SONOMA, Calif. – Defending Funny Car event winner Robert Hight kept his impressive pace going at Sonoma Raceway, powering to the No. 1 spot on Friday during the NHRA Sonoma Nationals.

Clay Millican (Top Fuel), Alex Laughlin (Pro Stock) and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) are also provisional No. 1 qualifiers in their respective categories. The event is also the second of three races during the NHRA’s famed Western Swing.

Hight, the current points leader and two-time Sonoma winner, put down a 3.858 second run at 334.65 mph in his Auto Club Chevrolet Camaro SS. If it holds, Hight would rack up his eighth No. 1 qualifier of the year and 68th in his career.

Shawn Langdon drove to the second spot and Jack Beckman sits in third.

“You know you’re always in for a treat when you come to Sonoma with the Friday night run,” said Hight, who also set the national speed record at the track in 2017. “It’s not like any other track we go to where the atmospheric conditions change so drastically. You know it’s going to be great conditions and this is a great race track. You just have to hit it right. I’ve attended every national event ever held here, first as a fan coming to the races, just dreaming to get to work on one of these cars, then a crew member and now a driver. I love coming here and it’s very special to me.”

Top Fuel’s Millican put up a season-best blast of 3.698 seconds at 330.96 mph to go to No. 1 in his Parts Plus/Laris Motorsports dragster. It would be his third No. 1 qualifier of the year and 23rd in his career if it holds.

Points leader and defending world champ Steve Torrence, who has won eight of the past nine races, is second and his father, Billy, is a spot behind in third.

In Pro Stock, Alex Laughlin went 6.520 seconds at 210.80 mph in his Havoline Chevrolet Camaro to take the No. 1 spot on Friday. If it holds, it would give Laughlin, whose first race in Pro Stock came at Sonoma in 2015, his second No. 1 qualifier.

Deric Kramer is right behind in second, while defending event winner Jeg Coughlin Jr. sits third.

Defending Pro Stock Motorcycle world champ Matt Smith went to the top of the class on his Denso/Stockseth/MSR EBR thanks to his run of 6.779 seconds at a track record speed of 200.83 mph. Smith was the only rider to reach the 200 mph on Friday.

Jerry Savoie is currently second and Eddie Krawiec is third.

JACKSON, Minn. — A late-race pass from a hard charging driver secured victory in both divisions competing on Friday night at Jackson Motorplex, which hosted Tony Stewart Night presented by C&B Operations.

James McFadden led the final five laps of the $10,000-to-win Ollie’s Bargain Outlet All Star Circuit of Champions feature and Elliot Amdahl powered to his third consecutive Heartland Steel RaceSaver sprint cars presented by Wyffels Hybrids triumph after taking the lead with two laps remaining.

McFadden maneuvered from fifth into second place by the midpoint of the 30-lap All Star feature. He stalked Josh Baughman for the top spot before executing the race-winning pass on the bottom of turns three and four with only five laps remaining.

“I was getting really annoyed at the cautions,” he said after becoming the 24th different feature winner at Jackson Motorplex this season. “Every time we’d get to traffic we’d have a caution. It’s one of those deals if you didn’t get it done he’d probably step up the pace.”

Brian Brown led the first dozen laps before he spun as the caution was waved on Lap 13 – a lap after entering traffic. Baughman inherited the lead and just as he reached traffic a caution came out on Lap 20. McFadden stayed within striking distance before pouncing in the closing laps for his second straight All Star triumph and the fourth of his career.

Cory Eliason passed Baughman for the runner-up result with two laps remaining and he finished 2.255 seconds behind McFadden.

“Any time you can have more than one groove of racing it’s awesome,” Eliason said.

Baughman rounded out the podium.

“That last caution a tire sealed over and we were a sitting duck,” he said. “To come out here and race with these guys and compete says a lot.”

Kerry Madsen was the Hard Charger Award winner for maneuvering from 18th to fourth and Justin Henderson garnered a fifth-place finish.

Aaron Reutzel set quick time of the 33 drivers in qualifying.

Amdahl continued his recent domination during the Heartland Steel RaceSaver sprint cars presented by Wyffels Hybrids main event. He moved up to the high groove in the waning laps and took over second place with five laps remaining before running down Ryan Voss for the top spot.

Voss posted a runner-up result after leading 16 of the 20 laps. Javen Ostermann placed third with Sam Henderson fourth and 12th -starting Bill Johnson fifth.

The finish:

Feature (30 Laps): 1. 9-James McFadden (5); 2. 26-Cory Eliason (2); 3. 17-Josh Baughman (3); 4. 2M-Kerry Madsen (18); 5. 7X-Justin Henderson (4); 6. 44-Trey Starks (11); 7. 13-Paul McMahan (8); 8. 70-Brock Zearfoss (7); 9. 21K-Thomas Kennedy (20); 10. 55-Brooke Tatnell (15); 11. 11-Dale Blaney (9); 12. 2KS-Austin McCarl (14); 13. W20-Greg Wilson (23); 14. 70X-Justin Peck (10); 15. 17W-Shane Golobic (22); 16. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr (12); 17. 21-Brian Brown (1); 18. 83-Lynton Jeffrey (19); 19. 35-Skylar Prochaska (13); 20. 07-Gerard McIntyre Jr (25); 21. 14M-Marcus Dumesny (17); 22. 99-Skylar Gee (24); 23. 2C-Wayne Johnson (16); 24. 87-Aaron Reutzel (6); 25. 14-Tony Stewart (21).

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Kevin Thomas Jr. led three times for 13 laps in Friday’s Sheldon Kinser Memorial, round seven of NOS Energy Drink Indiana Sprint Week from Bloomington Speedway, but it was the final lap that decided his fate.

After swapping the lead multiple times down the stretch, on the final lap, Thomas rocketed around the outside of Jason McDougal in turns one and two, locked up the bottom in three and four and raced to his third Bloomington ISW victory.

In 19 previous USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car starts this season, Thomas had finished as the runner-up on four occasions

“I didn’t think that was ever going to happen,” Thomas admitted. “It’s been a trying year. I think we’ve finally overcome our things that have gone wrong and our bad luck. You just have to be in a position to win all the time. You’re not going to win every race, but you’ve got to be there and then things will start going your way.”

Thomas began the 30-lapper fifth, but the early going was marred by a three-car accident involving a flipping Chris Windom with Carson Short and Jordan Kinser also involved.

On the restart, Thomas went to the rail, riding the outside line to move into the top-three on lap six underneath Justin Grant. Up front, outside front row starter McDougal was working on race leader Jarett Andretti, pulling even on the outside before clearing Andretti off turn four to grab the race lead. Thomas followed suit and worked inside past Andretti for second on the bottom of turn one.

After working his way to third by lap 11, Brady Bacon encountered trouble as he slid to a stop on the back straightaway with a little bit of flame being thrown from the car. Though he’d restart from the tail, he worked his way back to a seventh-place finish by race end.

McDougal led Thomas into turn one but left the bottom open for Thomas. Thomas took hold of the advantage and cruised underneath McDougal exiting turn two with the lead. Following an incident in which early race leader Jarett Andretti slid to a stop on the front straightaway, the man on the move was Kyle Cummins.

The previous night’s winner at Lincoln Park put his ride up top and methodically picked his way past Grant for third on lap 14, by McDougal for second on lap 15 and was literally on the edge for the lead on lap 16.

Thomas moved up to protect up top at the exit of turn four.  However, Cummins found a line even higher than Thomas and the two banged wheels at the stripe, with Cummins nipping the line mere inches ahead of Thomas. Thomas cut down into one and reclaimed the lead with a slider on Cummins, who ended up getting hung up on the turn four cushion, losing second to McDougal.

“From the start of the race, we were pretty decent on the bottom,” Thomas explained.  “I tightened myself up with the shocks.  I think it was the wrong move for going down there. When I finally got to the lead, my pace was slowing down and I heard a guy up around the top, so I tried to move to the top, and I’m pretty sure it was Kyle Cummins. I didn’t think anybody could get any higher, then he tried going around me down the front stretch and we made a little contact. I didn’t know anybody could even go up there without running off the track.”

With seven laps remaining, second-running McDougal and third-running Cummins began to hunt down Thomas again. McDougal pulled even to the inside of Thomas between turns one and two on lap 23, but on the 24th circuit, McDougal kept the momentum rolling on the bottom off turn two, edging ahead of Thomas in turn three, then letting his car float to the top, pushing Thomas wide to secure the top spot before pulling ahead by five car lengths into turn one with just five laps to go and a bit of traffic now on the horizon.

With four to go, Thomas began to inch closer to McDougal on the top as McDougal closed in rapidly on the lapped car of Brody Roa between turns three and four with the two nearly making nose-to-tail contact. McDougal was in a sort of no-man’s land sliding through the middle, allowing Thomas to close within a car length at the line.

Thomas kept digging, pulling even with McDougal into turn one, and took the outside line into turn three, which nearly proved disastrous, hopping the rear wheels airborne. A rapidly closing Cummins tried to avoid ramming Thomas and spun himself into a 360 over the berm in turn three before coming to a rest.

Now it was down to a duel between McDougal and Thomas, and only three laps remaining. Thomas knew he needed to turn up the wick, making adjustments and making plans on how he was going to tackle the task.

“I made a little bit more of a shock adjustment on that last restart,” Thomas remembered. “I knew I couldn’t go to the bottom because you’re going to run second. It was either going to stick or I was going to drive right off the end of the track.”

McDougal initially had a fine restart and was leading by four car lengths going into turn one on the final lap, but Thomas devoured the high line and ate up the interval in no time flat to take the lead, cut down to the bottom in front of McDougal in turn three, nailed his marks and drove to victory by 0.388 of a second over McDougal, Grant, ISW point leader C.J. Leary and a career-best fifth-place finish for Brandon Mattox.

For Thomas, it was his 26th career USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car victory, moving him ahead of past series champs Steve Butler and Jay Drake for 17th on the all-time list.

“I think the driver just finally showed up,” Thomas said. “There’s a few little things like

to make somebody comfortable and with everybody being new to the way I like to do things and how I drive, that’s just the way it is. It’s a learning curve. When everybody’s this tough night-in, night-out, that’s the way it goes. We haven’t been terrible, we’ve been running top-five, but it just wasn’t quite there, but now we’re there.”

To see full results, turn to the next page.

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. — Crew members from the Roth Motorsports team jumped into Tim Shaffer’s trailer and scurried to the sweat drenched driver.

With his arms out and a smile just as wide, Shaffer embraced the two crew members and thanked them for helping him get back on track.

Shaffer had just left victory lane at Williams Grove Speedway for the second time in his World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series career — first since 2001. The win was also his second Series victory of the year — the first was at Las Vegas in February.

“They’re hard to get,” Shaffer said about winning in general. “This place is really special. I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I won here. It goes back to a great car, great engine, great team. It’s funny, we struggled this year. We started good, struggled mid-season and it seems like we’re coming back to life.”

What the Roth Motorsports crew did to help Shaffer had nothing to do with car set up, the engine or tires. They simply helped him have fun again.

“Basically, they’ve been hanging out at my house and having fun,” Shaffer said. “Running go-karts and just having fun again. It’s neat to have friends like that. They enjoy racing and love it as much as you do and get to have fun with other things instead of being around racing all of the time, and we had a blast.

“You kind of loosen up. We came here already in a good mood, having fun, and it’s carrying on.”

That showed in Shaffer’s performance throughout the night. He finished second to Brad Sweet in his Drydene Heat race but tested Sweet for the lead in the early stage of the eight-lap race. Shaffer then went on the win the DIRTVision Fast Pass Dash from the pole and the feature, leading all 25 laps.

David Gravel, who was coming off a win at Lernerville Speedway and eight top-five finishes in a row, with seven of them being podium finishes – did not let Shaffer cruise to the victory.

In the early stage of the Feature, Shaffer powered around the high side of the track with a blistering pace that left about a straightaway distance between he and second-place Freddie Rahmer. His pace also put him in lap traffic by Lap five on the half-mile speedway.

Rahmer held on to second-place for the first 11 laps before 10-time series champion Donny Schatz dove underneath the PA Posse member in turn three and powered by him off turn four. The next corner, Gravel charged around the outside of Rahmer and stole third-place.

Gravel worked on Schatz’s bumper for the next few laps until the caution came out for Daryn Pittman having a flat right front tire.

The group of 25 cars lined back up two-by-two for the restart. Shaffer crept the field around turns three and four before mashing the throttle and launching back to the lead down the front stretch. Behind him Schatz and Gravel raced side-by-side through turns one and two – Gravel low, Schatz high. The high side had been the fastest way around all night, but Gravel made the bottom work and darted to second off the corner.

The track widened as the race progressed. Shaffer stayed high, testing the limits of the cushion. Gravel, however, was perfecting the bottom line. The Jason Johnson Racing No. 41 car worked its way to within striking distance of Shaffer and waited for an opportunity to pounce.

There were no mistakes, though.

Shaffer was smooth around the top and aggressive with laps cars. If there was an opening, he threw his Rudzik Excavating No. 49x into the gap without hesitation. There was no time to be cautious. Gravel was coming, and he knew it.

“I saw the board that the 41 got by [Schatz] on that yellow,” Shaffer said. “I said ‘Oh, he’s hunting me down.’ I was just trying to make good laps and I knew we’d be hard to beat.”

With Shaffer not making any mistakes, Gravel knew he had to do something drastic if he wanted another Williams Grove victory.

Coming to the white flag, Gravel rocketed his car underneath Shaffer into turn three – closing about a four-car length gap. The momentum slid his car up the track and he went side-by-side with Shaffer, about a foot a part, through turn four. Shaffer held his line – and his eyes closed, he said jokingly.

“I was close, I didn’t see him there for a second,” Gravel said. “I obviously just gave him a little bit of room to get back by me. If it was twenty or fifty grand (to win) I probably would have slid up here. But it was a good night. We were fast all night long. I feel like we were the only car to run on the bottom of the race track.”

Shaffer pulled away with the lead and the $8,000 win at the opening night of the Champion Racing Oil Summer Nationals doubleheader — his 27th series victory.

To see full results, turn to the next page.

Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos said his team's lack of intensity cost them in Friday's 7-3 defeat to rivals Atletico Madrid in their International Champions Cup friendly.

Real were 2-0 down inside eight minutes at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, and had conceded five at the break without reply. They pulled one back but were 7-1 down with five minutes remaining before two late goals reduced the deficit.

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"We took it as a friendly, and they played like it was a final," Ramos said. "They beat us in intensity and took their chances very well.

"The result is too big. We feel screwed, as they are our direct rival in our city. You can lose many ways, but not like that. After a horrible first half the objective was to forget it, and try and win the second. We did that at least."

Ramos said he accepted losing to Atletico like this was painful, but that the performance was not linked to the team's disappointing 2018-19 campaign, where they ended the season trophyless.

"Madridismo is hurting, just like after every defeat," he said. "But we should not be worried.

"Hunger is not a problem. This is just the beginning; we are still getting ready. We are beginning from zero, we must forget last season. It is still too early for judgements. I believe in this team a lot."

There was huge fallout in the Madrid press with AS labelling the 13-time European champions a "team in ruin" while Marca called the result "scandalous and hurtful."

Gareth Bale was again a substitute, even with reports in the Spanish press that a move to Chinese club Jiangsu Suning could be completed as soon as Saturday.

"Bale is our teammate, we are happy with him," Ramos said. "Each player decides their own future."

Bale's agent Jonathan Barnett has twice in recent weeks dismissed the idea of his client moving to China, even after club sources said the Bernabeu hierarchy would be prepared to let the Wales international leave for a Chinese Super League club on a free transfer.

Juventus are ready to make a bid for Manchester United forward Romelu Lukaku which would include Paulo Dybala as part of the deal, according to ESPN FC sources.

Lukaku is a target for Juve's Serie A rivals Inter Milan and sources have told ESPN FC he is keen to join the Nerazzurri and work under manager Antonio Conte, who he recently labelled the "best manager in the world."

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Injuries have prevented Lukaku from making any appearances during United's preaseason tour of the Far East and, so far, the Old Trafford club's £80 million valuation of the Belgium international has not been met.

Despite spending €75m to sign Matthijs de Ligt from Ajax, Juve are looking for one more big signing and sources have told ESPN FC they are preparing to offer Dybala to United as part of a bid for Lukaku. Though, it remains unclear whether Dybala would be interested in moving to Old Trafford.

Tottenham have also been linked with an £80m move for Dybala in the English media.

Sources told ESPN FC that United have already rejected a £54m from Inter for Lukaku. One way the San Siro club could raise funds to meet United's valuation of the the ex-Chelsea forward is to offload Mauro Icardi, who has been told he has no future at the club.

Icardi has been heavily linked with a move to Juventus -- while Napoli are also monitoring the situation -- but so far there has been no official bid for the Argentine.

Lukaku joined United from Everton in 2017 and was the first-choice forward under Jose Mourinho.

However, the Portuguese manager's replacement Ole Gunnar Solskjaer appears to prefer Marcus Rashford in attack.

Carles Perez scored twice as Barcelona beat a Vissel Kobe side including Andres Iniesta 2-0 in the Rakuten Cup on Saturday in Japan.

Perez, a winger for Barca's B team, slotted through goalkeeper Daiya Maekawa's legs on the hour mark after a neat one-two with Malcom to open the scoring. Malcom came close to adding a second, thumping the bar from close range, before Perez netted his second late on as Barca picked up their first win of preseason following Tuesday's defeat to Chelsea.

Ernesto Valverde's side now return to Spain, where they will link up with the South American players that were absent from the tour of Japan due to the Copa America, including Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez.

They face Arsenal next weekend at Camp Nou in the Joan Gamper Trophy, before heading to the United States for two matches against Napoli.

Valverde named new signing Antoine Griezmann as Barca's central striker for the second time in a week at The Noevir Stadium in Kobe, while former Blaugrana players Iniesta, David Villa and Sergi Samper all started for Vissel.

Iniesta, 35, impressed in the first half. He came close to breaking the deadlock early on with a curled effort from the edge of the box which bent just wide.

Barca had the majority of the chances, though. Riqui Puig, Rafinha, Griezmann and Ivan Rakitic all came close, before Marc-Andre ter Stegen saved well from Iniesta at the other end.

The Spanish champions made 11 changes at the break, with Frenkie de Jong and Ousmane Dembele introduced, but it was an academy graduate who made the difference.

Perez found the breakthrough after a neat exchange with Malcom and then closed the scoring with a drilled finish across Maekaw from just inside the area in the 86th minute.

In between the two goals, Carles Alena twice came close, failing once with an audacious chip, and Malcom smashed the woodwork in an impressive cameo.