LAKEVILLE, Conn. — Laurens Vanthoor picked up his first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship pole, setting a GT Le Mans track record at Lime Rock Park in a 1-2 sweep of qualifying for the Porsche GT Team ahead of this afternoon’s Northeast Grand Prix.

Vanthoor posted a best time of 49.133 seconds (108.000 mph) in the No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR, breaking the previous record of 49.754 seconds (106.6 mph) set last year in qualifying by Antonio Garcia in the No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C7.R. Vanthoor’s time was just 0.052 seconds quicker than teammate Nick Tandy, who turned in a best lap of 49.185 seconds (107.886 mph) in the No. 911 Porsche.

“Finally!” Vanthoor exclaimed. “Everyone is always laughing at me because I have the record for the most second places in qualifying. I always have to take on a lot of jokes. I do love qualifying a lot. For myself, I find it important personally. I’m so happy one finally worked out. I hope it’s the first of many.”

Connor De Phillippi qualified third in the No. 25 BMW Team RLL M8 GTE at 49.322 seconds (107.586 mph) followed by 2018 Lime Rock winner Dirk Mueller at 49.458 seconds (107.290 mph) in the No. 66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT. Garcia completed the top five at 49.690 seconds (106.789 mph) in the No. 3 Corvette.

The entire GTLM field qualified within 0.731 seconds.

Trent Hindman scored his third Motul Pole Award of the season in the GT Daytona class in an incredibly close 15-minute qualifying session. Hindman’s pole-winning time of 51.456 seconds (103.124 mph) was just 0.026 seconds faster than Ben Keating’s second-place time in the No. 33 Mercedes-AMG Team Riley GT3 machine.

In fact, the top five cars in the session were covered by just 0.119 seconds, and the entire, 12-car field was covered by 0.780 seconds.

“It was a little bit sketchier than I wanted it to be,” Hindman said. “But I’ll take it. Just a big thanks to the Meyer Shank Racing guys. I kind of put them through the ringer in the warm-up there. I was trying to get every last ounce out of this thing right before qualifying.

“We got it out of the warm-up and everything felt really good. So, I was kind of like, the pressure was on, got to get it done. There’s no excuse if we don’t for qualifying there. I’m glad we pulled through.”

SEATTLE — Reigning Funny Car champion J.R. Todd claims his class is the toughest in NHRA competition.

You should believe him. He has won eight races in a Top Fuel dragster and as many in a Funny Car, mastering the move to the closed-body, shorter-wheelbase Funny Car with a series title during his second season in the DHL Toyota Camry.

But Todd has experienced many other forms of motorsports.

Most recently, the drag racer visited Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where he squeezed into the cockpit of the Dreyer & Reinbold Indy car driven by his Wix-sponsored teammate Sage Karam, and Todd immediately erased his assumption that it might be akin to a Top Fuel dragster.

“They’re so laid out. Your feet are so far in front of you. It’s a tight fit,” Todd said of Karam’s office. “And they’ve got a lot going on with the steering wheel.”

Todd also rode in the two-seat Indy car with Mario Andretti behind the wheel.

“To be able to do it with Mario Andretti driving was a dream come true,” Todd explained. “Going into the corner like that, I thought, ‘No way this thing is going to stick.’ That just shows how much downforce one of these things has. It gives you a new perspective and respect for what they do going around the corner here at 220 mph. I cannot imagine that. It was a lot of fun and totally a different sensation to what us drag racers go through.

“We don’t deal with lateral Gs like that. Going into a corner, it pins your hands up against the side. It is just a different sensation. That is by far the fastest I have gone turning left,” Todd added. “Just the sensation of the G-forces you feel going into the corners. We deal with a lot of Gs going in a straight line and you aren’t going as fast as we do, but you are going fast through a corner, which means you are dealing with a different type of G-forces than we are.

“I can see why these guys need to work on their neck muscles to keep their head from moving around there. That would wear me out, going 500 miles around this place. I was trying to keep my neck straight so I could see what was going on, but it was trying to ping your head to the side of the car, which was pretty cool. It was a lot of fun and I would love to do it again.”

Todd was the epitome of cool when in 2016, he rode along with Formula Drift star Ken Gushi in his GReddy Racing Toyota at Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, Wash.

“I didn’t have anything to hang onto. I had both hands on my phone, videoing the whole time. So I was somewhat relaxed. I didn’t have time to be scared,” he said.

The skidding, tire-shredding Tilt-A-Whirl-like sprint roughly compared to a drag-racing pedalfest gone amok.

Gushi’s 870-horsepower race car was no match for Todd’s 11,000-horsepower machine. A single cylinder of the eight in Todd’s dragster produces 750 horsepower. Gushi’s car accelerates from zero to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds; Todd’s would be stopping by that time.

“It’s definitely something that you need to experience in person, kind of like drag racing,” Todd said. “It’s pretty impressive seeing these four-cylinder and six-cylinder cars the amount of horsepower they’re making and burning the tires off in a different way than what we’re used to. These things make a lot of power for what they are.

“They’re definitely out of control but in control. They’re inches away from the walls and barriers out here and going at a high rate of speed and in control,” Todd noted. “It’s a different style of burnout than I’m used to, for sure. We don’t turn on our burnouts. The only drifting I’ve ever done is in the snow in Indiana and usually it’s unintentional.”

In 2016, Todd and Kalitta Motorsports teammate Richie Crampton, in Crampton’s words, “got our helmets handed to us” in a midweek karting matchup with Rico Abreu and Matt Crafton that took place on an eighth-mile dirt track located on the Abreu family’s California property.

Powered by motorcycle engines, the outlaw karts they drove were equipped with wings and capable of speeds around 80 mph. Still, Todd said, “My arms got tired.”

Todd even learned about Global Rallycross at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis in 2017.

Rallycross’ Alex Keyes was the tutor at the 10-turn circuit staked out in the paved lot where the Kalitta Motorsports team parks Todd’s DHL Camry during NHRA’s U.S. Nationals.

“You are shifting gears going all the way around the course,” Todd said. “It’s easy to go as fast as you can on the straightaways, but then you got to get on the brakes to get on the corners that are always coming up.”

Carlos Vela and LAFC lost 3-2 on Friday night to a Zlatan Ibrahimovic hat-trick for El Trafico rival L.A. Galaxy, but the Mexican is adamant he is the better player at the moment.

Vela scored twice but Ibrahimovic's treble settled an intense L.A. derby, with the Swede stating afterwards it was "a mistake" to compare him to the LAFC captain.

The 37-year-old claimed ahead of the game that he was "by far" the best player in MLS, but Vela doesn't agree.

"Comparing would show a lack of respect towards him, but if we look at the stats and forget age and whatever, I'm better than him right now, that's the reality," Vela, 30, said after the game.

"And in terms of the rest, he's been Zlatan and only [Lionel] Messi and Cristiano [Ronaldo] are better than him; the rest of us aren't in the same league."

The Ibrahimovic and Vela comparison dominated the build up to El Trafico and although the Galaxy took the victory, Vela made it 21 goals for the season in just 20 games -- a new MLS record.

But the night belonged to Ibrahimovic, whose three goals drew praise from Galaxy teammate Jonathan dos Santos.

"Zlatan has proven it again," Dos Santos said. "Who can say anything to Zlatan? Who would say anything when he scores three goals?"

"He says what he says, but in the end he backs it up on the field and that's Zlatan. He's very, very good and has shown that throughout his career. He tries to create pressure for himself, he plays with the minds of the opponents."

The three points lifted the Galaxy temporarily into second in the Western Conference, while LAFC is nine points clear and on course to win the Supporters' Shield.

Zimbabwe will not be able to stage their domestic competitions in the coming season, or fulfil their Future Tours Programme (FTP) itinerary and other international obligations, including the tour to Bangladesh for a T20I tri-series that was to include Afghanistan in September, according to a statement released by Zimbabwe Cricket on Saturday.

For their part, the Bangladesh Cricket Board has suggested that Zimbabwe's participation in the tri-series is up to ZC, and they themselves remain fluid in their response to the situation. If Zimbabwe do not travel, as seems likely, the tri-series will turn into a bilateral affair.

Zimbabwe's suspension from the ICC this week has also jeopardised both the men and women's teams' participation in the T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019.

"The ICC had also awarded Zimbabwe the right to host another global qualifier event next, but that now hangs in the balance," ZC's statement read.

"In all this, players and staff are bearing the brunt of the standoff and they might be forced to go for months or forever without their salaries and match fees," the statement continued.

Sikandar Raza had said that the ICC's actions had brought an end to both his and several other cricket careers, while allrounder Solomon Mire has already announced his retirement from international cricket.

Zimbabwe's isolation has also thrown the women's side, which won the Africa Region T20 qualifying tournament in May, into disarray. Their tour to Ireland was cancelled at the last minute, while it appears impossible that they will appear at the T20 Qualifier tournament in Scotland, starting next month.

"A chance for a ticket to different life, for millions of women out there in Zimbabwe," national captain Mary-Anne Musonda tweeted. "For generations of girls and women to come. Vanished in 3 weeks. Okay. Life. I'm sorry Lady Chevrons. I led. I tried."

Meanwhile, the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) has urged the ICC to consider the effect that Zimbabwe's suspension will have on the players in that country.

"The Zimbabwean players have endured years of hardship under the previous board of ZC," FICA executive chairman Tony Irish said. "This has included many instances of non-payment and frequent breaches of their playing contracts. We have asked ICC to consider some mechanism to enable player contracts to be honoured despite the unfortunate suspension of the new board of ZC.

"Some of the domestic players in Zimbabwe live a hand-to-mouth existence, and there is an important 'human' element to this situation which we believe needs to be addressed."

ZC has offered to submit a new financial audit and set aside their differences with the Sports and Recreation Commission, which in June suspended the entire ZC board and set in motion the chain of events that led to Zimbabwe's suspension, "in an effort to find amicable solutions that will avert expulsion and the total demise of the game".

"We would like to see our teams playing again as soon as possible and the ZC board is ready to cooperate with the SRC and other stakeholders to get Zimbabwe back to operating within the confines of the ICC statutes again," ZC's statement read.

English counties are holding firm over releasing their players for the inaugural Euro T20 Slam amid concerns over a potential clash of dates with their own fixtures, in the latest in a series of conflicts between county cricket and franchise leagues regarding player availability.

Several players holding county contracts were picked up in Friday's draft for the Euro Slam, which will take place between August 30 and September 22, but will likely be unavailable for the majority of the new competition if their counties reach the knockout stages of the Vitality Blast.

The Blast's quarter-finals run from September 4 to September 7, with Finals Day on September 21. Further, there are two rounds of Championship cricket - starting on September 10 and September 16 - that clash with Euro Slam fixtures.

Nottinghamshire, for example, saw three important members of their Blast side picked up in Friday's draft, in Samit Patel - who is contracted for all formats - and T20 specialists Harry Gurney and Dan Christian. "In all three cases, Notts cricket will take precedence," confirmed the club.

Sussex, meanwhile, will be without Rashid Khan for the final four group games of the Blast after he signed as an 'icon' player for Rotterdam Rhinos, while Tymal Mills and Luke Wright were also picked up in the draft.

A club statement said that Mills and Wright would only be available for the start of the Euro Slam if Sussex failed to reach the knockout stages of the Blast.

Both counties were among a handful of clubs that issued similar statements ahead of the draft for the Caribbean Premier League, which runs from September 4 until October 12.

The only two English players picked for the CPL were Alex Hales and Laurie Evans, and neither will be permitted to miss games for their county to play.

While counties have generally accepted the reality of losing players to franchise T20 leagues in recent years, there have been intermittent flashpoints of tension.

Yorkshire were left spitting after both Liam Plunkett and David Willey were selected as late replacements in the 2018 IPL, which left them facing an "impossible situation" according to director of cricket Martyn Moxon.

Moxon chaired a meeting between county bosses last year which resolved to lobby the ECB for a greater share of compensation payments for the loss of players.

In 2015, Hales missed a handful of Notts' Blast fixtures to fill in as a late replacement for Mumbai Indians, thanks in part to a clause in his contract that permitted him to miss games if he was picked. Previously, Hales had been instructed by the club to enter the 2014 auction with a $400,000 base price, to ensure they would be well-compensated if he missed games.

A handful of other counties had contracted players selected in the Euro Slam draft. For example, Essex saw Ravi Bopara, Varun Chopra, and Shane Snater picked up; Freddie Klaassen and Hardus Viljoen, the Kent pair, were both chosen; and Somerset's Roelof van der Merwe and Peter Trego were selected. None of the three clubs have commented.

Babar Azam, who is with Somerset for the Vitality Blast was also selected, but as a marquee player his involvement was known at the time of his arrival. He is expected to miss the Blast's Finals Day, but might yet be made available for a potential quarter-final.

The availability of other overseas players, including Imran Tahir, Dwaine Pretorius, and Martin Guptill, has yet to be confirmed by their respective clubs.

The Blast has regularly had to contend with fixture clashes in previous years, regularly losing out on international stars to the CPL, and this year has seen various high-profile players including Andre Russell, Faf du Plessis, and Shakib al Hasan choose to play in the Global T20 in Canada rather than staying in England after the World Cup.