In the aftermath of Monday’s announcement that Roger Penske was acquiring Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the NTT IndyCar Series, we present to our readers the story of Penske’s first Indianapolis 500 victory in 1972 with driver Mark Donohue. 

Love him or hate him, and there are many on both sides of that equation, Roger Penske’s unprecedented success in the Indianapolis 500 deserves recognition.

Penske once considered driving Indy himself but turned his considerable energy to the car owner’s role instead. In 1969, he arrived at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time with sports car racer Mark Donohue as his driver.

Penske in button-down shirts and the crew-cut wearing Brown University-educated Donohue were poles apart from drivers who’d dropped out of school to go racing and the best-dressed car owners who wore cowboy hats and boots.

Many in Indy car racing considered sports car racers a bit effeminate, but Penske soon quieted the skeptics by persistently practicing his life motto — effort equals result. Few were better prepared or more focused than Team Penske.

By his fourth year at Indianapolis, Penske had grown anxious for a victory. Chasing that goal, he surprised many by going outside the sports car ranks to add Gary Bettenhausen as a teammate to Donohue in 1972.

Bettenhausen was twice a USAC sprint car national champion. What he offered Penske was oval track savvy and the ability to setup a car for the unique nuances of oval racing.

Driving a pair of impeccably prepared, blue trimmed in yellow, Sunoco-sponsored McLarens, Bettenhausen and Donohue were consistently among the quickest during practice. On Pole Day, Donohue nabbed the third spot, while Bettenhausen qualified fourth.

In the days leading up to the race, most observers predicted a Penske driver would be the winner. Come race day, Bettenhausen assumed that role.

He took the lead on the 31st lap when polesitter Bobby Unser’s Eagle dropped out of the race. Bettenhausen soon left his closest competitors, Mike Mosley and Donohue, far behind.

Because he shouldered his legendary father’s incredible legacy (Tony Bettenhausen died attempting to win the 500), Gary Bettenhausen was the sentimental favorite. He dominated, leading 138 laps. But as it appeared a Bettenhausen image might finally appear on the Borg-Warner Trophy, he rolled to a stop.

A collective moan went up from the crowd.

“It was heartbreaking,” admitted Bettenhausen. “But 40 laps in I knew we were in trouble. The engine was overheating. I radioed Roger and he said, ‘Run it till it won’t run, Pal!’

“So I got out front, thinking I could at least win some of the lap prize money,” Bettenhausen added. “I tried a trick I’d learned racing sprint cars. At the end of the straights, I’d hit the kill button with the throttle wide open. The fuel flooded the valves and pistons and cooled it. Doing that, the temperature stayed down around 200 degrees.

“It just kept running, and I thought, ‘My family has tried to win this race for so long, maybe it’s finally going to happen,’” Bettenhausen said. “Then the yellow came out with 18 laps to go, and it was all over. Running that slow I couldn’t keep it cool and the engine seized.”

Bettenhausen remembered the crowd’s support helped assuage his disappointment. One group leaped the fence and surrounded him as he coasted to a stop.

“I bet I was handed 15 beers,” he laughed. “I climbed out of the car and sat there with those guys, drank some beer and watched the race.”

What Bettenhausen saw was Donohue charging after leader Jerry Grant, who was delivering a surprising run in Dan Gurney’s “Mystery Eagle.”

Donohue was gaining rapidly on Grant, but when Grant dove into the pits with a worn right-front tire, Donohue drove on to Penske’s first Indy 500 victory.

Donohue, typically gracious, said it should’ve been Bettenhausen’s victory. But Donohue’s victory was well deserved and made up for the 500 he should’ve won the previous year.

Much has changed since 1972. Gary Bettenhausen died in 2014 without winning at Indy. Donohue died driving a Penske Formula One car in 1975.

One thing that hasn’t changed is Penske’s love for the Indianapolis 500 and his intense desire to win the world’s greatest race.

And his creed, effort equals results, is still very much in play.

MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Austin Hill will return to Hattori Racing Enterprises in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series next season.

Hill will remain as the driver of the No. 16 Toyota Tundra next year, which will receive increased sponsorship support from United Rentals, as well as returning partner Weins Canada, with support from Toyota Racing Development.

“It’s awesome to be coming back in 2020,” said Hill. “We have plenty left to accomplish this season, and that’s our number one focus, but it’s great to have things in place for next year to where we can move right into 2020. A year ago, I never thought I’d have a real chance to be at a place like HRE, but (team owner) Shige (Hattori), Mike Greci, (crew chief) Scott (Zipadelli) and all these guys have been awesome to work with. This team is in a great position because of a lot of committed partners like United Rentals and TRD. They do so much for us, and we wouldn’t be where we’re at without them. We’ve put together a good year so far, and I know we can do even more next season.”

Through 21 races this season, Hill has put the No. 16 Toyota Tundra in victory lane three times, including the season opener at Daytona Int’l Speedway and gave the organization its third playoff victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Hill is currently fourth in the Gander Trucks playoff standings and has collected two pole awards along with six top-five and 12 top-10 finishes. Team owner Shige Hattori looks forward to continuing the team’s success this season into 2020 with the core group intact.

“Austin has done a good job this year, and we’re looking forward to improving even more next season,” Hattori said. “It’s great for the team and Austin to have the support from our sponsors like United Rentals, Weins Canada Group, our Toyota Dealer partners in Japan, and TRD. We’re glad to have Austin back for next season, but we want to finish this season strong with another championship.”

LAS VEGAS – Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Energy Systems Network have announced a two-year, $1 million prize competition that will culminate in a head-to-head, high-speed autonomous vehicle race Oct. 23, 2021, around the speedway’s 2.5-mile oval

The announcement was made at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, Nev.

The Indy Autonomous Challenge is a competition among universities to create software that enables self-driving Indy Lights race cars to compete in a head-to-head race on the IMS track. The development of such software can help speed the commercialization of full autonomous vehicles and enhance existing advanced driver-assistance systems in people-driven cars. These technologies help drivers remain in control and avoid accidents by prompting awareness and improving accuracy.

The Challenge builds upon the success and impact of the DARPA Grand Challenge – the 2004-05 defense research initiative that helped create the modern autonomous vehicle industry – as well as IMS’s roots dating back to 1909 as a proving ground for the nascent automotive industry. More than a century later, IMS has contributed to countless breakthroughs in automotive performance and safety, including the first rear-view mirror.

“There’s a fundamental connection between innovations on the racetrack and real-world improvements on the highway,” IMS President J. Douglas Boles said. “With the launch of the Indy Autonomous Challenge, IMS continues to embrace its historic role as a catalyst for the next generation of vehicle technologies in motorsports competition and wider consumer platforms. And while drivers will always be at the heart of racing at IMS, we’re excited to be part of this groundbreaking and exciting initiative.”

The Challenge consists of five rounds. Teams submit a short white paper during the first round, and in the second round, teams must demonstrate vehicular automation by sharing a short video of an existing vehicle or by participating in Purdue University’s self-driving go-kart competition at IMS. The Indy Autonomous Challenge’s simulation sponsor ANSYS will supply its industry-leading VRXPERIENCE Driving Simulator powered by SCANeRTM and its SCADE software development suite to teams for their use in developing autonomous vehicle software.

ESN and ANSYS will co-host “hackathons” to familiarize teams with the simulator’s full potential and ANSYS will award $150,000 in prizes to top finishers of a simulated race during the third round. The fourth round enables teams to test their actual vehicles at IMS in advance of the head-to-head race around the oval, which will award $1 million, $250,000, and $50,000 to the first, second, and third finishers, respectively.

“What we’re asking universities to do is hard,” said Matt Peak, director of mobility at Energy Systems Network. “Our hope is that by bringing together and offering up to participating teams the world’s premier automotive proving ground, performance chassis manufacturer, engineering research center and simulation platform, as well as nearly $1.5 million in total cash awards, universities will see the Challenge as not just throwing down the gauntlet but also extending the helping hand to accelerate innovation and the arrival of new technologies.”

Joining IMS and ESN for the announcement were race car manufacturer Dallara Automobili and the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR). Through Clemson University’s long-running vehicle prototype program Deep Orange, Clemson graduate automotive engineering students will collaborate with ESN and Dallara to engineer an autonomous-capable version of Dallara’s 210 mph IL-15 Indy Lights chassis that can accommodate the competing university teams’ driverless algorithms. Participating teams will be directly involved in the converted vehicle’s design and specifications through monthly virtual design reviews (VDRs) and other feedback channels throughout the competition.

“Deep Orange is an educational framework that immerses students in industry-like environments to simulate real-world R&D challenges facing companies today,” said Dr. Robert Prucka, Clemson University Kulwicki Endowed professor and Deep Orange 12 project leader. “Working with industry partners such as IMS, ESN, Dallara and ANSYS gives students unparalleled opportunities to work with the latest technologies and collaborate with cross-functional teams in a way that will make them more innovative and capable engineering leaders after they graduate.”

Five universities registered for the competition upon its opening this morning: Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST), Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), University of Florida, University of Illinois and the University of Virginia. Members of each of these early registered teams joined the organizers at the SEMA Show for the announcement.

“Nearly 15 years ago, the DARPA Grand Challenge helped prove the innovation-generating and industry-creating role of prize competitions, while recent years have seen the value of autonomous vehicle proving grounds – including Texas A&M RELLIS/TTI Proving Grounds Research Facility – on full display”, said Ivan Damnjanovic, associate professor and director of engineering project management at Texas A&M University. “We’re excited to be in on the ground level of such a dynamic effort that leverages both of these tools while adding others that can excite and empower students, inspire classrooms and coursework, and altogether help transportation research institutions advance their programs.”

SHANGHAI – Not long after Charles Howell III finished his final round in Las Vegas, he packed up for a trip to Asia he never imagined taking.

It wasn't just for golf. And he wasn't alone.

Howell took his wife and two children on a five-week tour of Asia that isn't over yet. It started with a week in Hong Kong, and his family followed him to PGA Tour stops in South Korea, Japan and mainland China. This week, they're off to Thailand before returning home to Florida.

''We just decided to do something we've never done,'' Howell said. ''It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip. They're old enough to get it and love it and appreciate it, but young enough where we can still manage to make it work.''

His children, Ansley Grace and Chase, are in third and second grade, respectively. Howell said they would Facetime with their teachers in their morning (evening in Florida), do their school work and then head off for adventures they can't find inside the gates of Isleworth.

''We thought the kids would learn from this real-world experience in other countries with different languages, different currencies, different beliefs,'' he said. ''It's been more fun than I thought it would be.''

The highlight?

That came at the start of their working vacation in Hong Kong, where tensions have been running high the last five months amid pro-democracy protests.

''With what's going on in the world, walking straight out of a department store into a 20,000-person protest,'' Howell said. ''The kids talked to some of them and they explained what they were doing. And then the temples, the religions, it was just incredible.''

Howell took his son to play Hong Kong Golf Club, but that was the extent of his golf outside the three Tour stops, where his best finish was a tie for eighth in the Zozo Championship, the PGA Tour's first official event in Japan.

''If my family wasn't here, I would definitely not have played three in a row,'' Howell said. ''I wanted the kids to see the world isn't the border of the United States, that the border isn't the back gate at Isleworth.''

The final stop was Thailand, primarily for the kids to see the elephants. Howell is friends with Kiradech Aphibarnrat, who told him he would love his home country. Nothing on the trip has disappointed thus far.

Doug Ferguson is a golf writer for The Associated Press

Sergio Garcia tied a dubious mark last week at the HSBC Champions. He joined Lee Westwood as the only players to have competed 60 times in the World Golf Championships without ever winning.

Both had good chances.

Garcia, who made his WGC debut as a 19-year-old, took a three-shot lead into the final round of the Bridgestone Invitational in 2014 when Rory McIlroy erased that in three holes and went on to a two-shot victory over the Spaniard.

Westwood finished runner-up to Mike Weir in the American Express Championship at Valderrama in 2000, though he made enough money that day to capture his first Order of Merit on the European Tour. He also was runner-up to Vijay Singh at Firestone in 2008, and in 2010 he lost a duel to Francesco Molinari in the HSBC Champions, Westwood's debut at No. 1 in the world.

Only two other players have made at least 50 starts in the WGCs without ever winning - Paul Casey (52) and Jim Furyk (51).

Casey was runner-up in the Match Play in consecutive years to Geoff Ogilvy in 2009 and Ian Poulter in 2010. Furyk had two close calls at Firestone, losing in a seven-hole playoff to Tiger Woods in 2001, and making double bogey from the 18th fairway to finish one shot behind Keegan Bradley in 2012.

Doug Ferguson is a golf writer for The Associated Press

Heung-min Son has been cleared to play in Tottenham's next three Premier League games after having a red card, issued for the challenge on Andre Gomes which led to the Everton midfielder suffering a serious ankle injury, overturned following an appeal by the club.

Son was dismissed by referee Martin Atkinson for serious foul play as a result of the incident during the second half of Sunday's 1-1 draw at Goodison Park.

Gomes on Monday underwent successful surgery to repair a fracture dislocation of his right ankle sustained when he landed off balance at speed after the tackle from Son and then collided with Spurs full-back Serge Aurier.

And after submitting statements and video evidence to support their claim for wrongful dismissal, Spurs have now successfully fought to overturn the card and subsequent three-match ban for the South Korean forward.

An FA statement said: "Heung-min Son will be available for Tottenham Hotspur FC's next three domestic fixtures after an independent Regulatory Commission upheld a claim of wrongful dismissal.

"The forward was sent off for serious foul play during the Premier League fixture against Everton FC on Sunday 3 November 2019."

Son, meanwhile, has travelled to Serbia with Tottenham today ahead of Wednesday's Champions League clash with Red Star Belgrade.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The Carolina Panthers, seeing no clear timetable for Cam Newton to return from a foot injury, on Tuesday placed their franchise quarterback on season-ending injured reserve.

Newton aggravated the Lisfranc injury, originally suffered in the third preseason game, in a Week 2 loss against Tampa Bay. He has not markedly improved from rehabilitation.

After Newton visited with foot specialist Dr. Robert Anderson on Friday in Green Bay, Wisconsin, management decided that it would be best for the quarterback and the team to shut down the 2015 NFL MVP for the rest of the season.

"For the past seven weeks, Cam has diligently followed a program of rest and rehab and still is experiencing pain in his foot," general manager Marty Hurney said in a statement. "He saw two foot specialists last week who agreed that he should continue that path prescribed by the team's medical staff, and that it likely will take significant time for the injury to fully heal.

"We have said all along that it is impossible to put a timetable on this injury. Nobody is more frustrated with that fact than Cam.''

Before this injury, the first pick of the 2011 draft had missed only three starts in seven years.

The Panthers will move forward with second-year undrafted quarterback Kyle Allen, who is 5-1 as the starter this season and 6-1 in his career. Newton had lost eight straight games dating back to last season.

Newton, 30, has one year left on his contract. He is scheduled to count $21.1 million against the 2020 salary cap. Should the team decide to move on from him after this season, it would clear $19.1 million in cap space.

Newton leads the Panthers in career touchdown passes (182) and rushing touchdowns (58). He is the first quarterback in NFL history with at least 50 rushing touchdowns, the most in league history.

He is third on the NFL's all-time rushing list for quarterbacks with 4,806 yards. Michael Vick leads the way with 6,109, followed by Randall Cunningham with 4,928.

"He's one of the fiercest competitors I've been around during my 20-plus years in the League,'' Hurney said. "At this time, we have decided that the best decision to reach the goal of bringing the foot back to 100 percent is to place Cam on injured reserve."

THE WIND IS swirling -- violent, roiling gusts that reach 40 mph and send those less heftily blessed lurching forward. Meanwhile, there's a driving rain, and if the pinpricks that lash the backs of the milling masses are any indication, pellets of hail are raining down too. Into this morass, a troupe of six or seven climbs atop the roof of a rusted-out gray van that might have been white once upon a time, armed with ketchup bottles and caulking guns filled with mustard. They let the ketchup and mustard fly, in great, looping arcs, spraying their intended target -- the man standing a few feet away and below, at the epicenter of this liquefied, grubby hellscape -- blanketing his glasses, lodging the condiments in the nooks and crannies of his beard, which measures just this side of "Duck Dynasty." That's when this horde of 500 gawkers (Maybe 800? Maybe 1,000? It's hard to tell how far back the crowd stretches, how high up the hill it climbs) reaches its frantic boiling pitch.

It's 11:30 on this Sunday morning in Orchard Park, New York; the Buffalo Bills are 5-1 and surging, and set to take on a floundering Philadelphia Eagles team at New Era Field; Pinto Ron, né Ken Johnson, who is perhaps Buffalo's most cherished, logic-defying Bills fan, is slathered in a glistening patina of condiments; and, damn it, all is right in western New York.

The Bills Mafia, the most devoted, enduring fan base the NFL over, finally has real hope. Er, well, they hope.

THE WIFE OF Bills safety Micah Hyde stands in the bed of a black Chevy Avalanche, bearing the wind gusts and the rain-hail two-for-one combo, reveling in the ketchup-and-mustard ceremony (ritual? shenanigans?). Amanda is no more than 20 feet back from the mess of it all, but she has also stood on that corroding van before as ketchup-and-mustard guest shooter. There's no real mystery as to who she is -- "HYDE HYDE HYDE HYDE HYDE HYDE," blares a white T-shirt under her gray hoodie -- the mystery is why she's here.

She lifts her arm and points to the swarming fans. Hello, look around, yes, that's why.

It seems unlikely she has ever asked Johnson why he does this, dug into what could possibly compel a 62-year-old man to volunteer for dousing-by-condiment, home game after home game, season after season.

Why do Pinto Ron and his minions offer shots of Wisniowka liqueur -- a libation one of the tailgate's many co-hosts likens to downing cough syrup gone very bad -- from the finger holes of a black bowling ball? (Another co-host, Nick, guesstimates he took his first go at said shot when he was 13.) Why do they keep a tin of pickles from a 1996 tailgate stashed in the back of Johnson's red, also extremely rusted-out 1980 Ford Pinto? ("They used to be pickles," Nick says, as he nudges the tin open just a crack to display the decaying contents. "Ooooooh," he recoils as his hand swipes one. "I touched that.") Why does Nick's dad, "Pizza Pete," cook his pizza in a filing cabinet and his Italian wedding soup in an oversized silver watering can? (He unloads a gallon-sized freezer bag, stuffed to the gills with raw chicken, diced celery and mounds of acini di pepe, into that watering can, which sits on top of a bed of coals, which all sit together in a decrepit wheelbarrow-cum-stove.)

Why? Because they did it last year and the year before that and the year before that. Because they did it in a lot, where the field house now stands, until 1997; then Lot 1 until 2011; then in the far back corner of Hammer's Lot, their current home. Because.

There's a frenzied, nonsensical feel to the entire venture. A few hours before he'll help drench Johnson in ketchup and mustard, Nick rounds the bend of the Pinto's back passenger side. He happens upon a free-standing toilet -- one that bears some truly alarming brown stains -- and opens the lid to reveal a cache of Labatt (Blue) and White Claw (mango). And as he snakes his way toward the front of the tailgate, a man waits at the bar to take a bowling ball shot. He's wearing a red O.J. Simpson jersey, Speedo-sized red shorts, rainbow mirror sunglasses and a white motorcycle helmet with stenciled letters that read "Donnie Darts." He'll take his cough-syrup-gone-bad shot ("It's a little disgusting if you think about it," he says) and then move on to other lots and to other tailgates. "Donnie Darts, he doesn't stay in one spot. Donnie likes to get around and see everybody. Donnie's not selfish," Donnie says. "We always talk about Donnie like that," he goes on, then drops to a whisper. "Because Donnie's real name's not Donnie."

There is also, however, a logic to all of this sensory overload. It's chaos powered by madcap genius and wonkiness undergirded by total, boring ordinariness. Johnson is a software developer, and his brother, Tom, is a mechanical engineer, which helps spark his creativity when it comes to finagling a way to cook baked potatoes with crushed beer cans and reused coal. Donnie Darts is a real estate agent who can't even go to the game today because he's showing a house in nearby Cheektowaga at 4 o'clock.

Between bites of food made in office furniture, Nick and the other co-hosts tiptoe around the precarious optimism threatening this season. That's what optimism does in this place, it lurks like an intruder, because these western New York natives are loath to really grab hold. "It's still early," Nick says. "We're still getting used to being good." He pauses, just briefly. "We got a lot of time to screw this up."

Despite the fact that -- or maybe, really, because -- these fans still treat positivity about their football team like foreign bodies in their systems, they've dedicated themselves to crafting the most college-like, chaotic tailgating panorama in the NFL. "I've had some weeks in the past where I'm like, f---, I'm ready to sell," says Eric Matwijow, the lot owner. "But we all look out for each other. I mean, we're all Bills fans. It's not gangs on gangs."

Reputation notwithstanding, it's not all debauchery and marauding red-white-and-blue-clad numbskullery, is what he's saying. Sure, the atmosphere feels a little more charged today, he says, with the Eagles and their own fanatics in town, but there's nary a table-smasher in sight, Eric points out. Then, in the same breath, he gestures over his right shoulder to the building next door to Hammer's Lot that looks like a home but is really Buffalo Spine & Chiropractic. It looms like a redbrick warning of where you might find yourself with the wrong table-smashing escapade.

Buffalo fans' propensity for tailgating one-upmanship, the rare but still present mob-mentality-seeking faction of Bills Mafia, scared parts of the Bills front office enough for them to take steps to rein in that particular subset of extremists, fan backlash be damned. (Political backlash too. Tom Reed, a representative for New York's 23rd district, railed against the team's "nickeling and diming" of fans just out to enjoy some friendly neighborhood tailgating.) The problem, of course, was that some -- including Andy Major, the Bills' vice president of operations and guest experience -- didn't think it was all friendly neighborhood tailgating. He watched game after game last season from the command center, monitoring what he calls "near-riot situations," and finally, during the last home game of the year, he went undercover to understand the fan behavior close up. Major put a Bills jersey on, a hoodie on over that. He felt wildly out of place without a beer in his hand, so he picked up an empty can off the ground to blend in. He waited to see whether this frenetic pregame energy would escalate into dangerous misbehavior. It did, and "it was ugly." It did, and he was scared.

Major and his team briefly considered imposing a tailgating moratorium in the bus lot, the site that concerned him the most. In the end, they settled on a less dire tack to clean up the bus lot's image. Raise the cost of parking permits (weeding some fans out). Ban tailgating alongside vehicles (limiting the opportunity for jumping off said vehicles). Introduce a tailgating village -- essentially a sanitized version of the real thing -- and let it be BYO for food, beer and games (minimizing the opportunity for the more wild, wild west elements of previous Bills tailgating experiences).

Money grab? Some fans think so. One, a guy named Matt standing outside the camper his father parked the Friday (Friday!) before the game against the Eagles, scoffed at the idea of being made to start tailgating later, as though mere 48-hour sessions were an affront to his sensibilities. "It drives me nuts," he says. "I don't know why they're squashing it."

Necessary evil? Some fans think that too. Where they're united -- tailgating-safety truthers and tailgating-safety reformers alike -- is here: Protect this endeavor, this absurd, Buffalo-specific tradition, at all costs. Can't they at least have this, these perennial have-nots? No Super Bowl title in franchise history, no postseason tickets punched in 18 of the past 19 years, no playoff game won, period, since 1995. Misery doesn't love company in Buffalo. Misery loves tailgating.

Across the way from Pinto Ron & Co., nestled in the B2 section of the camper lot -- there are RVs as far as the eye can see -- sit a few friends who became friends doing exactly what they're doing now. One of them, Tee, brings her corgi, Annie, to every home game, has for the seven years she's had her.

"She's the T-O-M B-R-A-D-Y corgi," Tee says.

"Tom Brady!" Tee yells, and Annie charges, barking with enough brio to be ferocious if she weighed more than 25 pounds. "Tom Brady!" Tee yells, and Annie loses her dog mind again, in a way that makes her seem rabid. Tee swears that she didn't intentionally train her dog to hate the sound of Tom Brady's name. It's just that she and her tailgating friends have now spent nearly two full decades returning to their campers after games, spitting out the New England quarterback's name like it was a curse -- and Annie read the room. Well, the parking lot.

"She picked up on our saying 'Tom Brady, damn it!'" fellow tailgater Dina says. "Because we literally would come back after getting our ass kicked and say 'Damn Tom Brady.'"

THE TIME AND effort and intestinal fortitude Bills tailgaters display on any given Sunday -- and this year aside, typically on losing Sundays -- all raises a vital question: Why on the tailgating gods' green earth do they do this? They sacrifice sleep. Like Tee's friend Russ, who braved the elements the Saturday night before the Eagles game, rousing out of his camper at 2:30 in the morning to hammer down the stakes of a tent that was uprooted by those 40 mph gusts. They sacrifice time at home. Like Tee's other friend Pete, who has driven six and a half hours from Enfield, Connecticut, for nearly every home game for 27 years. They sacrifice hometowns. Like Rich, who grew up in central Jersey in Giants and Eagles country but adopted the Bills as a kid because back then New Era Field was called Rich Stadium. He moved to Orchard Park in 2015 with his wife six weeks after getting married, and the impetus for their relocation was "99 percent for the Bills."

The not-so-dark underbelly of this whole enterprise is that they love it but they love each other more. There's a community here, and the pull is strong enough to make them want to make these sacrifices.

As for the Bills themselves, for all their historic bumbling on the field, they do seem to want to do more than just recognize this weird, beautiful symbiosis between city and football team. They want to honor it, like an unspoken thank-you for sticking with and believing in a team most fans in most cities would not have. The players stream out of the stadium on Saturday nights after pregame meetings, and tailgaters like Rich bum-rush the curb to wave their hats and scream for them. The players honk their approval all down Abbott Road. Coach Sean McDermott has traversed the camper lot on Sundays, before and after games. "I see a lot of myself in them," he says.

Even Josh Allen, just 18 months into his new life as a Buffalonian, has shown smarts in his wooing of this town. The Bills beat the Giants in mid-September, and when a reporter asked the quarterback what kind of impression he thought he left on New York City fans and "New York teams," Allen shrugged, said "One New York team" and winked. Did he mean to echo Jim Kelly, who needled the New Jersey-based "New York" Giants and "New York" Jets 33 years ago -- 10 years before Allen was born -- on the "Late Show With David Letterman"? Did he mean to sound exactly like one of the most beloved Bills of all time? He didn't. He didn't even know, at the time, that Jim Kelly had uttered similar thoughts. He was just kicking back at all the people who kick down Buffalo. "We get a bad rap here," he says, standing guard outside his locker. "People think of it as cold. That's really all. And it's a beautiful place here. When people kind of just say, 'We're not a part of New York'? We are absolutely part of New York."

The spectacle isn't beside the point. The spectacle is the point.

Ray and Adele Cracknell, 73 and 71, gave up their season tickets two years ago after 27 seasons -- too much cold, too much standing up -- but they still tote their Windsport camper to an RV lot, as they've done for 30 years now. They park themselves on Fay Street, right off of Bills Drive and no more than a few football fields' worth of yards from New Era Stadium. When they arrived for the first game this season, they found that the Bills organization had erected brown fencing the whole way down Bills Drive. They hate that fence. "It blocks our view of the people," Adele says.

They liked watching this parade of die-hards flooding the stadium. They were those die-hards for nearly three decades, and they liked the view, this reminder of what they were a part of then and are still a part of now. These legions who, against all odds and all reason -- with so little hope for so long -- keep coming back for more.

"I DON'T THINK we know how to deal with hope," says Pat Duffy, an ardent Bills fan and morning radio show host in nearby Rochester.

Buffalo boasts one of the seven best records in 2019 and might be ... good? And this California-by-way-of-Wyoming kid, Josh Allen, who has led three fourth-quarter comebacks already this year might be ... good? And this coach, with his Andy Reid and Ron Rivera pedigree, might be ... good?

The answer to these questions is so on-the-nose-Buffalonian it practically hurts. Are they good? Maaaaaaybe, but probably not. As it turns out, all this hope Buffalo fans hope they have after the team's best start since going 7-1 in 1993 might be pinned on a teetering house of cards. Buffalo, despite its place in the AFC East standings, ranks 26th in ESPN'S Football Power Index this year, worse than the 2-6 Browns and the 1-7 Falcons. The Bills are the worst 6-2 team, period, since 2015 -- as far back as these numbers go -- and it's not even close.

In less dire news, two things can be true for the Bills. They can be wholly unimpressive but still have put themselves in a strong position, at the midpoint of the 2019 season, to crack the postseason again. They're more likely than not, FPI says, to do just that. It's what comes afterward that's dicey. Buffalo has a 63% chance to make the playoffs ... and a 13% chance to advance to the divisional round.

What FPI is saying is that come January, the most Bills fans might have to root for is the Patriots falling short of making it to their fourth straight Super Bowl. That's a feat only the Bills have achieved in NFL history. Even though Buffalo lost all four, even though the Bills' greatest successes were also their greatest failures, that record streak is something to want to hold on to, says Del Reid, one of the unofficial godfathers of the Bills Mafia.

"The Patriots have taken a lot from us over the past 20 years," he says. "Don't take that. Please don't take that."

Damn Tom Brady.

"I'M NOT DISTRAUGHT now," Russ says. His tailgating friends, Tee and Dina and Annie the Tom Brady corgi, are nowhere to be found, perhaps taking shelter from the still swirling winds. It's just Russ and the post-Eagles-game detritus, the camper lot strewn with gnawed-over chicken wings and what looks to be a mound of macaroni and cheese.

Russ doesn't really get distraught anymore, not after the first Super Bowl loss after the 1990 season and the Dallas Stars' "no goal" that beat the Sabres for the Stanley Cup in 1999. "After those two times, it was, 'All right, well, I can handle anything now. Nothing's going to kill me.'"

The resignation, it burns.

The Bills, you see, did again this Sunday what they've done for so many Sundays that came before. They lost, 31-13 to the Eagles this particular time. Their loss wasn't as alarming as the way they managed to lose, with ugly quarterbacking (Allen's 18.9 QBR was his lowest of the season to date), disappearing defense (Eagles running backs gashed them for 3.8 yards before first contact per rush, almost 1.5 yards more than the defense allowed in its first six games) and a general inability to prove that this time will be different. And a win the next week against the one-win Redskins? Not exactly a balm for frazzled nerves.

McDermott and his players mostly reject the notion that the Eagles loss carries any big, bad, metaphorical meaning. It's a week-to-week league and all that. The Eagles were desperate for a win and played like it, and so on.

"Everybody's waiting. 'We think they're pretenders,'" says linebacker Lorenzo Alexander, one of the Bills' veterans, parroting the team's hypothetical critics. "You're going to lose at some point. Does that define you, that one game?"

And so it was that 90 minutes after the final snap, the lots are a ghost town, a calm after the storm. The rain has mostly stopped now, but the air feels wet and the wind is still howling, so nearly all the tailgating revelers have holed up in their campers or hightailed it home in their cars. A smattering of fans huddle beneath an enclosed white tent, a portable heater blasting, watching the late afternoon slate of games. Rich, the New Jersey-to-Orchard Park transplant, runs alongside his Bills-festooned bus with the Zubaz lining and yells "See you at the Super Bowl!" to prove how hardy his resolve is for this team. And across the way, back in Hammer's Lot, Pinto Ron and his brother get started on the hourslong breakdown, putting away the wheelbarrow and the pizza cabinet and the bar where the bowling ball rests. It's a little like Tetris, this exercise, maneuvering all this oversized paraphernalia. But Pinto Ron does it home game in and home game out, and he'll do it all again next week. They all will. Look for them. They always come back.

CHICAGO -- Expect to see more Kyle Kuzma on the floor for the Los Angeles Lakers Tuesday night at the United Center.

In his first pair of games back, Kuzma logged 19 minutes in an overtime win over the Mavs, then 16 minutes against the Spurs, but that number will jump to 26 against the Chicago Bulls, Lakers coach Frank Vogel said.

"To me, it's not so much what his limitations are. It's really about rhythm and timing and conditioning, for me, in terms of what his minutes end up being. But he's allowed to play 26 now," Vogel said.

Kuzma was sidelined for the first four games of the regular season with a stress reaction in his left ankle. He suffered the injury in advance of the FIBA World Cup while playing for Team USA, and is now using this time to play catch-up.

"I haven't really practiced, just kind of been in the games and just trying to learn and get my rhythm from there. But it's a process, and I've kind of been treating this road trip with the first couple games as kind of my preseason," Kuzma told ESPN.

In his regular-season debut, Kuzma put up nine points and three boards at Dallas on Friday, then five points on Sunday at San Antonio. He told ESPN that he doesn't mind being viewed as a pivotal piece to help push this team over the hump as he adjusts to his role with the offseason addition of Anthony Davis.

"Yeah, I see myself as a main contributor in some way," Kuzma said. "I'm going to play a lot in big moments, and just trying to take pressure of everybody and making everybody better with the energy that I kind of bring every night and the attention that I kind of draw."