performance was just fine. After all, he had started from the pole and led 99 of 125 laps in the two races he lost after late restarts.
Now he’s led 172 of 205 laps — or 83.9% — over three races and finally put Team Penske in victory lane in the 10th race of the season. The last time the Penske organization went this late in the year without a victory was its 1999 winless season.
The win was the 19th of Newgarden’s career, an IndyCar record for an American driver.
This one again seemed to be in the bag for Newgarden — particularly after
a pair of slow pit stops took fellow frontrow starter Colton Herta out of contention — but a hard charge from Marcus Ericsson put Newgarden on the defensive. He had to hustle his way through the 13 turns over the final two laps to hold off the Swede by 0.8790 seconds.
IndyCar points leader Alex Palou finished third and was followed by sixtime and reigning IndyCar champion
Scott Dixon as Honda cars owned by Chip Ganassi went 2-3-4. Ganassi earlier this week said he had sold his NASCAR team and will focus on his IndyCar, IMSA sports cars and Extreme E teams at the end of the year. VERSTAPPEN WINS AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX >> Formula One championship leader Max Verstappen won the Austrian Grand Prix from pole position, clinching a third straight victory and extending his lead over title rival Lewis Hamilton to 32 points after nine races.
It was Verstappen’s fifth win of the season compared to three for Hamilton, who dropped from second place to fourth late on after going too wide on a turn and rolling over a kerb, damaging one of his tires.
His Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas finished second ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris.
Golf DAVIS WINS ROCKET MORTGAGE CLASSIC IN 5-HOLE PLAYOFF >>
Cam Davis won the Rocket Mortgage Classic for his first PGA Tour title when Troy Merritt missed a 6-foot par putt on the fifth hole of a playoff.
Davis missed putts to win on each of the playoff holes. The 26-yearold Australian left 6- and 18-foot putts high, a 25-foot putt low and a 19-footer high. He misread a break on a 12-foot putt on the fifth playoff hole, then won when Merritt made bogey.
Davis closed with a 5-under 67 to match Merritt (68) and Joaquin Niemann (68) at 18-under 270 at Detroit Golf Club. Niemann dropped out of the playoff with a bogey on the first extra hole, his first bogey of the week.
Davis holed a 50-foot sand shot for eagle on the par-5 17th and birdied the par-4 18th to get to 18 under.
KO WINS AFTER LOSING NO. 1 RANKING >> Jin Young Ko closed with seven straight pars for a 2-under 69 and a one-shot victory in the Volunteers of America Classic, her first start since losing the No. 1 world ranking.
Ko made her par putt from just outside 3 feet on the final hole at Old American Golf Club in The Colony, Texas, holding off Matilda Castren of Finland, who also shot 69.
The South Korean won for the first time this year, and the timing couldn’t have been better. She had held the No. 1 ranking for nearly two years until Nelly Korda supplanted her last week. BECKMAN WINS PGA CHAMPIONS EVENT >> Cameron Beckman ran off five straight birdies to start the back nine and then held on at the end for a 4-under 68 and a one-shot victory over Ernie Els (72) in the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open in Endicott, N.Y., his first title on the PGA Tour Champions. HERBERT GOES WIRE-TO-WIRE IN IRISH OPEN >> Aussie Lucas Herbert went wire-to-wire at the Irish Open, shooting 4-under 68 in the final round to win by three and secure a place at the British Open. It was Herbert’s second title on the European Tour.
Olympic basketball
SLOVENIA, ITALY, GERMANY, CZECH REPUBLIC MAKE GAMES >> Luka Doncic and Slovenia are headed to the Olympics for the first time, after winning 96-85 at Lithuania to clinch a spot in the Tokyo Games. Doncic — the MVP of the tourney in Kaunas, Lithuania — was brilliant: 31 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists, the first tripledouble by any player in any of the four Olympic qualifying tournaments that were played to determine the last four teams in the Olympic field.
Tourneys were also won by Italy, Germany and the Czech Republic. Italy beat Serbia, 102-95, in Belgrade. Germany beat Brazil, 75-64, in Split, Croatia; and the Czechs beat Greece, 97-72, in Victoria Canada.