AVONDALE, Ariz. – NASCAR officials have issued a behavioral penalty to Richard Petty Motorsports driver Bubba Wallace for an incident last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.

Wallace has been fined $50,000 and docked 50 driver points for intentionally spinning to bring out a caution flag on lap 243 in the midst of green flag pit stops during the AAA Texas 500.

The caution adversely affected championship contender Kyle Larson and several other drivers, with Larson expressing his displeasure with the situation multiple times in the aftermath of the AAA Texas 500.

“What really killed our race was the No. 43 (Bubba Wallace) spinning on purpose,” Larson said shortly after the AAA Texas 500. “They put us a lap down. I think we were up to fourth at that point. It really killed us and a few others. You hate to see that and be affected by it, but it is what it is. There’s nothing you can do about it now.”

In comments to NBC Sports reporter Dustin Long Friday at ISM Raceway in Avondale, Ariz., Wallace said he wasn’t worried about any potential penalties resulting from his spin.

“Until they do anything, no. I’m not the only one to do it. I’m racing for myself. Not for (Kyle) Larson, not for Chevrolet,” Wallace said.

#NASCAR … Here is what ⁦@BubbaWallace⁩ said about his spin last weekend at ⁦@TXMotorSpeedway⁩ pic.twitter.com/8wkyaf4NC6

— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) November 9, 2019

Richard Petty Motorsports issued a statement Saturday indicating the team would not appeal the penalty.

“Our team met with NASCAR officials this morning to discuss Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr.’s post-practice comments on Friday, Nov. 8, concerning an on-track incident which occurred at the Texas Motor Speedway,” Philippe Lopez, Richard Petty Motorsports director of competition, said. “We fully understand NASCAR’s position and expectations of its competitors. NASCAR has a difficult job officiating race events and we do not need to make the task more challenging. Wallace will not appeal the penalty, and will direct his immediate focus to this weekend’s event at the ISM Raceway.”

CONCORD, N.C. – He may be with a new team this weekend at The Dirt Track at Charlotte, but Max McLaughlin’s goals in a big-block modified haven’t changed one bit.

McLaughlin is still seeking his first Super DIRTcar Series victory during this weekend’s Can-Am World Finals, hoping to secure a crown-jewel trophy in front of his hometown crowd.

The 19-year-old from Mooresville, N.C. – who drove for years in big-block modified competition for Heinke-Baldwin Racing – is in action this weekend for Graham Racing and car owner Ray Graham.

“I’ve been excited all weekend, man,” McLaughlin told SPEED SPORT of his World. “Graham Racing gave me the call, and I’m glad they did, because I wasn’t planning on running World Finals. I drove his car earlier in the year at Can-Am (Motorsports Park), though … drove the (No.) 27 there, and we reunited here to run the World Finals and who knows what else.

“Ray (Graham) is a really, really good guy, and gave me a shot to come here this weekend that I’m really grateful for,” he added. “We had a tough break Friday night, but hopefully can rebound for the finale.”

Unlike his Al Heinke-owned ride from past years, which carried the team’s No. 6H in honor of Heinke and noted chassis brand Troyer Race Cars, McLaughlin’s mount this weekend carries a number that’s far closer to the heart of both the teenager and his famed father – former NASCAR racer Mike McLaughlin.

“So Ray asked what number we wanted to put on the car, and I said, ‘you know, let’s put the Crazy 8 back on. That’s my number and it runs in our family; it was Dad’s first racing number too and it means a lot to me. Truth be told, I couldn’t think of any other number we could have possibly put on the car.”

With a familiar number and many family and friends in attendance, McLaughlin is as grateful as ever to be back in the seat at The Dirt Track at Charlotte and competing at home this weekend.

“I love this place. We’ve had a lot of success here and probably should have won by now, but we’ve just had bad luck,” McLaughlin noted. “Our luck has really not been any better lately, but we had a win and a track record this week in the outlaw kart … so hopefully that’ll turn it around a little bit. It just means a lot, though, you know? I’m really happy to be here.

“Ray is a good friend of ours and it’s always a blast driving for him.”

After an extended stretch of bad luck – including mishaps at both the Billy Whittaker Cars 200 and the Eastern States 200, as well as his flat tire on Friday night at Charlotte – McLaughlin is hoping that Saturday night’s Can-Am World Finals finale is finally his time to shine on the sport’s biggest stage.

“I don’t remember what we were … I think we won four races last year in the modified. And I only ran six races this year, but I mean, we should have won a few already,” he said. “God forbid, we should have won Super DIRT Week (at Oswego Speedway). I feel like we had a good shot there, and a tire fell off with a broken hub or whatever happened there. So that took us out of $50,000. And then last week (during Eastern States weekend), we had a parts malfunction that sent us flipping and took us out of winning $40,000. So there’s 90 grand that I feel like we had a good shot at winning that’s out the window now.

“But we’re here to win. We ain’t here to turn on second, and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

Justin Thomas joined the ESPN's “College Gameday” crew on Saturday in Tuscaloosa, Alabama as the guest selector.

Thomas was a Haskins Award winner for the University of Alabama and helped lead the Crimson Tide to a national championship in 2013.

“Gameday” goes to different college campuses each week to spotlight the biggest games, and there are none bigger this week than No. 2 Alabama hosting No. 1 LSU.

Thomas, of course, picked Alabama to win; though, analyst Lee Corso sported the Tiger headgear for his selection.

Here’s a look at Thomas’ 12 games with his picks in bold:

Princeton at Dartmouth

Florida State at Boston College

Louisville at Miami

Notre Dame at Duke

Wake Forest at Virginia Tech

Southern Cal at Arizona State

Kansas State at Texas

Baylor at Texas Christian

Iowa State at Oklahoma

Iowa at Wisconsin

Penn State at Minnesota

LSU at Alabama

On the 30th anniversary of its demise, the Berlin Wall fell once again, this time at the Olympiastadion, where Hertha Berlin hosted RB Leipzig.

Throughout the week, the city of Berlin celebrated the peaceful revolution that led to the reunification of the two Germanys in 1990. Events took place all over the city ahead of the main celebrations on Saturday, which included the destruction of a wall on the Olympiastadion pitch before Leipzig defeated Hertha 4-2 in a Bundesliga clash.

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hertha constructed a wall across the halfway line of their pitch to symbolise the division of the country three decades ago.

"Zusammen gegen Mauern, zusammen für Berlin" -- united against walls, united for Berlin -- was the message written on the wall. On the giant screen, famous speeches by former U.S. presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were shown.

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," Reagan said as the fans on the Ostkurve unveiled a giant choreo of the Brandenburg Gate. Above it was written: "Walls can't resist us Berliners."

Dem ist nichts hinzuzufügen. #WirSindEinBerliner#mauerfall30 #BSCRBL #hahohe pic.twitter.com/4HZizUH8Cv

— Hertha BSC (@HerthaBSC) November 9, 2019

The players of Hertha and Leipzig walked out of the tunnel alongside a Trabant, engineered by the famous East German car brand of the same name, which drove through the wall as the players lined up.

The remains of the wall were then carried away to the sound of "Heroes," the song David Bowie recorded at Berlin's Hansa Studios in 1977.

"Many of our members and fans were affected directly when the wall was built in 1961," Hertha executive Paul Keuter told ESPN. "As a club with a long tradition and that is an integral part of Berlin, those key moments of our city's history just play a role for us.

"History shows that walls, especially those in our minds, have never been a good solution. On the contrary, they bring suffering and harm. Here in Berlin we know that walls are no solution."

Hertha was founded in the late 19th century in what would become the east after World War II and they later relocated to the west.

Leipzig, their opponents on the day, are a football team based in the former east, but are bankrolled by an Austrian soft-drink giant.

USA's ODI status secured in April has already guaranteed them 36 ODIs over the next three years as part of Cricket World Cup League Two, but their rise in the ICC rankings might also help convince Full Members to play more matches against them in conjunction with tours to the Caribbean. So hopes Johnny Grave, the Cricket West Indies' chief executive.

"Hopefully West Indies and USA can have a really good positive partnership to support each other and to build cricket in this time zone in the Americas and grow the game because that's what we need," Grave told ESPNcricinfo in a recent interview.

"What USA Cricket needs is certainty, that we are coming. Then we can focus on how this becomes a real celebration of cricket, how we can promote the sport, get grassroots programs in and around it, how we can play USA or the opposition can play USA as warm-ups is definitely something that we are very open to. We've all said that we want to grow the game. Well, the North American market is somewhere we have to grow cricket if we want to become a truly global sport."

CWI is open to expanding fixture arrangements with a focus on West Indies T20I matches played in Florida over the next few years. A tentative agreement had been in place for USA and West Indies to play a T20 warm-up match there ahead of the India series in August. But sources have said USA pulled out of it in order to have a three-week squad training camp in Los Angeles. West Indies will, however, return to Florida in August 2020 to play two T20Is against South Africa, as previously reported by ESPNcricinfo.

Grave said practice matches between touring teams and the USA could be a viable starting point and things can move forward from there. "I think we're open-minded. There's always an opportunity to play behind closed doors, not open it up to the public, to not have full status. But we'd be really open to saying, 'Well no, the international status is there. Let's play a fully-fledged international.

"There's so much costs of bringing in all the TV production kit in terms of set-up costs that actually to add on another game when everything is already set up isn't insurmountable, in which case that's something we'd definitely want to discuss with USA Cricket."

For the third consecutive edition, USA have been invited to participate in the Regional Super50 tournament held this month in Trinidad & Tobago as CWI continue to look at more options for collaboration.

"In terms of playing USA Cricket if and when we can identify a gap in our calendar, we always have to fly to pretty much anywhere in the world via Miami, New York or London," Grave said. "Bringing our teams from the Caribbean for training camps, to play games and then to fly elsewhere in the world is definitely something that logistically makes sense.

"So if the diaries align… One of the things that USA Cricket are doing is playing a lot more competitive cricket. So it's not just a case of when our team are available but when USA Cricket are available. But that's definitely something we'd be interested to do and not just men's cricket. We'd be keen to bring our West Indies women's team to play matches and even Under-19s boys and girls. We're talking to them about the whole scope of cricket. We're always looking for opportunities for our players to play and also to assist USA and Canada in their growth and development."

As for next year's T20I series against South Africa in Florida, Grave said that he expects the ticket prices to be much more affordable. When India played there earlier this year, the grandstand seats started at USD 100. It was less than half that when Bangladesh came over in 2018.

"We saw it in the World Cup that the Indian fans and subcontinent fans are the most passionate fans in the world and are desperate to see their stars when they come over on their doorstep," Grave said. "The tickets get snapped up so quickly online and it's difficult to hold them back necessarily for other fans. South Africa will definitely be a more affordable price point. Hopefully even Americans who have heard about these games will come and watch the cricket and see what it's all about."