AUTO RACING
It will be a summer in the South for NASCAR: The stock car series announced Thursday it will stick to Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, Florida and Alabama for June races – all of them without fans.
NASCAR has now set plans for 20 races – including nine in the elite Cup Series – as it returns to the tracks after being shut down for more than two months by concerns about the coronavirus.
The Cup Series is scheduled to resume this Sunday at Darlington Raceway and run four times in 11 days at the South Carolina track and at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina.
Then NASCAR will go to Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee on May 31. The track is roughly three hours’ driving distance for most of the Charlotte-area based teams. Some drivers could fly privately to the track via helicopter.
NASCAR will then race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, with the Truck Series and Xfinity Series on June 6 and the Cup Series on June 7. The track in Hampton, Georgia, is at least a four-hour drive and teams could need hotels.
The Cup Series will race for a third time on a Wednesday night at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia on June 10.
Then all three national series will run together and require air travel with two full days at Homestead-Miami Speedway in South Florida. The Truck Series and Xfinity Series will race June 13, then the Xfinity Series will run again on June 14 in a warm-up for the Cup Series.
NASCAR will then go to Talladega Superspeedway with the ARCA Series and the Xfinity Series racing June 20 and Cup on June 21. The teams can drive to the Alabama speedway, but many might use hotels.
NASCAR postponed events at Kansas Speedway, Michigan International Speedway, the Xfinity Series race at Mid-Ohio and the Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway. The Xfinity race at Iowa Speedway scheduled for June 13 has been moved to Homestead on June 14.
• Cup Series champion Kyle Busch will sprint back into competition when the season resumes by running all seven races that have been scheduled over an 11-day span.
In addition to the four races at Darlington Raceway at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Busch will run for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Xfinity Series race next Tuesday at Darlington and again at Charlotte on May 25. He also will race in the Truck Series at Charlotte for Kyle Busch Motorsports for a scheduled 1,100 miles over three days.
FORMULA ONE: Carlos Sainz Jr. will drive for Ferrari next season, and Daniel Ricciardo will replace the Spaniard at McLaren.
Sainz, 25, will join Ferrari on a two-year deal starting next year, the Italian team said in a statement, shortly after McLaren announced Ricciardo’s arrival from Renault. Sainz will replace Sebastian Vettel, a four-time F1 champion who is leaving Ferrari at the end of his contract.
OLYMPICS
MEN’S BASKETBALL: The final four spots in the 12-nation field for the Tokyo Olympics will be decided next summer, the sport’s global organizing body said.
It remains unclear, however, if those spots will be earned while an NBA season is happening or if NBA players will be able to take part.
FIBA has pushed back the dates for the four remaining qualifying tournaments to June 29 through July 4, 2021, meaning they would end 19 days before the rescheduled start of the delayed Tokyo Olympics. The host nations – Canada, Croatia, Lithuania and Serbia – are unchanged.
But if the 2020-21 NBA season starts later than usual, which is a distinct possibility because of the coronavirus pandemic, that might mean some players – such as Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks and Serbia’s Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets – might be busy with playoff games. And under normal circumstances, NBA free agency would conflict with those dates as well.
There are eight men’s teams already in the Olympics: Japan, Nigeria, Argentina, Iran, France, World Cup champion Spain, Australia and the U.S., which has won the last three Olympic gold medals.
BASEBALL
MAJORS: Aaron Judge’s rehab is going as the Yanks expected and they hope to have him on the field if there is a 2020 season at some point, GM Brian Cashman said.
Acknowledging the extraordinarily long time it took the team to diagnose the fractured first rib in Judge’s right shoulder area, Cashman said it’s a tricky injury that takes longer than normal to heal.
• Former A’s manager Art Howe, 73, who led Oakland to three consecutive postseason appearances in the early 2000s, is in intensive care in a Houston hospital with coronavirus.
Howe said he’s feeling better than he did two days ago when he was taken to the hospital.
GOLF
PGA: The PGA Championship will return to Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, in May 2025, the PGA of America announced.
The exact dates of the tournament were not released.
Quail Hollow hosted the PGA Championship in 2017, when Justin Thomas defeated Francesco Molinari, Louis Oosthuizen and Patrick Reed by two shots to claim his first major championship.
HOCKEY
NHL: Pittsburgh Penguins forward Dominik Simon is out six to seven months after undergoing surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder.
Simon, 25, had seven goals and 15 assists in 64 games this season.
FOOTBALL
NFL: New Orleans Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis says the club has resigned offensive lineman Patrick Omameh.
The 6-foot-4, 327-pound Omameh, a seven-year veteran who can play guard or tackle, appeared in 14 regular-season games with one start last season.
• Police in South Florida are trying to find New York Giants cornerback DeAndre Baker and Seattle Seahawks cornerback Quinton Dunbar after multiple witnesses accused them of an armed robbery at a party, authorities said.
Miramar police issued arrest warrants for both men on four counts each of armed robbery with a firearm. Baker faces an additional four counts of aggravated assault with a firearm.
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