INDIANAPOLIS – John Della Penna, who fielded cars in CART and the Indy Racing League, has died at the age of 68 following a battle with cancer.

From Buenos Aires, Argentina, he began his career in race car ownership in the Atlantic Series. He fielded cars for a number of drivers through the years, including Jimmy Vasser, Richie Hearn, Scott Harrington and Memo Gidley.

In 1996 – the first year of the split between CART and the IRL – Della Penna decided to compete in both tours. His team made it’s Indianapolis 500 debut that year with Hearn at the wheel, scoring a third-place result.

Later in the year Hearn gave Della Penna his lone victory at Indy car competition at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sept. 15, 1996 with the Indy Racing League.

The next few years Della Penna’s team focused on CART with Hearn remaining at the wheel. The pairing ended after the 1999 season, with Gidley and Norberto Fontana sharing his car during the 2000 season.

Della Penna shut down his Indy car program at the end of the 2000 season.

Chris Windom’s month of May was unprecedented, largely for the amount of racing he packed into it and the number of different divisions in which he competed.

After all, there have been very few drivers in any era who would have taken on the challenge of adding the Indy Lights Freedom 100 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to a schedule that already included full-time rides in the USAC National Sprint Car Series, USAC National Midget Series and USAC Silver Crown Series.

However, Windom’s month of May was also unprecedented for the amount of carnage he endured and had to battle back from — a tall task for any racer anywhere in the world.

Windom’s holiday week of racing featured five different disciplines — Indy Lights, non-winged sprint cars on both pavement and dirt and Silver Crown cars on both pavement and dirt —  in a seven-day span.

While that kind of a rigorous schedule alone is something that might scare off most grassroots racers, it’s a challenge Windom embraced with open arms because of his passion for the sport.

“I love racing more than anything, and particularly racing anything I can, anywhere I can,” said Windom. “It’s what I signed up for, I guess. I’m fortunate to be a guy who gets to do that, because very few people have gotten the opportunities to be able to do the things that I’ve gotten to do. It’s pretty cool that I have the people backing me who want me to do things like what we tried to do in May this year, and it definitely fuels me to keep going and trying to win races because that’s how you get more chances.”

Windom began his wild week on May 21 with an Indy Lights test session at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, then practiced his non-winged pavement sprint on May 23 at Anderson (Ind.) Speedway before rolling over to the Terre Haute Action Track later that night to run the USAC-sanctioned Tony Hulman Classic sprint car race on dirt.

May 24 saw the Canton, Ill., native practice and qualify his Indy Lights car at IMS, helicopter over to Anderson Speedway to qualify his Little 500 sprint car and then rush to the Indiana State Fairgrounds dirt mile for the Hoosier Hundred USAC Silver Crown Series event that evening.

The Freedom 100 for Indy Lights took center stage on Friday, May 25, followed by the Silver Crown Carb Night Classic that night before the Little 500 on Saturday, May 26.

A non-winged sprint car event at Kokomo (Ind.) Speedway, honoring Windom’s longtime and late friend Bryan Clauson, capped off the week-long stretch on Sunday night, May 27.

Amid that week was chaos and crashes aplenty for Windom, who started a sequence of hard hits on lap six of the Hoosier Hundred at the Indy Mile, shredding a tire coming down the frontstretch and barrel-rolling violently before climbing out under his own power.

The bad news continued the next day when Windom was swept up in an opening-lap melee during the Freedom 100 after David Malukas spun into his path and Windom’s Indy Lights machine launched into the turn-four SAFER barrier.

Windom’s string of three crashes in three straight races concluded with a bang in the hours following the Freedom 100 when the engine blew in his Silver Crown car at Lucas Oil Raceway and he pounded the outside wall.

Many drivers faced with such a string of adversity might have thrown in the towel, but not Windom. He soldiered on to compete in the Little 500 — a 500-lap sprint car race on the high-banked, quarter-mile paved oval.

Though he ended the race down four laps to winner Kody Swanson, Windom finished fifth — a result he considered “a win, given everything we went through to get there.”

It was the start of a turnaround to Windom’s luck, which continued despite a rainout at Kokomo.

He went on to win his first USAC National Midget Series feature during Indiana Midget Week in June, a long-awaited triumph with Clauson-Marshall Racing that came at Lawrenceburg (Ind.) Speedway after a battle with teammate Tyler Courtney.

That was the moment Windom admitted he was “back to full song,” something that had been a tough feeling for the Prairie State native to come by in light of his rough month of May.

“The win at Lawrenceburg really started to heal the wounds of what went on for us during the month of May,” explained Windom. “We just had to — and I’ve been doing this for quite a while, going back to the beginning of my career — forget the lows and focus forward, because if you beat yourself up or get down, it’s hard to get out of that funk when you get down on yourself.

“You just have to go out with confidence in yourself, believing you can win and confidence in every race car that you strap into that it will go out and perform for you when the green flag drops.”

Windom is far from the first driver to go through a run of adversity and have to battle back; it’s a song and dance that happens to rookies, veterans and champions alike.

Click below to keep reading the story.

NAPA, Calif. – Justin Thomas has some extra motivation to go low this week as he kicks off a new season at the Safeway Open.

Thomas has been a frequent visitor to Baker’s Bay in the Bahamas, making multiple high-profile spring break trips with the likes of Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler, and he was watching at home while the area was devastated by Hurricane Dorian earlier this month. Baker’s Bay was only a few miles away from where the storm made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane before stalling out for nearly 48 hours and leaving a wake of destruction behind.

“To have that place almost completely wiped away, being closed for a year and a half or two (years), and the amount of damage it had and the fact that, you know, that spot, Baker's, is not even as bad as Marsh Harbour and other Abaco (islands) – it’s awful, it really is,” Thomas said Wednesday. “Those people that worked there, they don’t have houses to go back to and people that have grown up there and been through 13, 14 hurricanes, their house didn’t make it. It’s like, what do they have to go to?”

Thomas shared on social media that he made an undisclosed donation to support Convoy of Hope’s efforts in the Bahamas, and he is pledging $1,000 for every birdie he makes over the four remaining starts he has planned for 2019, starting this week at Silverado Resort & Spa.

“There’s nothing that I could do individually that could fix everything, but my big thing is I was just trying to spread the word and get others to hopefully pledge with me,” Thomas said. “It’s going to take a long time for them to heal and recover, so any little thing any person can do is huge.”

Thomas has reason to expect a few birdies this week on the North Course at Silverado, where he is the highest-ranked player in the field and where he cracked the top 10 in both 2016 and 2017. This will be his first start of the 2019-20 season, and also the first since a skin cancer scare that led to him having a mole cut out from his lower leg on Sept. 9 following a routine check-up.

Thomas had to limit his activity for two weeks while his leg recovered, but he feels ready to go in wine country after receiving a clean bill of health from his dermatologist.

“Anytime you get a text from your doctor, after hours, telling you to call him is usually not a good thing. So when I did, he kind of explained the situation and told me what was going on,” Thomas said. “I got the stitches out two days ago. So it feels good to have them out so it doesn’t feel like I’m ripping them everywhere I guess.”

Vinicius Jr. scored a stunning goal to help Real Madrid beat Osasuna 2-0 at the Bernabeu on Wednesday night to move into first place in La Liga ahead of cross-town neighbors Atletico.

Zinedine Zidane started a heavily rotated XI with Karim Benzema, Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois all on the bench, and the hosts went close twice inside of 20 minutes with Luka Jovic firing over the crossbar from close range and Toni Kroos just missing a golazo from distance soon after.

Osasuna had their chances, but Real Madrid were the first to score on 35 minutes when Vinicius Jr. picked up a pass from Kross, cut to his right and fired an unstoppable shot past Ruben to give his team a 1-0 lead at the break.

- ESPN La Liga fantasy: Sign up now!
- When does the transfer window reopen?

Jovic made a mess of a clear-cut chance to double Madrid's lead just after the break, somehow flashing his shot over the bar for a second time after Lucas Vazquez had set him up with a one-on-one against Ruben.

The Serbian looked to have made amends just before the hour mark, slotting home from another Vazquez assist, but Jovic, still in search of his first goal since joining Los Blancos, was adjudged to be slightly offside on the play after video review and the goal was waved off.

Rodrygo, the summer arrival from Santos, finally gave Real their second, settling a long ball over the top of the Osasuna defence with a sublime first touch and racing into the penalty area to slot home a far post shot for the 2-0 lead.

The result puts extra significance on Saturday's Madrid derby at the Wanda Metropolitano with first place honours in La Liga on the line.

Nottinghamshire 77 for 1 (Slater 29*, Clarke 1-11) trail Surrey 402 for 6 dec (Borthwick 137, Pope 106) by 325 runs

Nottinghamshire dented Surrey's prospects of rounding off their County Championship campaign with a victory as they saw out a tricky session on the third evening at the Oval.

The home side declared at 402 for 6 and set out to try and capture 20 wickets in the time remaining, but they were largely thwarted by Nottinghamshire, who reached stumps for the loss of Steven Mullaney.

Ben Slater was 29 not out and Ben Compton unbeaten on 16 as they steered the visitors to 77 for 1 before bad light ended play - meaning a draw looks the most likely outcome in this rain-affected climax to the season.

Earlier, Ollie Pope had completed his second hundred since returning from injury, sharing a partnership of 222 with fellow centurion Scott Borthwick as Surrey batted their opponents out of the game.

Having lost virtually four entire sessions to poor weather, the pair looked keen to step up the pace once the umpires finally gave them the green light to resume at 248 for 2 soon after 1pm.

Pope, who returned to the crease on 79, lost no time in advancing towards the eighth ton of his first-class career as he square cut Mullaney and Paul Coughlin for boundaries. The 21-year-old reached three figures from 165 balls with a rather more uncertain shot, an outside edge off Jack Blatherwick that flew through the gully area for four.

But Pope did not last much longer, misjudging a delivery from Jake Ball on his leg stump and lofting it to Compton on the midwicket boundary.

Surrey began to lose wickets at a steady rate, with Ben Foakes heaving across the line at Blatherwick and getting a bottom edge that scattered his stumps.

Mullaney, who put in a lengthy stint from the Vauxhall End, picked up two scalps in the run-up to tea, trapping Will Jacks in front of his stumps with an inswinger.

Borthwick - who had earlier been dropped at second slip by Matt Carter - was the next to go, flashing outside off stump at Mullaney and enabling Tom Moores to claim his third dismissal of the innings.

Rikki Clarke and Jordan Clark joined forces for a concerted assault on the Nottinghamshire bowling either side of the interval, putting together an unbroken partnership of 52 from just 10 overs.

Clarke was 36 not out and belted both Coughlin and Mullaney over long on for sixes, while a square cut for four by Clark off Liam Patterson-White raised the total above 400 and triggered an immediate Surrey declaration.

That left Nottinghamshire to face a scheduled 34 overs, but Morne Morkel's opening spell was surprisingly wayward and he was withdrawn after conceding 24 from four overs - including a long hop that Mullaney hooked for six.

By contrast, Clarke beat the outside edge several times and made the initial breakthrough when Mullaney padded up to a straight ball.

However, Slater looked strong off his pads, hitting five boundaries before the darkening sky halted play with 14 overs still to be bowled.

Gloucestershire 220 for 7 (van Buuren 93, Charlesworth 77*) v Northamptonshire

We might be living through strange times, but surely not so strange that either of these counties will now be denied promotion to the first division. Rain has made a mockery of the myriad equations so let's be done with arithmetic and talk the simple language of cricket: Glamorgan must bat with the precision of Donald Bradman at the speed of Brian Lara, then take wickets at the strike rate of SF Barnes to beat Durham and stop Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire from going up.

The game here at Nevil Road is heading for a draw, probably of the dullest and soggiest variety. That will matter not a jot in the wider context. Nor will Northamptonshire lament a strangely disengaged performance on Wednesday when they took only a single wicket and Gloucestershire claimed the batting point they needed to ensure promotion remains entirely in their own hands. They require a draw plus three more points with either bat or ball. A mere draw will do for Northants.

Concern around noon on Monday when Gloucester collapsed to 67 for 6 had dissipated - drowned is perhaps a better way of putting it - by the time Graeme van Buuren pushed Rob Keogh through extra cover for the boundary that carried Gloucester to the critical 200 mark. His stand of 151 with Ben Charlesworth began pre-lunch on day one and was ten minutes from continuing into the fourth when van Buuren, who scored 93, stabbed outside off stump to Gareth Berg and was caught behind.

The fact that Gloucester lost their first division status as far back as 2005 might explain why so many supporters stayed on with barely a murmur for the four-and-a-half hours between the scheduled start and eventual three o'clock beginning. Such a long and hard-fought return will be something to celebrate despite the absence of prize money for third place. Northamptonshire will receive £57,000 as runners-up to Lancashire.

In other circumstances, they might have grown more restless. It is hard to imagine the crowd at an international match behaving as placidly with the sun shining, the playing field open, nets in place and stumps beside the pitch ready to be inserted. Yet the place was a hive of inactivity through the morning save for the occasional sight of a player or the umpires wandering out, scraping the soles of their boots on problem areas and wincing their way back off.

With the situation even worse at Chester-le-Street, the slippy, sludgy areas around footmarks on the edges of used pitches might have suited both teams. Gloucester, in the weaker position, would have been content not to risk defeat. "Mud, mud, glorious mud," they must have sung, like Flanders and Swann, in the sanctity of their dressing room. Yet once umpires David Millns and Mike Burns did consider play to be possible, it was they who switched on quicker.

Van Buuren played and missed a couple of times against Ben Sanderson in the early exchanges and Charlesworth survived a reasonable appeal for leg-before by Keogh, the most dangerous of the bowlers on a surface offering some turn. Otherwise, the closest that Northants came to breaking the stand as it developed was a run out opportunity when Charlesworth was sent back by his partner, Keogh missing with the throw.

They made a tricky pair: Charlesworth tall, upright and left-handed, van Buuren a short, right-handed croucher. Van Buuren punched anything slightly short, especially through the off side, while Charlesworth's off-drives again flowed like cream from a jug. At 18, he is a prospect who will make crowds purr with his strokes. That in turn may lead to frustration if returns fall short of unreasonable expectations. He needs to be allowed to develop at his own pace.

"Ben is so solid," van Buuren said. "He makes bowlers look slow, he plays them with ease. It is a sexy forward defensive he has. He is an attractive player but he is already a good player too and you have to remember how young he is. I said to somebody yesterday how he reminds me so much of Aiden Markram, the way he loads up, stands still and has that same whirl of the bat. He is class."

Van Buuren is a friend of Markram, a fellow South African, who averages 43.80 from his first 17 Test matches. It is quite a compliment. He also drew a comparison with Chris Dent, blooded young by Gloucester but now their steadiest batsman approaching 9,000 career runs. Sanderson was generous too, praising Charlesworth for his temperament and judgement of what to leave.

Charlesworth has already equalled his career best; tomorrow would be quite a day to set a new one. Equally, while van Buuren was disappointed at missing his own hundred he could reflect on the more important picture. "We just have to rock up for one more day and play good, hard cricket," he said. "Stay grounded, keep humble and hopefully cricket will look after us in the end."

Antonio Brown tweeted Sunday that he would not be playing in the NFL anymore. His agent isn't so sure.

Drew Rosenhaus, speaking on Warren Sapp's "99 Problems" podcast, said, "I believe that Antonio wants to continue his career in the NFL.

"I have had discussions with a few teams that are very interested in him and want to know about his future and what's going on with the NFL," Rosenhaus said on the podcast, posted on Wednesday. "Hopefully, when that is all resolved, Antonio will be able to continue his Hall of Fame career."

Brown, who has been accused of sexual assault and sexual misconduct by two different women, was released by the New England Patriots on Friday, making him an unrestricted free agent, eligible to sign with any team. The NFL is conducting an investigation into the allegations.

"It's a very difficult time for him, not playing," Rosenhaus said of the seven-time Pro Bowl wide receiver. "We expected him to be playing against the Jets on Sunday, so it's tough for someone who loves the game not to be playing right now, and the hope is that we'll cooperate with the NFL in its investigation and get him back with a team to continue this tremendous career he's had."

On Saturday, Rosenhaus told ESPN's Adam Schefter about his communication with interested teams, but Sunday's tweet -- in which Brown said he was done with the NFL and expressed frustration at lost money from both the Patriots and Oakland Raiders -- cast more doubt on whether he will continue to play.

Rosenhaus still believes the wide receiver has an NFL future.

"It's my hope, it's Antonio's hope, that he'll be back playing as soon as possible," Rosenhaus said.

Brown announced on social media on Monday that he was reenrolling at Central Michigan, which he attended for three years before leaving for the NFL. Rosenhaus said that did not mean Brown had given up on playing in the league.

"I know there's been a lot of speculation as to whether or not that means he's not going to proceed with the NFL," the agent said, "but taking online college courses to get your degree or your post-graduate degree is something that I would recommend to every client. ... I wouldn't read too much into that."

Brown, 31, has been accused of sexually assaulting his former trainer, Britney Taylor, according to a civil lawsuit she filed on Sept. 10. In addition to that lawsuit, Brown faces an allegation of sexual misconduct by a female artist who was working at his Western Pennsylvania home in 2017.

The NFL said its investigation is "ongoing and will be pursued vigorously and expeditiously," despite Brown's release from the Patriots.

Because Brown is currently a free agent, placing him on the commissioner's list "is not appropriate," the league said Friday. If he signs with another team, the league said, "such placement may become appropriate at any time depending on the status of the investigation."

Brown agreed to a one-year deal with the Patriots worth up to $15 million, with a $9 million signing bonus, on Sept. 7. He played one game before being released. Earlier, the Raiders released Brown before he even played a game with them, ending a tumultuous stint with that team.

OWINGS MILLS, Md. -- When the Baltimore Ravens play the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, the defending AFC North champions will face the team that was hyped all offseason to supplant them.

The Browns, who are off to a disappointing 1-2 start, created national buzz when they made a flurry of offseason moves, including trading for wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. Cleveland was the betting favorite to win the division.

All of that talk wore thin on the Ravens, according to safety Earl Thomas.

"The media was talking about OBJ and that tandem and Baker Mayfield, the next savior," Thomas said Wednesday. "Then, to add on to that, Coach [John Harbaugh] talked about it a couple of times in meetings. So guys kind of got tired about it."

What was Harbaugh's message?

"He was just talking about what it looked like on paper," Thomas said. "And guys heard that, and basically, like, 'It sounds good, but we'll see.'"

At this year's NFL owners meetings in March, Harbaugh called the Browns "the most talented team in the division" -- a sentiment he said Wednesday was based on the preseason only.

"To me, that was an offseason question. I think at the time, they did have the most talent in the division," Harbaugh said during a conference call. "It was meant to be a compliment to the Browns organization and everything and the job they have done.

"... Now we are playing the season, and all of that stuff gets determined during the season. It is part of it now, but it is not really a time to rank that. I had not thought about it in those kind of terms. You are just trying to put a game plan together and do the best we can on Sunday."

The Browns have struggled, losing both of their home games. Cleveland is one game back of division-leading Baltimore (2-1). The teams split their two games last season.

"You have to play football at the end of the day," Ravens running back Mark Ingram said. "You can have as many players as you want to on paper, but if guys don't mesh and don't communicate well and play well together, it really doesn't mean anything. We're going to have to play them twice. That's why you line up and play football -- to settle the score."

Many believed this year's Browns team would end the 29-year drought of not winning a division title. The Browns were one of the most active teams this offseason. In addition to trading for Beckham, Cleveland added defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson and defensive end Olivier Vernon.

"That's just what it is -- it's hype," Ravens defensive tackle Brandon Williams said. "You can't really buy into it. You don't really know what a team is until you see them on Sunday. When somebody gets hit in the mouth, what's the plan then?"