HOMESTEAD, Fla. — The racing on intermediate tracks has never been better; ratings are up, bucking a trend among other major sports; and collaboration between stakeholders is at an all-time high.

That was the assessment of Steve Phelps, who took questions from the media on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway before the Ford EcoBoost 400, the race that would decide the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion.

“If you look at the results — I start with the competition always — our competition right now on the intermediate tracks and the superspeedways, I believe, is the best racing we’ve ever seen.  I’ll start with myself as a fan. I love watching and am super excited when we get to the intermediate tracks and superspeedways, the type of racing we are going to see.

Phelps also shared that the quality of competition has had a positive effect on the viewership.

“The results from the competition side are working from a consumption standpoint,” he said. “If you look at the fans, what the fans are doing, how they’re responding to it, if you look apples to apples, our ratings are up 4% this year.  All of sports is down 9%, we’re plus 4%.

“Importantly our share is plus 9, so there are fewer people watching television in all sports, obviously, but fewer people watching television overall.  So when they were watching, not only did they watch more NASCAR, from a ratings standpoint, but when they were tuned in, they were watching more NASCAR. We were taking share from someone else, which is important. That’s television. We’re finding our footing, I feel.”

Phelps also extolled the unprecedented level of communication and cooperation across the stock car racing industry.

“I’ve been teased a little bit about using the word ‘collaboration’ too much,” Phelps said. “I don’t think you can use that word too much, frankly. It’s building. The collaboration of this industry is better than it’s ever been. Really excited about where that is.”

That doesn’t mean, however, that there isn’t room for improvement in the product. Phelps acknowledged that NASCAR will work during the offseason to enhance the quality of racing on tracks of one mile and shorter.

That’s particularly important, given that ISM Raceway in Phoenix is set to host next year’s Championship 4 race.

“Do I think we need to work with our industry, Goodyear, our race teams, our OEM (original equipment manufacturer) partners to improve what we’re seeing on the short tracks?” Phelps asked. “I do. We’re going to do that in the off season, for sure.”

As his first full season at NASCAR’s helm concludes, Phelps indicated there has been strong interest from other car makers in joining Ford, Chevrolet and Toyota as competing brands in the sport.

“We had some folks out in Phoenix (last week) that were interested in coming into the sport,” Phelps said. “It’s important for us. We are working hard to try to determine kind of the timing of that, what that looks like, and what that partnership would look like moving forward bringing someone in.

“The world is a lot different than it was. We’re trying to make it as easy as possible to have an OEM come in, plug in, and start to compete on the racetrack.”

Phelps also said that some form of electrification would be part of NASCAR’s engine architecture in the future and that the ability to attract new OEMs to the sport would be dependent on running engines that maintained relevance to those in production cars.

“This engine is going to sound significantly the same as whatever the current engine is,” Phelps said. “We’re not going to have a bunch of electric cars going around. That’s not what this is about. It’s about having a relevant engine to our OE partners, both the existing Ford, Chevy and Toyota, as well as whoever the new OEs that we’re looking at.”

With Monster Energy currently in its final year as sponsor of NASCAR’s premier series, Phelps said NASCAR anticipates announcements with respect to its new sponsorship model when the industry celebrates the new Cup champion in Nashville in early December.

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico – Brendon Todd got his mistake out of the way early and shot a 6-under 65 on Sunday to take a one-shot lead into the final round of the Mayakoba Golf Classic as he goes for his second straight PGA Tour victory.

Todd is coming off a victory two weeks ago at the Bermuda Championship. He was at 17-under 196.

Vaughn Taylor was tied for the lead until a bogey on the final hole for a 67. Harris English, the 36-hole leader, also was tied until he dropped a shot on the 17th. Todd's only bogey of the third round was on the opening hole at El Camaleon.

The fourth round began immediately after for the 82 players who made the cut and was not expected to finish until Monday. Rain washed out play on Thursday.

CHARLOTTE -- Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan moved past Warren Moon for 10th place on the all-time passing list with his performance on Sunday.

Ryan entered the game with 49,072 passing yards, behind Moon's 49,325. Ryan completed 21 of his first 31 passes for 311 yards.

Ryan is expected to become the 10th player to reach 50,000 yards at some point this season. John Elway is above Ryan on the all-time list at ninth with 51,475 yards.

The other players to surpass 50,000 yards are: Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Dan Marino, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning. Only Brees, Brady, Peyton Manning, and Favre have surpassed 70,000 passing yards.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Though the reasons why may have differed, both Christopher Bell and Justin Allgaier suffered from a lack of the speed necessary to contend for the NASCAR Xfinity Series title on Saturday.

In Bell’s case, the narrative from the Ford EcoBoost 300 was the same one that denied him of a championship shot in the closing laps a year ago. He just couldn’t run as high as he needed to.

“It was oddly familiar. I don’t know, man; I don’t get it. For whatever reason, whenever the tires start falling off here, I just struggle,” noted Bell, who led 40 laps on the night. “I don’t know what we’re missing to get me comfortable so that I can go around here. I’m okay for 10 or 20 (laps), but after that, we just fall apart for some reason.”

With 41 laps to go, Bell ducked to the low line to come down for his final pit stop, but appeared to miss pit road and had to come around a second time to make it down the lane for his last round of service.

Bell cycled out ahead of eventual champion Tyler Reddick and runner-up Cole Custer at lap 165, but was overhauled by both in less than two laps and faded back more than 17 seconds at the checkered flag.

“It was just a miscommunication,” Bell said of the pit road issue. “I don’t know if my spotter didn’t get told what our cue word was, but I told got the cue word to pit and then all of a sudden, I started pitting and he said, not now, not now. But that doesn’t matter when you get beat by 17 seconds. I’m glad that didn’t have an effect on the outcome of the race.

“That second to last run, I don’t know if I just did a better job blocking or what, but we definitely seemed to maintain a little bit better,” Bell added. “Then whenever we pitted, I didn’t know how many laps earlier that we pitted than the other two guys, but I was pretty happy when I drove by them, because I think we only had 30 or so laps to go at that point, and my car had been okay for that distance.

“There just wasn’t much of a chance once they (Reddick and Custer) got up to speed. They just ran me down and drove away.”

In the case of Allgaier, his weekend was rough from the outset.

Allgaier had contact with David Starr during Friday’s lone practice that forced his team to make repairs early on, then qualified outside the top 10 due to a lack of laps before racing his way into the top five.

However, a short-pitting strategy on his final pit stop that didn’t work out, combined with a flat tire inside the final 10 laps that sent him diving back to pit road, scuttled Allgaier’s championship hopes.

After climbing from his car at the end of 300 miles, Allgaier said he simply didn’t have the pace he needed right from the start.

“We just didn’t have the speed we were looking for tonight,” he said. “It was disappointing. I mean, we felt like in practice … the seven laps that we got that our balance was pretty good. We were excited about the race because we felt like the things that we worked on in practice and the things we had worked on in the shop, trying to make better for our program, we had done. Unfortunately in this one, we were just way too loose to really push at the speed that a lot of those guys were running.”

Even amid the disappointment of not being able to heavily contend for his first series title, Allgaier still found reasons to smile after the race.

“Harper, my daughter, came over and she said, ‘I love you, daddy, and I got you something to cheer you up,’ and it was a lug nut. It was a used lug nut even, and it still had the anti‑seize on it, so I ended up with anti‑seize all over my hand, but it did bring a smile for me,” Allgaier said. “Today was a rough day in my job, but from all other standpoints it was a fantastic day. I’m blessed to come and do what I love to do.  I get to drive a race car every day for a living, and it’s just a good day.

“Even being 14th, finishing a lap down and being fourth in points, that’s still better than a lot of guys that wish they could be in that same situation,” he added. “How can you be disappointed when there’s plenty of people standing in line waiting to have that same opportunity? So I’m excited for the future.”

VALENCIA, Spain – Marc Marquez wrapped up the MotoGP season with his 12th victory of the season on Sunday at Circuit Ricardo Tormo.

Jack Miller went from third to first in the opening corner aboard his Pramac Racing Ducati. Marquez, on the other hand, got a slow start and dropped to sixth after running slightly wide in turn one.

MINOOKA, Ill. — The Illini Racing Series hosted its annual midget racing banquet and championship celebration Saturday evening at Giordano’s of Minooka.

Scott Koerner, who drives both a midget and a late model stock car, was crowned the series champion for the third time, repeating his championship run of a year ago.  The 46-year-old Koerner, who hails from Joliet and claimed his first IRS title in 2016, won three features races during the season. Other winners during the year included Jordan Caskey, Ryan Finley and veteran racer Doug Orseske.

Koerner, who also races late models at Illinois’ Grundy County Speedway, began his speed career racing go karts and moved to stock cars in 1992.  Racing midgets on the full-time basis since 2008, Koerner wheeled the LaVerne and Johanna Spencer-owned, Spencer’s Jewelry-sponsored, GM Ecotec-powered, Beast chassis, yellow No. 1 entry to the championship this year.

Finishing behind Koerner in the final points tally were Finley, Christopher Adrien, Tom Eyman, Orseske and Caskey.  Rounding out the top 10 in the standings were Mick Billhorn, Mike Harrold, John Billhorn and Bill Dunham.   The series consisted of seven races in three states with competitors visiting Illinois’ Rockford Speedway, Indiana’s South Bend Motor Speedway and the Wisconsin International Speedway.

A number of special awards were handed out, including the Tom Arthur Sportsman of the Year – Mick and John Billhorn; the Bob Lockard Mechanic of the Year – Sue Spencer; Most Improved Driver – Ryan Finley; Glenn Ohlendorf Best Appearing Car – Tom Eyman; Bob Tattersall Hard Charger – Christopher Adrien; Bob Higman Rookie of the Year – Mike Harrold; Determination Award – Rich Drangmeister and Racer of the Year – Scott Koerner.

The first north London derby in the Women's Super League produced a record crowd of 38,262 for the competition on Sunday when Arsenal claimed a 2-0 victory at Tottenham.

The newly fully professional side held out until the 66th minute when Kim Little struck for the champions and Vivianne Miedema extended Arsenal's lead in the 82nd minute. It was the first time Tottenham, in its first top-flight campaign, had staged women's football at its main 61,000-capacity stadium, which opened earlier this year.

The crowd surpassed the 31,213 at Manchester City for the visit of Manchester United on the opening weekend of the season in September.

Tottenham hosted Arsenal on the first designated Women's Football Weekend in England which also saw 23,500 at Anfield for Liverpool's 1-0 loss to Everton.

Chelsea opened the season by hosting Tottenham in front of around 25,000 at Stamford Bridge. League leaders Chelsea were back at their usual home of Kingsmeadow on Sunday.

Maren Mjelde's penalty sealed a 1-0 victory over promoted Manchester United in front of 4,790 fans -- a WSL record crowd for a game not played in a large stadium usually used by the men's team.