LOUDON, N.H. – The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Eastern Propane & Oil 100 was a reunion tour of sorts between Ron Silk and victory lane.

The driver of the No. 85 Stuart’s Automotive Chevrolet took his first checkered flag at New Hampshire Motor Speedway since 2011, marking his third trip to victory lane in Loudon.

“Go as fast as we could,” replied Silk when asked what his strategy was. “We really didn’t change the car much at the stop, and it really drove good after that. We were able to get from fifth to the lead on one of the restarts with about 15 to go, and it just worked in our favor. I’m just pumped for my guys and our whole team. We’ve been having a great year so far, and we’re just going to keep building on that.”

Silk was the race leader when the caution flag waved during an overtime restart. Because of time constraints officials were forced to declare the race official, handing Silk the victory.

“The track was pretty slick,” said Silk after his second victory of the season. “There was a lot of sliding around, and I think that’s why you saw some guys towards the back have some problems and a lot of yellows, but that’s the way it is here in July and I can’t wait to come back in September.”

Doug Coby, Chase Dowling, polesitter Jon McKennedy and Matt Swanson rounded out the top five.

The finish:

Ron Silk, Doug Coby, Chase Dowling, Jon McKennedy, Matt Swanson, Eric Goodale, Justin Bonsignore, Rob Summers, Tommy Catalano, Craig Lutz, Timmy Solomito, Andy Seuss, Sam Rameau, Blake Barney, Jeff Rocco, Kyle Ellwood, Ryan Newman, Andrew Krause, Ryan Preece, Wade Cole, Chris Pasteryak, Jimmy Blewett, Tyler Rypkema, Bobby Santos III, Max Zachem, Melissa Fifield, Bryan Dauzat, Patrick Emerling, J.B. Fortin, Anthony Nocella, Joey Mucciacciaro, Timmy Catalano, Andrew Molleur, Woody Pitkat, Todd Cooper, Calvin Carroll, Walter Sutcliffe Jr., Jacob Perry.

David De Gea's new Manchester United contract is set to keep him at Old Trafford for the next six years, sources have told ESPN FC.

The Spaniard is expected to pen his new deal, worth more than £110 million, before the start of the season to bring an end to 18 months of talks.

Sources told ESPN FC the goalkeeper, rated as one of the best in the world, has been given assurances that United remain committed to challenging for the Premier League and Champions League after a sixth-place finish last season saw Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side forced to settle for a place in the Europe League.

His new contract will keep him at the club until he is 34 and he will be eligible for a testimonial in two years after moving to Old Trafford from Atletico Madrid in 2011.

Sources also told ESPN FC one of the reasons behind his decision to stay at United, shunning interest from Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain, was the support he received from Solskjaer during a disastrous end to the season.

A series of high profile mistakes, including a terrible gaffe in the 3-0 defeat to Barcelona at Camp Nou in April, hit his confidence, but despite calls for the 28-year-old to be dropped he kept his place -- a gesture appreciated by De Gea.

Confidence over De Gea's new deal should mean that Dean Henderson is allowed to return to Sheffield United on loan.

The England Under-21 goalkeeper, who has attracted interest from Bayern Munich, spent last season at Bramall Lane and manager Chris Wilder is keen to have him for their first season back in the Premier League following promotion in May.

Henderson is in negotiations over a new contract and sources have told ESPN FC that after fresh talks in London last week there is confidence on both sides the 22-year-old will sign a new deal before heading back to Sheffield United.

Alex Carey's scar is healing well. Signs of the blow to the chin by Jofra Archer's short ball in Australia's World Cup semi-final defeat are still there, but will not be anywhere near as indelible as the mark Carey made on the tournament with a series of innings that had him earning comparisons with Michael Hussey by the time of his team's elimination.

That the man making the comparisons was Steve Waugh, now seconded to the Australian team as a mentor for the early part of the Ashes tour, is another reason for Carey to find a way to squeeze into the touring party as the reserve wicketkeeper to captain Tim Paine.

"If I'm half as good as him, I'll be happy - he's an incredible player," Carey said of the Hussey comparison. "Having Steve is amazing for the group. I think he's won nine Ashes … and been over here and played a lot here. To have the knowledge of Steve Waugh, one of the greatest Australian cricketers, be a part of this group is something we're really lucky to have.

"Personally, I just had a quick chat just getting to know Steve. It's quite early and he'll mentor us and have his spin on things. It's just great knowledge to have. Steve's been watching the one-day stuff and commentating a bit there. I've had a few little chats with him but more moving now into the red ball and getting that focus of a longer format.

"The patience of the game, staying focused for longer, little things that will come out over the next few days. The more we train the more you start talking, you start asking questions."

A combination of composure, invention and power when required had Carey making the No. 7 spot into far more of a bulwark than it had first appeared, and ultimately led to promotion up the order. The variety of circumstances in which Carey was asked to contribute, whether going on the attack late in an innings or restoring things from a shaky start, allowed him to demonstrate the sort of range becoming of a Test batsman, something not lost on Waugh, among others.

"I guess different circumstances throughout the World Cup were really good learning experiences for me," Carey said. "Having Smith and Warner back in the side, and the experienced guys I got to bat with, you learn a lot out in the middle.

"Obviously batting seven you hope to come in during the last 10, and if you don't then you do your best through the middle to be busy, occupy the crease, all those things. At times it felt just like play good cricket, and play a bit of Test cricket - absorb some pressure and rebuild at times. It was good to go through different circumstances and have some success."

Different circumstances are a part of Carey's story in many ways, given that he stepped out of cricket for some years to try his hand at Australian football, ultimately falling short of a full AFL contract with Greater Western Sydney Giants and then returning to the ranks with South Australia. That diversity of experience has served him well, although also means Carey is still very much learning his cricket craft.

"The last six to eight weeks have been a massive learning experience for me and then going back 12 months even," Carey said. "Every time I go out to play I try to learn as much as I can from success or failures, learn from the experienced guys in the team and once you get put under pressure you learn a lot about yourself pretty quickly as well.

"So it's been a bit of a different journey but it's also helped me a little bit as well. Having a few setbacks you sort of realise what's important and make sure you come back to training and try to get better every day."

Depending on how the next few days pan out, Carey will be looking either at a setback - missing the Ashes squad - or a continuation of his rise. The presence of Matthew Wade, who will play as a batsman alongside Paine in the internal trial match beginning on Tuesday, means that there are a few options. A squad number of 16 mooted by selection chairman Trevor Hohns, however, makes things tighter for a specialist reserve gloveman. Carey will need to show he can carry his weight with the bat in red ball terms as well as white.

"It's obviously a pretty unique situation, a unique game we're about to play in," Carey said. "Just do our best I guess and go out and hopefully perform is firstly what we want to do and go from there. I'm really excited to get an opportunity with the gloves on Tuesday and simple as that.

"My last [first-class game] was in Sydney before Christmas, so it's been a little while. But I thoroughly enjoyed the World Cup and getting some opportunities with the bat. Obviously keeping is my first priority, so I'm really looking forward to training the next few days with the red balls."

Undoubtedly, Waugh will want to see Carey flourishing, and the 27-year-old said the motivation flowed both ways. "As soon as you see an Australian great you want to impress them," he said. "Having Ricky [Ponting] here, he was so good to have around the group. He was a lot of fun, he had good banter as well so everyone felt comfortable around the group. Steve, I'm sure, will be the same."

There was a time not so long ago when Kent would have virtually lost this match before they started such was their dearth of key batting personnel. But signs are growing that these days Kent cricket is made of sterner stuff. They posted a reasonably competitive score and then delighted in the sight of Imran Qayyum, their left-arm spinner, having the night of his life.

Somerset's pursuit of 166 for victory was abruptly stilled in a remarkable sequence in which they lost six wickets for 20 runs in 25 balls and Qayyum was involved in all of them with five wickets and a run out. His return of 5 for 21 was a reward for his perseverance in a career where he failed to make the grade with three counties and only made his debut for Kent at 23.

Somerset are second in the Championship, won the Royal London Cup, and took their opening match in the Blast with a confident run chase against Glamorgan in Cardiff. There has even been talk of a treble. But when they succumbed to a 41-run defeat it represented their 11th successive loss in T20 at Canterbury. Whatever it is, it can't be the noise of the crowd; they are a bit guilty cheering and hollering in Kent.

Qayyum showed good changes of pace on a wicket offering a little turn. His first wicket silenced the batsman who seemed most capable of strutting to victory - the highly-talented and long-limbed Tom Banton out for 28 when he holed out at long off for 28. There were two wickets in his second over: Peter Trego sweeping to deep backward square where Jordan Cox, an 18-year-old debutant, held a slick catch, diving forward, and produced a quicker, flatter one to bowl James Hildreth.

The run out of Tom Lammonby, another debutant, followed in the next over when Lammonby pushed the ball gently into the leg side, but did not share the enthusiasm of his captain, Tom Abell for a second run, Qayyum dashing from backward square to slide and return the ball to the wicketkeeper.

Before Somerset could digest the consequences of that there were two more wickets in the spinner's next over as Roelof van der Merwe fell to a leading edge and Abell chopped a ball down by his feet and Ollie Robinson stumped him with alacrity.

With Somerset 74 for 7 after 11, the match was as good as won, but the Overton twins cobbled together a decent response before their partnership of 31 ended in the sort of comical fashion that might have come straight out of the script of Stan and Ollie. It will certainly go straight into Overton folklore.

The malarkey began when Mohammad Nabi held an excellent catch at deep midwicket, balancing balletically on his right foot a tiny distance from the rope. The only question for the umpires was whether he had touched the rope (he hadn't), which in other words meant it was either six or out. That salient fact seemed lost on the Overtons. One of them imagined a chance to keep running, the other responded enthusiastically to the idea and they dashed three of the more pointless runs in cricket history while everybody else stood around and awaited the TV replays.

Qayyum had been the star performer, but there is pace, too, in this Kent attack in the presence of Adam Milne and Hardus Viljoen and that will serve them well. Viljoen took the vital wicket of Pakistan's Babar Azam.

The Wurzels, Somerset's "Scrumpy and Western" band, had penned a 30-second ditty to mark the arrival of Azam in the West Country. "With a gurt big strick I'll knock 'em down," the lyrcis predicted. It didn't pan out like that: he made 7, showing one moment of quality when he whipped Hardus Viljoen over mid-on before the next ball cleaned him up like a Combine Harvester rushing through a wheat field.

Injuries had cut deep into Kent's batting resources. The captain, Sam Billings, will be out for another fortnight after dislocating his shoulder in April, the regular stand-in captain, Joe Denly, was away on a training weekend with the England Test squad ahead of the Ireland Test and Heino Kuhn, who had been identified as the next captain in line, was absent because of concussion protocols having been hit in the neck by Fidel Edwards during last week's Championship draw with Hampshire.

But Daniel Bell-Drummond, captain No. 4, was blessed by a skilful and confident T20 debut by Robinson, who struck 53 from 49 balls and, at 20, looked entirely at home until he became one of three victims to van der Merwe. When Billings returns, it will not immediately be to take the gloves, so Robinson has the chance to prosper and his fluent straight six against Jerome Taylor was one of the shots of the night.

Alongside him in a third-wicket stand of 61 in 37 balls, Nabi made light of Kent's batting losses. He relished his opportunity to bat at No 4, including four sixes in his 34. Max Waller got him, the ball after he had been launched into the pavilion, but he had settled Kent into the contest. Twenty runs light was the common assumption, but Qayyum changed that in a matter of minutes.

LAKEVILLE, Conn. – As they did one year ago, Team TGM had reason to celebrate following the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race at Lime Rock Park.

In 2018, co-drivers Owen Trinkler and Hugh Plumb delivered the first victory for the team and owner Ted Giovanis in the No. 46 Mercedes-AMG GT4 at Lime Rock. The win was seemingly inevitable, as they collected top-10 finishes in each race before the event.

However, heading to Lime Rock this year, the No. 46 team had yet to score a top-10 result halfway through the season.

It was a disappointing start, especially as Trinkler and Plumb looked to defend their 2018 Grand Sport class title. Returning to Lime Rock provided the perfect opportunity to turn their misfortunes around, and that’s exactly what they did after two hours of racing on Saturday.

Trinkler kicked off the weekend in perfect style on Friday, earning his third Motul Pole Award of the year to start the race from the No. 1 spot and that’s where they wound up with the help of a timely caution and lapped traffic.

“Really it’s all about the Team TGM guys,” said Plumb. “It’s the team. I do a very small part of this. I was given a car by Owen Trinkler, the best in the business, and really just had to go out and do my job. My hat’s off to all the TCR guys. All of them stand on the gas and they’re absolute professionals. It really went our way today. I’m so happy for Mercedes, obviously Ted Giovanis, everything he provides to us, and the Michelin tire, what a great tire through and through.”

“It’s just the strategy Joe Varde, the engineer, did over this weekend,” Trinkler added. “We worked on long run pace. I’m just so happy for my guys. We’ve struggled a lot this year and we kept fighting together as a team. In those moments, things might kind of start separating, but we got stronger during that period and it shows now. We’re going to be a contender for the rest of the season. I knew that going in we had the keys to win and it’s good to come back to a place where we got two in a row.”

It was a narrow victory – just .377 seconds – over the No. 39 Carbahn Motorsports Audi R8 GT4 of Jeff Westphal. After a restart with 45 minutes remaining in the two-hour race, Westphal found himself seven seconds behind Plumb with several lapped cars between them.

Although he was able to close the gap on Plumb, Westphal had to defend his own position against Eric Foss in the No. 56 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4. The podium would remain as is, with Westphal sharing driving duties with Tyler McQuarrie and Foss co-driving with Jeff Mosing.

With the runner-up result, Westphal and McQuarrie – who won at Sebring International Raceway in March – jumped into the GS championship lead with four races remaining. They’re just three points, 170-167, ahead of Devin Jones and James Clay in the No. 82 BimmerWorld Racing BMW M4 GT4, who finished fourth.

Meanwhile in the TCR class, Hyundai is making its presence felt following its best performance yet.

Co-driving the No. 98 Bryan Herta Autosport Hyundai Veloster N TCR, Michael Lewis and Mark Wilkins scored a near-perfect victory on Saturday after starting from the pole position.

Leading the beginning of the race, Lewis gave way to fellow rookie Alex Papadopulos in the No. 3 KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR – albeit for 16 laps – but by design to put the team in a better position later in the race.

“It’s always nice to put it on pole,” said Lewis, who earned his second Motul Pole Award of the season on Friday. “For the first stint before handing off to Mark, the Veloster N built by Hyundai was solid. It was just taking care of the tires because I didn’t really know what the pace was going to be like. I saw the Alfa behind me pushing hard, so I was wanting to let them go. I let him set the pace and then I could manage it from there.

“Thank you to all the fans for coming out to Lime Rock. It’s such a pleasure to race in front of such a passionate group of fans here.”

For Wilkins, it was last year’s winner Stephen Simpson looming large in his mirror, eager for another victory with co-driver Michael Johnson. In fact, Simpson momentarily took the lead in his No. 54 JDC-Miller Motorsports Audi RS3 LMS with 12 minutes remaining, but Wilkins quickly relegated him to second place where he and Johnson would ultimately finish for their best result of the season.

“We had a battle with some GS cars and I must say the competitors raced really hard and fair today,” said Wilkins. “Even that GS car, I had to stove it into (Turn) 2 and he could’ve turned in on me and it’s game over. But we had to take that risk to try and beat the Audi and it paid off. And he raced the Audi hard, so he gave the same to our competitors.

“I think all of our competitors raced us really fair and it was a lot of fun battling. This Lime Rock track was good to us today after a tough Canadian Tire Motorsport Park race and Michael did a really great job.”

Making it two Hyundai Veloster N TCRs on the podium for the first time this season was their Bryan Herta Autosport teammates Mason Filippi and Harry Gottsacker in the No. 21 machine. Both rookies in the series, the third-place finish was a career best for both drivers.

Lewis and Wilkins now lead the driver TCR championship standings with 168 points, jumping from third to first after the top two teams – the No. 37 L.A. Honda World Racing Honda Civic TCR of Shelby Blackstock and Tom O’Gorman (now 158 points), and the No. 61 Audi of Jonathan Morley and Gavin Ernstone for Roadshagger Racing by eEuroparts.com (154 points) finished 11th and 12th, respectively.