The NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series returns to action Saturday night as the playoff battle continues at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois.
The Nu Way 225 is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET, with drivers looking to make a major statement as the championship fight begins to heat up. The race will be the second event of the 2026 O'Reilly Series chase.
World Wide Technology Raceway is one of the most difficult tracks on the O'Reilly Series schedule because of its unique layout.
The 1.25-mile oval features different corner characteristics, forcing teams to find a setup that works in both ends of the track. Drivers will also have to manage tire wear, track position and restarts throughout the night.
Gateway is a track where experience can make a major difference. With the championship battle underway, mistakes could become extremely costly.

#technology #night

With the AMA Pro Motocross Championship decided, the focus now shifts to the 2026 SuperMotocross World Championship. Now in its fourth running, the SMX puts the combined best of the Monster Energy Supercross and Pro Motocross season in a three-round playoff for the ultimate bragging rights.
Supermotocross incorporates the results from 17 rounds of Supercross racing, 11 rounds of Pro Motocross, to seed the three-round playoffs. Here's what you need to know heading into the first playoff round, September 12 at Historic Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio.
Qualifying runs on a combined points tally accrued through both the Supercross and Pro Motocross seasons. The top 20 in combined points in each of the 450 and 250 divisions automatically qualify and are seeded into the SMX field. An additional two spots are decided by a Wild Card race featuring riders that placed 21st through 30th. Any racer outside the top 30 who won a Supercross Main Event or a Pro Motocross moto is also eligible to contest the Wild Card race.
Once the seeding is decided, the riders' season-long points are reset going into the playoffs. The top seed restarts with 25 points, the second seed with 22, third with 20, fourth with 18, then single-point steps down through the 20th seed who starts with 2 points. Anyone outside the top 20 begins the playoffs at zero.
Playoff 1 uses the same structure as a regular Supercross or Pro Motocross race, with 25 points for first, down to 1 point for 21st. Playoff 2 pays double points and the SMX World Championship Final pays triple. As a result, the format keeps the ***** le live until the last round.

#supercross #playoff #decided

Roma restarts from Trigoria, and Gian Piero Gasperini is back with one of his key players.
Lorenzo Pellegrini has returned to the Fulvio Bernardini Training Center after his long-awaited contract renewal, marking a step forward in the process that will gradually bring him back into the team's fold.
The Giallorossi midfielder, however, is not yet ready to train with his teammates.
After recurring from a muscle injury to the rectus femoris in his right thigh, the player is completing the final stage of the recovery program developed by Roma's medical and athletic staff.
The club remains cautious.

#roma #gasperini #pellegrini #bernardini

Constellation Energy (NASDAQ:CEG) gave investors a lot to unpack on August 6 with the release of its second-quarter earnings report. The report raised full-year adjusted operating earnings guidance to $11.50 to $12.50 per share and stacked on a run of nuclear contract wins and regulatory approvals tied to its Crane Clean Energy Center restart. The headline story is growth. The details show a company juggling more moving parts than it has in years.
Constellation signed 920 megawatts of new long-term power purchase agreements in the quarter, contracts running 15 to 20 years that won't start delivering power until 2029 through 2032. One, a 176-megawatt deal with Walmart (NASDAQ:WMT), split into two 15-year contracts that start in 2029 and 2030, will fund a 30-megawatt expansion at the Dresden Clean Energy Center, located in Illinois. The batch averages 18.5 years in length, adding to earlier 20-year agreements with Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META).
The bigger prize is Crane, the plant once known as Three Mile Island Unit 1. FERC granted a waiver letting Constellation shift grid connection rights to Crane, and the NRC approved its fuel license amendment, clearing two of the last hurdles before the 835 megawatt unit restarts in 2027 to serve its Microsoft contract. Constellation also filed to extend the licenses of its Ginna and Nine Mile Point 1 reactors in New York out to 2049, stretching value from ****** ets it already owns. Management guided to 20% annualized adjusted earnings growth through 2029, a number that excludes any contracts signed after this quarter.
GAAP numbers moved the other way. Earnings per share fell to $1.42 from $2.67 a year earlier, even as adjusted operating earnings rose to $2.55. Part of that gap traces to a bigger share count after the Calpine acquisition, with average diluted shares outstanding climbing to 360 million from 314 million. The nuclear fleet had a rougher quarter too: output slipped to 44,160 gigawatt-hours from 45,170, and the capacity factor at plants Constellation operates fell to 93.0% from 94.8%, with planned refueling outage days more than doubling to 86 from 41.
There's also cleanup work left from Calpine. Constellation agreed to sell the 606 megawatt Brazos Valley Energy Center to LS Power for $860 million, the last divestiture regulators required, but the deal still needs Department of Justice approval to close. And as a merchant power seller, Constellation stays exposed to regulatory pushback, including from consumer advocates who argue that connecting data centers directly to nuclear plants lets big tech dodge grid costs that land on residential customers instead.

#quarter #center

KAUKAUNA – One of Wisconsin's most prolific stock car racers won state's longest short-track race for the biggest victory of his career.
Justin Mondeik beat Ty Fredrickson on a restart with 10 laps to go to win the ASA Midwest Tour Gandrud 250 on Aug. 4 at Wisconsin International Raceway, earning a $15,000 payday.
"We had those two restarts and I was able to get a good launch off [Turn] 4 and just be behind him by a half a car length at the start and had a really good 1 and 2 and was able to clear him," said the 29-year-old from Gleason.
"Pretty wild race. Definitely needed those late restarts."
Fredrickson, who chose the outside for the restart, was upset with Mondeik both for contact and for what he believed was a jumped final restart after a previous attempt was waved off. He finished second with Penn Sauter third, WIR weekly competitor Riley Stenjem fourth and two-time Midwest Tour champion Gabe Sommers fifth.

#restart #restarts #good

KAUKAUNA – One of Wisconsin's most prolific stock car racers won state's longest short-track race for the biggest victory of his career.
Justin Mondeik beat Ty Fredrickson on a restart with 10 laps to go to win the ASA Midwest Tour Gandrud 250 on Aug. 4 at Wisconsin International Raceway, earning a $15,000 payday.
"We had those two restarts and I was able to get a good launch off [Turn] 4 and just be behind him by a half a car length at the start and had a really good 1 and 2 and was able to clear him," said the 29-year-old from Gleason.
"Pretty wild race. Definitely needed those late restarts."
Fredrickson, who chose the outside for the restart, was upset with Mondeik both for contact and for what he believed was a jumped final restart after a previous attempt was waved off. He finished second with Penn Sauter third, WIR weekly competitor Riley Stenjem fourth and two-time Midwest Tour champion Gabe Sommers fifth.

#fredrickson #race

Wayne Taylor Racing ended a winning streak of more than two years in IMSA Grand Touring Prototype, winnin the Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix at Road America with the No. 10 Cadillac of Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor
In a chaotic race (expanded to six hours) Sunday on the Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, road course, Albuquerque and Taylor delivered the team's first win in the top category of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship since Detroit in June 2024. It's WTR's first victory since returning to Cadillac last year.
"Very, very special," Albuquerque said. "This is more than just a win. Super happy with everyone."
Albuquerque took the lead from Jack Aitken in the No. 31 Cadillac with just under 90 minutes remaining and held on through multiple restarts as the race ended under yellow. The No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 of Laurin Heinrich, Kaylen Frederick and Tijmen van der Helm finished second, and WTR 's No. 40 Cadillac of Jordan Taylor and Louis Deletraz finished third.
"Amazing day, it was a full team effort," Ricky Taylor said. "So proud of how the team has stuck with it and kept working towards this sort of result, and just very thankful to Cadillac for sticking with us through all of it. They've always had our back, and they've emphasized how it's one team and that support goes a long way to keeping our confidence because our confidence has been challenged a lot with the lack of results. So, finally getting a win and not just a lucky one. It was a strong performance all day, so we feel like this is something we can build on."

#cadillac

Officials across Europe have restated the need to use VAR only to change "blatantly incorrect" decisions and address clear missed incidents.
UEFA convened referee chiefs from all 55 national ****** ociations last week along with representatives from the International Football ****** ociation Board (IFAB), which sets the game's laws, in a bid to reach a consensus on the best approach to officiating.
There was "unanimous" support for further measures to speed up restarts, such as the time limits on substitutions and five-second countdowns for goal kicks and throw-ins.
However, arguably the most significant statement was a restating of VAR's original purpose.
"VAR must only intervene in situations of 'clear and obvious' error, i.e. when a referee decision is blatantly incorrect or when the referee has missed a clear incident," a UEFA release stated.

#uefa #only #Europe #international

Diamondbacks News
E-Rod Leads Diamondbacks to Big Win Over Dodgers
Shohei Ohtani and Andy Pages went back-to-back in the first inning, getting the Dodgers out to a quick lead. But then, Eduardo Rodriguez found his mojo again and shut the Dodgers down for the rest of the night. The Arizona offense came to life and capitalized on numerous defensive miscues by the Dodgers. The victory brings Arizona back to .500 and is a win against a playoff caliber team.
Corbin Burnes Restarts Throwing Program
Corbin Burnes still hopes to return for the run-in.
Torey Lovullo Talks First Base after Pavin Smith DFA
Barring a series of unlikely events, the Pavin Smith era in Arizona is over. With the previous move that saw Carlos Santana also being hung with DFA, what is the plan for first base moving forward?
X-Rays on Waldschmidt's Hand Return Negative
Somebody get Waldy into a batting cage to reinforce in him the fundamentals of bunting – STAT.

The National Women's Soccer League will implement a series of rule changes beginning with this weekend's Challenge Cup between NWSL champions Gotham FC and Shield winners Kansas City Current. Some of the measures, focusing on player safety and fan behavior, were adopted at the 2026 FIFA men's World Cup.
One of the changes — developed in consultation with the NWSL Players ***** ociation, clubs, medical and competition staff and the Professional Referee Organization (PRO) — will see a new off-field treatment rule and a timed substitution rule. Additionally, the NWSL will update its game day heat safety policy and expand its fan code of conduct to cover digital and social media ***** es.
Under the new off-field treatment rule — the most significant on-field change, mirroring a rule introduced at this summer's World Cup — players who remain on the ground and require medical personnel to enter the field after play is stopped will be required to leave the field for a one-minute treatment period. This rule was previously used in Major League Soccer. The clock begins once play restarts, with the fourth official monitoring the countdown before the player is permitted to return.
The league said the measure is designed to reduce unnecessary stoppages and improve match flow.
The NWSL will also implement a timed substitution rule aimed at discouraging time-wasting. Players being substituted will now have 10 seconds to leave the field. Failure to do so will result in the incoming substitute being delayed from entering until the next stoppage after a one-minute waiting period. This would force the offending team to temporarily play down a player. Exceptions include an injury that occurred as a result of a yellow or red card offense, a head injury or injury to a goalkeeper or bleeding.