I Dig Sports
COSTA MESA, Calif. – The MotoAmerica Series is headed into its final three races of the season, with much to play for as Pittsburgh Int’l Race Complex hosts the tour Aug. 23-25.
With rounds six and seven held in California, the series heads east this week for three straight races on the East Coast – PittRace, New Jersey Motorsports Park on Sept. 7-9 and the season finale at Barber Motorsports Park, Sept. 20-23.
This weekend’s race will mark the third time MotoAmerica has visited Pittsburgh Int’l Race Complex, which is located some 45 miles from downtown Pittsburgh, and it’s already become a series favorite for riders, teams and fans.
This year the premier EBC Brakes Superbike Championship arrives at PittRace with the top three championship contenders separated by just 40 points, with 150 points still up for grabs.
Yoshimura Suzuki’s Toni Elias leads the standings with 266 points, 34 more than Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing’s Cameron Beaubier and 40 more than Beaubier’s teammate Garrett Gerloff.
Based on past history at PittRace, this one is wide open, as a Superbike rider has yet to win twice on the twisty and undulating 2.78-mile racetrack in the green hills of Wampum.
Beaubier won the first-ever MotoAmerica Superbike race at PittRace in 2017 but suffered a separated shoulder in race two, with that race going to the now-retired Roger Hayden.
In 2018, Josh Herrin won race one in iffy conditions, with Elias winning race two.
The margin of victory has also been close in those previous four races – 1.4 seconds, .263 of a second, 2.3 seconds and .046 of a second.
Looking at the season thus far, things become much clearer, and it really all comes down to just how fast and dominant Elias has been. The Spaniard has won six races so far, but his tally is blemished by two race crashes that have allowed the others to stay in the chase.
Those crashes came in race two at Road America in June and two weeks ago in race two at Sonoma Raceway.
Going into Sunday’s second race at Sonoma, Elias looked to have both hands on the number-one plate as he lined up with a 59-point lead over Beaubier, who had crashed out of race one. Then race two happened.
Elias crashed out, Beaubier won and now the title chase is on again.
Beaubier went into Sonoma as a four-time winner at the Northern California race track near his home, but he was fortunate that Elias followed his lead with a crash on Sunday – with Beaubier pulling away to his third race win of the season.
On Saturday, it was Gerloff who scored the victory, his second of the year and his second in a row. Gerloff followed that win with a second-place finish behind Beaubier on Sunday and his solid weekend at Sonoma – combined with the other two both having DNFs – puts the Texan in the title chase. He trails Elias by 40 points and Beaubier by just six.
Attack Performance Estenson Racing’s JD Beach was fourth and fifth in the two races at Sonoma and he’s fourth in the title chase, but well out of title contention with 107 points.
Beach now has his hands full defending his position with Yoshimura Suzuki’s Josh Herrin fifth and just 11 points behind. Herrin crashed out of race one at Sonoma and rebounded to finish third in race two.
Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz put his Yamaha on the ground a few times during the Sonoma weekend, but not during the two races. For that he was rewarded with third in race one and fourth in race two. He’s just nine points behind Herrin and 18 ahead of M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Jake Lewis, with Lewis crashing in both races at Sonoma.
Omega Moto’s Cameron Petersen heads to Pittsburgh eighth in the title chase, just six points clear of ninth-placed David Anthony on the FLY Racing ADR Motorsports Kawasaki and seven points ahead of the ever-improving Scheibe Racing BMW of Jake Gagne.
M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Bobby Fong didn’t win a race at Sonoma, but he still came out of the event smelling like a rose, with two second-place finishes in the Supersport class.
Fong leads the title chase by 20 over Ricdiculous Racing’s Hayden Gillim, the Kentuckian having won five races (the most of anyone in the class), including race one at Sonoma.
Rocco Landers’ rivals would basically have to steal his Ninja400R.com/Norton Motorsports/Dr Farr for him not to earn the Liqui Moly Junior Cup Championship.
The 14-year-old Oregonian is 76 points ahead of his nearest rival in the title chase and on the verge of capturing his first MotoAmerica title.
Franklin Armory/Graves Kawasaki’s Andrew Lee has won four of the seven Stock 1000 races this season and he will arrive in Pittsburgh with a 23-point lead over Mesa37’s Stefano Mesa. North Carolina’s Mesa has one win to his credit in 2019.
The closest championship points battle can be found in the Twins Cup class, where the top three are separated by just two points.
AP MotoArts’ Draik Beauchamp heads the list with 108 points, one better than Roadracing World Young Guns’ Alex Dumas and two better than Quarterley Racing’s Michael Barnes.
The Minnesota Wild passed on Pittsburgh Penguins assistant GM Bill Guerin to hire Paul Fenton as their general manager last year. Fenton lasted one season. On Wednesday, the team hired Guerin to succeed him.
"Bill has been a winner throughout his hockey career and I am extremely pleased to be able to add his experience to our organization and The State of Hockey," Wild owner Craig Leipold said in a statement.
Guerin, 48, becomes the fourth general manager in Wild franchise history and the second plucked from the Penguins organization after Chuck Fletcher.
Fletcher, who like Guerin worked under Ray Shero, is now the general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers.
Hired in 2011 as a developmental coach with the Penguins, Guerin was promoted to assistant general manager in 2014 by Jim Rutherford, and served in that role for five years. He added the role of general manager of their AHL franchise to his plate in 2017.
That was enough experience for Leipold and the Wild, despite speculation that they might opt for a candidate with previous NHL general managing experience. Fenton was a career assistant with the Nashville Predators when the Wild hired him, and his inexperience was called out by the owner when his firing was announced.
"I knew him in a different way. He was assistant general manager. He was scouting. That was his role. He was tremendous at that," Leipold said of Fenton. "But it was the other portion of being a general manager: the organizational, the strategic, the management of people, the hiring and motivating of the departments. When I'm talking about not being a fit, that's what I'm talking about."
Guerin would seem like a better fit. He's a former player who appeared in 1,263 games over 18 seasons and won the Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils and the Penguins. He's known for an outward personality and natural charisma that appeared to be lacking in the previous general manager. Guerin also earned the reputation for recognizing and developing young talents.
He interviewed multiple times for the opening, vying for the job with other candidates like Carolina Hurricanes GM Don Waddell, former Flyers GM Ron Hextall and former Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli.
The Wild went 37-36-9 last season, missing the playoffs for the first time in seven years. This will be the third general manager in Minnesota for coach Bruce Boudreau, who is under contract through the 2019-20 season.
The Ottawa Senators have signed center Colin White to a six-year, $28.5 million contract, the team announced.
On the rebuilding Senators, the 22-year-old White stepped into the top center position and had a solid season with 14 goals and 27 assists. He also quarterbacked the team's second power-play unit.
White will be counted on to play a significant role next season as the team continues its rebuild.
"We've identified Colin as one of our core young players who will help drive our team's success in both the short and long term," Senators general manager Pierre Dorion said in a statement. "Colin plays the 200-foot game that is so coveted in today's NHL. He can skate, play on both special teams, and is a character player and leader who loves hockey and this city. While he is coming off a season where he finished among rookie leaders in many categories, we also know he is just scratching the surface of his potential in this league. We're very happy that Colin will be a Senator for the next six years."
White signed a three-year, entry-level contract in April 2017 with a cap hit of $925,000 to forgo his final two years at Boston College. He was a restricted free agent this offseason.
He was one of seven Senators players to issue an apology in November after they were recorded criticizing the team's poor play and an assistant coach while riding in an Uber. The conversation was then published online.
The New York Islanders agreed to a one-year contract with veteran center Derick Brassard on Wednesday, the team announced.
Terms were not disclosed.
Brassard was traded twice last season, going from the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Florida Panthers early in February and then to the Colorado Avalanche at the trade deadline.
Brassard has been traded four times since July 2016 and three times in a little over a year. He is coming off a five-year, $25 million contract that he signed with the Rangers.
He had 14 goals and nine assists last season, his worst output in a decade.
The 31-year-old's best season came in 2014-15 with the New York Rangers, when he had 60 points.
Brassard has scored 451 points (176 goals, 275 assists) in 786 games in 12 seasons.
McIlroy: FedExCup should be about prestige, not money
ATLANTA – When people say it’s not about the money it’s always about the money. That is unless it’s Rory McIlroy offering his insight into this year’s bonus boost for the FedExCup.
The winner this week at East Lake will claim $15 million, which would qualify as life-changing money for most players. But then McIlroy isn’t most players.
“Who knows what the winner wins at the Masters? I don't know because that's not what it's about,” McIlroy said. “If the FedExCup wants to create a legacy that lasts longer, it doesn't need to be about the money. It should be about the prestige of winning an event that you'll be remembered for.”
That’s not to say money has never been a motivator for McIlroy.
“The British Masters was my first tournament as a pro. I finished 42nd and won like 17,000 pounds. Then the next week I went to the Dunhill, finished third, and won 230,000 pounds,” he recalled. “I'm 18 at the time. I have a debit card, put it in the ATM, and it's like, Would you like to check your balance? I checked my balance, and I was like, oh, wow. I went straight to the jewelry store and bought myself a watch.”
Rose: 'Much less protection' for leaders in new Tour Championship format
ATLANTA – After winning at last week's BMW Championship, Justin Thomas has a target on his back. Beginning the Tour Championship with a two-shot lead only increases it.
Picking the season finale to have a bad week is never recommended, but in previous years, the FedExCup leader could struggle at East Lake and still finish relatively high in the rankings.
Now, under the new format with the rewarding boost, the leader has just as much to lose as the other 29 players who begin the week behind the 8-ball.
"I think there's much less protection now for the leading players," reigning FedExCup champion Justin Rose said. "If you were leading the FedExCup in the past and you had a poor week, you'd finish maybe second, possibly third in the FedExCup. You have a poor week now, you can finish 12th, 15th, 18th, 20th."
There's two ends to that spectrum.
On one end, there's a guy like Brooks Koepka who put himself in position–with eight top-10s this season, including wins at the PGA Championship and the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational–and has a bit of wiggle room when it comes to this week at the Tour Championship thanks to a consistent season that awarded him the inaugural Wyndham Rewards and the $2 million prize that came with it.
But the other end, the back half of the field is in position to play with more freedom this week, already looking up the leaderboard with less to lose and that same $15 million prize everyone is chasing.
"There's a lot more volatility, I think, with this format, which is what playoff golf is all about, I guess," Rose said. "It's the guys basically bringing their best golf when it counts the most.
Competitive players want the win, the $15 million and the lowest total score
ATLANTA – However the next four days at East Lake unfold it’s important to consider how the PGA Tour arrived at this curious crossroads.
Some say strokes-based scoring was born from the most honest of comments in the hectic minutes following Justin Thomas’ runner-up finish at the 2017 Tour Championship. Players like JT aren’t very good at pretending to be happy when they lose. For Thomas, it was his one-stroke loss to Xander Schauffele, not his winning the $10 million FedExCup bonus, that drove his thought process.
“It just wasn't meant to be, wasn't my week this week in terms of winning the golf tournament, but it definitely came with a nice consolation prize,” Thomas said.
There were 10 million reasons why the Tour and FedEx didn’t care to hear how their season-long experiment provided a suitable “consolation” prize and some say it was Thomas’ heat-of-the-moment take that sent the Tour’s number crunchers down a path that will now give the golf world its first net division championship for professionals.
This week’s points leader, Thomas, will begin the Tour Championship at 10 under par. The next four players on the points list will start at 8 under through 5 under, respectively, while Nos. 6-10 will start at 4 under par with the total regressing by one stroke every five players thereafter. Those ranked 26th through 30th start at even par.
To be fair, the circuit was headed for a playoff overhaul long before Thomas spoke his peace, but his words certainly helped the process along and made this week’s big transition easier to understand.
While golf doesn’t do dramatic changes very well, this week’s format is a bona fide paradigm shift which was prompted by a points-based race that was as confusing as it was contrived. When the Tour informed players of the format changes at East Lake, the first question asked was: What’s Steve Sands going to do now?
Since the invention of the playoffs in 2007, the NBC Sports/Golf Channel host had been charged with explaining the complicated system, in real time, to those watching on television. Under the new system, the explanation is exceedingly easier: The player with the lowest score on Sunday at East Lake wins the FedExCup.
Of course, getting to that low score takes some explaining and maybe even a leap of faith by those who aren’t accustomed to seeing professionals give strokes to other professionals.
The new scoring has made it easier for the fan at home to follow along with the action, but it’s probably made things a little more complicated for the players.
“You could shoot the best score of the week and not win the golf tournament. If that happens to someone, it's going to be hard for them to wrap their head around a little bit,” Rory McIlroy said on Wednesday at East Lake.
Based on how strokes-based scoring would have impacted other Tour Championships during the FedExCup era it’s not as much a question of if it might happen. On four occasions since 2007, the player with the week’s lowest score didn’t win the finale. In ’09, Tiger Woods would have beaten Phil Mickelson by four strokes at an event Lefty won by three shots; and in 2011, Luke Donald would have won by three strokes instead of Bill Haas. Donald would have also finished tied for the lead in ’10 with Jim Furyk, who won that year’s Tour Championship.
But the most jarring scenario would have occurred last year when Justin Rose, who began the week second on the points list, would have defeated Woods by three strokes and ruined what was by every measure a seminal moment in Tiger’s career.
By making it easier for the fans to engage with the entire product, the Tour has ignored the competitive soul of any professional. Consider that if the new system was used in ’17, Thomas would have won the event, and the cup, by two strokes after starting the week second on the point list and at 8 under.
It was only apropos that Thomas would offer the final say on this, having been the face of change to so many. If losing the ’17 Tour Championship overshadowed his victory in the season-long race, how would a strokes-based victory feel this year even if he doesn’t shoot the week’s lowest score?
“You guys probably won't believe me, but it will irk me,” Thomas admitted. “I think a lot of people were shocked and a little upset about how I handled just winning FedExCup and $10 million, but, I was like, man, I lost a golf tournament by one and I didn't birdie 18, a par 5, and I felt like I should have won the tournament and had a great chance.”
For all the questions and concerns the new strokes-based scoring addresses, it may be this uniquely competitive notion that will ultimately determine the success of the format. Players are currently saying all the right things, but as we saw in 2017 that can all change in one heated moment on Sunday.
Pay the man: Koepka on verge of losing 'stupid' holeout bet with Thomas
ATLANTA – At this year’s Masters, Justin Thomas unveiled a new 60-degree wedge with “Brook Koepka’s money” engraved into the back.
After holing out on the 16th hole for eagle on Saturday during last week’s BMW Championship, the first thing Thomas said to his caddie was, “I got some of that Brooks Koepka money.”
Thomas explained on Wednesday at the Tour Championship, where he will begin the week as the points leader and at 10 under par, that he and Koepka have a season-long race based on who has more holeouts.
“I got three holeouts and he's got zero, so I am [leading] right now,” Thomas said.
Koepka said the two came up with the bet, which only counts shots over 50 yards, while playing together in South Korea last fall.
“I can't even remember the last time I holed out,” Koepka said. “I don't really hole out much, so that was a stupid bet on my part. Heck, I'll pay him on Sunday.”
McIlroy over slow play talk: 'Cut the field sizes' to speed it up
ATLANTA – Rory McIlroy has had enough slow play talk.
The Northern Irishman has always been one of the most outspoken players when it comes to pace of play on the PGA Tour but enough is enough.
“I saw [the European Tour] released a four-point plan, but I only read the headline. I didn't go deeper into it. I've had enough of the slow play stuff,” McIlroy said. “I had two hours of it last week at the [player advisory council] meeting, and that came to nothing.”
The European Tour plan will include increased timing of players and more proactive targeting of slower players. Players will also be penalized a stroke after just two bad times.
“Perfect. We should adopt it,” Brooks Koepka said. “I'd love to see how many bad times guys get. I think you'll see some urgency to play.”
Although he didn’t know the details of the new European pace of play policy, McIlroy did offer a solution for slow play when he pointed out that pace of play won’t be an issue at this week’s 30-man Tour Championship.
“Seriously, it's like traffic, right? You get 156 in the field, and it's hard to get those guys around quickly. Even last week, 70, there was no mention of pace of play,” McIlroy said. “I'm in a privileged position that I can say that because I'm going to get into a field of 30 or 70. Obviously, guys that are not quite in my position would disagree with that. [But] if you want to speed up play, cut the field sizes.”
The Montreal Impact fired head coach Remi Gard and appointed former Houston Dynamo boss Wilmer Cabrera to take his place, the club announced on Wednesday.
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"Because I have so much respect for Remi as a person and as a professional, it was a very difficult decision to make and it was well thought, but our latest series of failures in the past couple of months and the way the team acts on the field led to that change," said Impact president Kevin Gilmore in a club statement.
"We hope to bring back confidence to this group of players for the last stretch of the season, to get a playoff spot and to perform in the Canadian Championship final. I would like to sincerely thank Remi Garde for his commitment and his professionalism with our club since he joined in November 2017. I wish him only but the best in the future."
Gard, 53, joined the Impact at the start of the 2018 campaign after a brief stint at Aston Villa. He failed to guide the club to the playoffs in his inaugural season and leaves Montreal with the team clinging to the final postseason place in the Eastern Conference, having won just one of their last eight league matches.
Cabrera, 51, was dismissed by the Dynamo last week after two-and-a-half years with the club.
Montreal assistants Wilfried Nancy and Remy Vercoutre have been retained by the club and will serve on Cabrera's staff.
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