MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Ron Jon Surf Shop, the iconic surfer style retailer, will sponsor Front Row Motorsports and Matt Tifft during the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona Int’l Speedway on July 6.

Ron Jon Surf Shop is celebrating the brand’s 60th anniversary in 2019.

Ron Jon Surf Shop is known for offering the surf, beach and active lifestyle to visitors from around the world. Ron Jon Surf Shop currently operates stores throughout Florida and in other locations along the eastern seaboard including Ocean City, Md., Orange Beach, Ala., two locations in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and its original location in Ship Bottom, N.J.

Ron Jon Surf Shop carries all of the beach essentials needed to have fun in the sun and features a wide assortment of surfwear, swimwear, sunglasses, hats, footwear and many other items perfectly suited for the casual beach lifestyle.

“NASCAR fans obviously like spending a lot of time outdoors,” said Heather Lewis, Marketing Director of Ron Jon Surf Shop. “There’s a natural correlation between their core fans and our customers. We’re excited to team up with Matt Tifft once again and help carry our message and values to a broader audience.”

“It’s so great to have Ron Jon Surf Shop on the car at Daytona,” said Tifft. “If you grew up going to beaches on the east coast, they’re a brand you instantly recognize. To have them with us, celebrating their 60th anniversary is a huge honor and I can’t wait to turn heads on track with this car.”

WELCOME, N.C. – Richard Childress Racing announced Tuesday that Gimme Country, Gimme Radio’s newest branch of its online music service, has joined its NASCAR Xfinity Series program as a primary sponsor of Tyler Reddick’s No. 2 Chevrolet Camaro.

The first immersive country music-focused radio service will first appear on Reddick’s Chevrolet Camaro for the upcoming July race at Daytona Int’l Speedway.

“We built Gimme Country to give a home to the millions of country fans that have been largely ignored by the other digital music services,” says Tyler Lenane, Gimme Radio CEO. “Seeing how Tyler Reddick and RCR have built a loyal following and how much they value their fans – it’s exactly what we want to do with Gimme Country, so this partnership was an absolute no-brainer. We are so excited to be working with such a great team.”

Similar to Gimme Radio’s first radio service, Gimme Metal, Gimme Country provides fans with an online radio and music community where they can listen to true country music 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Gimme Country promises to focus on more than just the handful of stars played on traditional radio, and instead give fans everything from legacy artists to outlaws, up-and-comers and women artists that they won’t hear anywhere else.

Gimme Country also offers fans the unique opportunity to interact with their celebrity DJs, including country music superstar Lee Ann Womack, Brandy Clark, Dillon Carmichael, Joshua Hedley, Jesse Dayton and more. Fans who download the Gimme Country app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store can chat directly with the DJs and other fans to learn more about the stories behind the music and life on the road.

Reddick will get the chance to DJ his own show, “RCR 50: Wheels of Country.” The show, airing on Friday, July 5, at 1 p.m. ET, will feature songs and artists that RCR has ties to or have been fans of throughout its 50 years of existence. Fans can download the Gimme Country app to listen to the show, as well as chat with Reddick when he logs in to the app’s chat room at 1:30 p.m. ET on July 5.

“Gimme Country is changing the way fans can listen and interact with the music they love through their app,” said Tyler Reddick. “It’s cool to see that country music fans can download the app and find some new music they’ll love or great songs they forgot about, but also learn more about the artists or songs while doing so. It’s similar to what we’re trying to do with fans in NASCAR and always trying to find new ways to engage with them. With NASCAR and country music fans having such a big overlap, this partnership seems like a perfect way to continue to reach new fans and engage with the loyal ones we already have. I’m excited to have a chance to DJ a show for them this week. That’s something entirely new for me.”

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – Carlin has announced that Sage Karam will join the team for the NTT IndyCar Series Honda Indy Toronto.

Karam will have sponsorship from SmartStop Self Storage on the No. 31 Carlin Chevrolet on July 14.

“We are extremely excited to partner with SmartStop Self Storage and to be a part of their debut into the NTT IndyCar Series. The Honda Indy Toronto is such a great event and will be the perfect introduction for them into the series,” said Team Principal Trevor Carlin. “We’ve obviously been following Sage’s career closely since he won the Indy Lights Championship in 2013 and he’s done a really great job. I think he’ll be a great addition to the team and a good teammate for Max this weekend.”

SmartStop Self Storage currently operates 131 self storage facilities located throughout Toronto, Canada and the United States. While this will be the organization’s first time serving as a primary partner in the NTT IndyCar Series, SmartStop Self Storage has been an exclusive, personal partner of Karam’s.

“SmartStop is proud to be partnering with Carlin and Sage Karam for the upcoming NTT IndyCar Series race in Toronto,” said H. Michael Schwartz, executive chairman of SmartStop Self Storage REIT, Inc. “We feel that this is a great opportunity to expand our ever-growing brand presence throughout Toronto, a market in which we are planning continued growth throughout the future.”

Karam will make his second start of the NTT IndyCar Series season at the Honda Indy Toronto after an impressive 19th-place finish at the 103rd Running of the Indianapolis 500 that saw him advance 12 positions throughout the race. Karam began karting at the age of four and worked his way up through the karting ranks until he joined the Road to Indy Series in 2010.

He competed in all levels of the Road to Indy Series winning both the USF2000 and Indy Lights Championships before joining the NTT IndyCar Series in 2014. Since his IndyCar debut, Karam has recorded 17 starts, including a ninth-place finish in his first Indianapolis 500 start and two top-five finishes, including a podium at Iowa Speedway.

“I want to thank everyone at Carlin for giving me the opportunity to compete in an Indy car again in the NTT IndyCar series. I’m extremely excited and grateful to get back behind the wheel on a road course again for the first time since 2015 and I’m thrilled to carry a great sponsor like Smartstop Self Storage on the side of the No. 31 Carlin Chevrolet,” said Karam. “I’m looking forward to the challenge and working closely with everyone on the team to achieve a successful result and take advantage of this incredible opportunity.”

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — You’d be forgiven if before Sunday you’d never heard of Robin Shute.

The 31-year-old native of England was effectively a no-name with very little on his racing résumé. Now Shute, who works as an automotive engineer for Faraday Future, is a Pikes Peak Int’l Hill Climb winner.

“It’s nice to add your name to some kind of history in motorsport,” said Shute, who moved to the United States eight years ago and resides in California. “To go and achieve that at the end of it, I think that is really, really cool.”

Shute joins a stunning list of competitors to win one of America’s longest running motorsports events. Among those to collect overall victories at Pikes Peak are Bobby Unser, Al Unser, Al Unser Jr., Rick Mears, Mario Andretti, Nobuhiro Tajima, Rhys Millen, Sebastien Loeb and Romain Dumas.

The chance for Shute to compete in the Pikes Peak Int’l Hill Climb was the culmination of a lifelong dream for the Englishman, who said a video game from his youth inspired him to pursue an opportunity to travel to Colorado to compete in the legendary event.

“It was something I grew up with as a kid. If you’re familiar with Gran Turismo 2, if you remember that game they had like a Suzuki car and they had a Pikes Peak track,” Shute recalled. “Obviously as a kid I loved rallying as well. The Group D cars and all that. It is pretty legendary and I was well aware of it, from single digits anyway.”

Three years ago, Shute got the opportunity to live his dream thanks to his job at Faraday Future. He made his debut in the event affectionately known as The Race to the Clouds in 2017, driving a 2016 Faraday Future FF91 to a time of 11:25.082, which placed him 40th overall.

“It wasn’t going to be competitive for the overall victory, but it was still a great way to get my feet wet,” Shute recalled. “I just wanted to go as fast as I could up the hill.”

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Police on Monday arrested the 16-year-old driver of a car that was involved in a fatal wreck that killed longtime Auburn radio announcer Rod Bramblett and his wife on May 25.

The Auburn Police Division said in a statement that Johnston Edward Taylor of Auburn was arrested at his home on Monday. He is charged with two counts of manslaughter and was being held at the Lee County Jail on $50,000 bond.

Bramblett and his wife, Paula, died from injuries suffered in the car wreck on Shug Jordan Parkway around 7 p.m. ET on May 25. Police previously said the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee that Taylor was driving struck the rear of the 2017 Toyota Highlander the Brambletts were in. Rod Bramblett was 53; Paula Bramblett was 52.

The statement from Auburn Police on Monday said a report from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency's Traffic Homicide Unit confirmed that Taylor's vehicle was "traveling at an excessive rate of speed, well over the posted 55 mph speed limit, when the crash occurred."

The statement said a toxicology analysis from the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences confirmed "the presence of marijuana in Taylor's system."

Rod Bramblett was airlifted to UAB Hospital in Birmingham, where he died of a severe closed head injury, the coroner's office said. Paula Bramblett died of multiple internal injuries in the emergency room of East Alabama Medical Center.

Bramblett served as the lead announcer for Auburn football, men's basketball and baseball. According to the school's athletic website, he had been the voice of the baseball team since 1993, and he took over play-by-play duties for football and basketball in 2003.

"I'm heartbroken by the loss of Rod Bramblett and his wife Paula. Rod was a true professional and was always a pleasure to work with," Auburn football coach Gus Malzahn said in a statement in late May. "He loved Auburn and it showed in his work. As much as he loved Auburn, his family came first and foremost. This is a difficult time and we will continue to pray and offer our support to the Bramblett family, especially their children Shelby and Joshua."

Bramblett was a three-time winner of the Alabama State Broadcaster of the Year award (2006, 2010, 2013). He was honored as the National Broadcaster of the Year by Sports Illustrated in 2013, in part for his call on Chris Davis' game-winning, 109-yard return of a missed field goal as time expired to beat Alabama in the Iron Bowl, which is simply known as "Kick-Six" by Tigers fans.

Kevin Durant was never supposed to be on the Golden State Warriors. It was an accident: A one-time-only salary-cap spike left a 73-win team with enough space to add perhaps the world's second-best player. The NBA had seen Big 3s before. It had never seen a Big 4 like this.

All four stars were still younger than 30 after they won their first title, obliterating the league across a 15-1 postseason. The Warriors looked poised to be the greatest dynasty since Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls.

Only two years and one championship after that 2017 crown, that team is gone. Durant plays for the Brooklyn Nets, which is a thing you have to say out loud a few times before you believe it. He is recovering from a devastating injury; Klay Thompson is too. Andre Iguodala plays for the Memphis Grizzlies.

Maybe it is just this hard to sustain greatness. Maybe this is the shelf life of a championship team now. The grind -- 100-plus games every season -- is exhausting. The LeBron James-era Miami Heat lasted four seasons, until everyone seemed old, weary or ready to move on. Superstar contracts make it hard to build depth. Those contracts are short. Stars win titles, then seek other kinds of validation.

Durant spent part of the summer after that first championship working with Steve Nash, a Warriors consultant. Nash was struck by Durant's despondency.

"He didn't have a great summer," Nash told me last year. "He was searching for what it all meant. He thought a championship would change everything and found out it doesn't. He was not fulfilled."

The Warriors enjoyed having Durant, and he enjoyed playing in Golden State. Still: They never found a permanent comfort zone together. Teammates and coaches looked for hopeful signs. When Durant and Stephen Curry sipped wine together for hours after a team dinner in Denver during Durant's first preseason with Golden State, coaches smiled. The two stars were getting to know each other, getting over the awkward stage.

But Durant would withdraw. He grew so quiet during the middle of the 2017-18 season that coach Steve Kerr summoned him to lunch in Portland before the All-Star break. "I don't want to lose you," Durant remembered Kerr telling him.

"He had been drifting a bit," Kerr told ESPN after the 2018 NBA Finals. "He's vulnerable. I felt the need to reconnect."

There was a natural tension -- "stylistic tension, not personal tension," Kerr said then -- between Durant's approach and the Warriors' beautiful game, even if Durant had the savvy and skill to meld them. That tension came to a head during the 2018 Western Conference finals, when the Houston Rockets' switching defense jammed Golden State's motion and coaxed the Warriors into more one-on-one play. Durant slumped. Critics howled. The Warriors almost lost.

But they didn't lose. On the flight back from Houston after Game 7, Durant sat next to Bob Myers, Golden State's president of basketball operations, and declared, "I have never felt more a part of the team," Myers recalled last year.

For whatever reason, that feeling could never last. Some of it was probably Durant's (understandable) decision to cycle between short-term deals. Maybe some of the key personalities didn't hit it off like they hoped -- as Marcus Thompson of The Athletic detailed here.

Maybe some of it was baked into the unique four-star construction of the team. The Warriors were too good for observers to discuss anything but their internal dynamics. Even well-meaning attempts at that discussion could grow grating for the subjects of it. Maybe it was hard for Durant to feel a part of the Warriors if all anyone could talk about was what he had done to the Warriors -- to the team's style, to its identity, to the legacy and standing of its stars.

It surprised almost no one that he left. Some within the team worried during parts of 2017-18 that he would depart after that season.

Perhaps all of that is why Iguodala's departure felt so much more like the end of an era than Durant's. Golden State began its ascent before Iguodala. He bore witness to it in 2013, when the sixth-seeded Warriors shot and pranced by his Denver Nuggets in the first round. Iguodala saw something in those young Warriors, and they saw something in him.

Golden State pitched him in free agency that summer, even though they didn't have enough cap space. They even prepared a promotional DVD. He waved it away. Get the space and I'll come.

Myers still calls it the most stressful deal of his career. He canvassed the league looking to dump money. Joe Lacob, the Warriors' governor and Myers' boss, was away at a vacation home in Montana with limited cell phone reception when Myers found a partner: the Utah Jazz, demanding two unprotected first-round picks and $3 million in cash. Lacob was unreachable. His son, Kirk, the team's assistant general manager, told Myers to do the deal anyway.

After one season as a starter ended in a disappointing first-round loss, Kerr, the team's new coach, sold Iguodala on a bench role in 2014-15. It became the role of Iguodala's basketball lifetime -- the job that allowed for the purest expression of his beliefs about what the game should look like.

When he was an anointed young star with the Philadelphia 76ers, Iguodala would watch highlights of Kobe Bryant and Jordan, old teammates recalled; they were the sort of alpha scorers who franchise stars were supposed to emulate. Iguodala tried. He wasn't good enough at it to lead a team anywhere serious. It wasn't him.

He was much more comfortable blending in with the Warriors' ethos of selflessness, speed and aesthetic beauty. He didn't just blend with it. He elevated it.

There was nothing in the NBA like the Warriors in full flight: two genius playmakers, Iguodala and Draymond Green, sprinting up the floor, eyes darting side to side, searching out the all-time great shooters orbiting them. The Warriors became the Warriors only when Iguodala strolled onto the floor in place of a lumbering center: the Death Lineup that turned the 2015 Finals, when Iguodala was named MVP, and then the Hamptons Five.

The game looked different, sounded different. You didn't watch it or analyze it as much as let it wash over you. The combined creativity in those lineups took the game to rare places. Few players anywhere are more creative than Iguodala. He sees things before anyone else and imagines possibilities few contemplate.

On defense, he out-thinks the world's best players -- moving in concert with them, arriving in places before they expect him. We all remember Thompson's barrage of 3s that saved Golden State in that epic Game 6 in Oklahoma City in 2016. Don't forget Iguodala's crunch-time defense -- how perhaps the greatest swipe-down steal artist of the last 15 years pulled the trick on both Durant and Russell Westbrook to short-circuit late Thunder possessions.

"He's as smart as any player I've been around," Kerr told ESPN in March, and when you pause to consider who Kerr has been around, that statement really means something.

Iguodala gave the Warriors some stealth swagger. He occasionally tried risky passes just to try them, even when something simpler would do, and even if the habit -- in Iguodala, but also in Curry and Green -- drove Kerr mad. After especially fancy passes, he smiled at the bench or gazed at his hands in mock astonishment. Upon landing after dunks, Iguodala paused in mid-crouch, arms spread, eyes wide open in faux shock: Oh, you forgot I used to do this?

Now he's gone, and the Warriors will never be the same. If (when?) the Warriors waive Shaun Livingston, the Curry/Thompson/Green trio will be all that remains from their first championship team. That trio won at historic levels before Durant. They went 34-4 over three seasons without him before the Finals against Toronto. That trio can still win -- big. Golden State's Plan A is to regroup around it. Thompson and Green are not yet 30.

But they did all that pre-Durant winning with in-their-prime role players supporting them. Iguodala was the best of them. Golden State has attempted to start that cycle again by effectively replacing Iguodala with D'Angelo Russell in a complicated sign-and-trade deal.

(On a side note, it is a trade that makes you appreciate what the San Antonio Spurs accomplished in their draft-day deal for Kawhi Leonard. Before things went haywire, the Spurs actually had done it: plucked a future franchise superstar who could extend the team's time among the elite toward the 30-year mark.)

Acquiring Russell came at enormous cost. Golden State is trading one future first-round pick to Brooklyn to facilitate the deal, per the reporting of Adrian Wojnarowski. That's right: The team losing Durant is trading a pick to the team getting Durant. Acquiring Russell in a sign-and-trade triggered a hard salary cap for Golden State just shy of $139 million. With every incumbent on the books, hitting that cap was unavoidable.

They had to trade someone. They chose Iguodala. The teams with space understood they held leverage. The Warriors sent a lightly protected 2024 first-round pick to Memphis along with Iguodala.

It is a huge gamble that Russell will be worth more than Iguodala and those picks in replenishing the talent around the franchise founding fathers.

Russell is surely not the player the Warriors would have chosen for this burden. He was the one available to them. It is hard to see how he fits all that well with Curry and Thompson beyond the fact that any ambulatory NBA player fits with the two greatest shooters in the history of the sport. Russell ran more pick-and-rolls than almost anyone else in the league last season. That does not mean it is a great idea to give Russell the ball and encourage him to jack floaters as Curry runs around. (It is a bad idea.)

Russell is a good enough shooter to play much more off the ball. That is the sort of hybrid role coach Luke Walton envisioned for Russell early in his stint with the Los Angeles Lakers -- jitterbugging the pick-and-roll on one possession, popping open behind a flare screen on the next.

He lost some of that off-ball dynamism with the Nets. Playing next to Curry (and, later, Thompson) will reanimate that part of Russell's game.

Russell can sop up minutes and possessions while Thompson recovers from a torn ACL. Golden State will not have to run Curry into the ground. The Curry/Russell/Thompson trio could be powerful on offense if Russell speeds the pace of his game in the half-court. He favored a laborious, if effective, on-ball style in Brooklyn. He will need to adjust to the improvisational read-and-react system of winks and cuts and give-and-go plays Thompson and Curry prefer.

If he does -- and Russell is skilled enough to do it -- those three could work as the backbone of a good offense. On defense, it's hard to see how Russell, Curry and Thompson can form 60% of effective lineups against top competition. Who defends point guards now? Is Thompson a full-time small forward?

Fit is almost beside the point. If it works better than anticipated, great. But the end goal was probably to turn Durant into a player the Warriors could trade for other players -- and picks that represent the chance to find such players -- that fit more cleanly around the Curry/Thompson/Green foundation. They can trade Russell again on Dec. 15. The Minnesota Timberwolves will still covet him then; Robert Covington would form the starting point of a very nice package. Other teams will need a point guard.

There was another path: Let Durant walk for nothing; keep Iguodala; use most of the midlevel exception to build out the 2019-20 roster; and hoard every future draft pick. The Warriors also could have netted a trade exception big enough to fit almost any player in the league. (As is, they likely are getting a $17 million trade exception in the Iguodala part of the deal.)

At first glance, I preferred that path. Golden State paid at the top of the market in draft compensation to shed Iguodala. They gave Russell the max as his market was drying up. I am lukewarm on Russell's ability to get any better unless he changes his shot selection.

But you can understand why the Warriors chose Russell. Trade exceptions usually snare expensive players on the decline. The "keep Iguodala" route would not have netted any real cap flexibility -- not now, and not later, with Green one year from cycling onto a fat, new contract. Golden State's best methods of grabbing a good young player in that scenario would have been trading one core star, or hitting on a masterstroke late in the draft. The chances of such a player developing in time to absorb some of the load from Curry, Thompson and Green before they decline are remote.

Thompson's injury changed the calculus. The Warriors needed someone right now to play a ton of minutes -- more than Iguodala can -- at a guard spot. Golden State likely isn't contending this season. Iguodala has little purpose on a non-contending team.

Even with this more expensive Russell roster -- and that hard cap -- the Warriors were still able to re-sign Kevon Looney to a three-year, $15 million deal. They will have almost only minimum-level deals left to fill the roster, but it's not as if the alternate Iguodala/Looney/midlevel exception scenario is yielding meaningfully more present-day on-court talent than the Russell/Looney/minimums path Golden State chose.

Two rival executives who didn't like the Russell deal framed the debate this way: Couldn't the Warriors have gotten someone better if they had canvassed the league with a package of Iguodala and two picks? Maybe? The most sensible destination would be a win-now team in need of cap relief, or stagnant mid-tier teams hunting a pivot. Danilo Gallnari? DeMar DeRozan? Clint Capela? One of Miami's good young players -- the best of whom (Josh Richardson) they just agreed to trade for a legit star in Jimmy Butler? Kyle Lowry on an expiring deal if Kawhi Leonard bolts Toronto?

It's unclear if any of those guys would have been gettable. How many turn the 2019-20 Warriors back into contenders and carry more long-term trade value than Russell?

There was no ideal path once Durant left. Time will tell if this one works. It will come down to whether Russell is worth more -- in his play or what the Warriors trade him for -- than those two picks. There are even hypotheticals in which the Warriors trade Russell and Thompson -- or Russell and Green -- for god knows what.

The changes just felt so abrupt: Durant down, Thompson down, Durant out, and then Iguodala gone in exchange for someone never connected with the Warriors.

Tomorrow is always coming in the NBA, even when it seems a long way off.

Sixteen-year-old center fielder Jasson Dominguez, perhaps the most highly regarded prospect from Latin America in a decade, signed with the New York Yankees on Tuesday morning in a deal that includes a $5.1 million bonus, sources familiar with the agreement told ESPN.

The 5-foot-11, 195-pound Dominguez is a powerful switch-hitter with top-end speed and a well-regarded throwing arm -- a classic five-tool player. His bonus dwarfed the Yankees' previous record of $3.2 million for a player on July 2, when international free agents are eligible to sign.

Dominguez will not be eligible to play games until next season but will immediately join the Yankees' top echelon of prospects. The team's devotion of nearly 95% of its bonus pool to one player -- the Yankees have just shy of $5.4 million to spend in their fixed international free-agent pool -- shows their regard for Dominguez.

The sentiment is shared around the industry. When the Yankees became favorites to sign Dominguez, other teams -- including the Texas Rangers, Tampa Bay Rays and Los Angeles Angels -- lamented the loss of the chance at a player whom evaluators believe will be a star.

Since he arrived at the academy of trainer Ivan Noboa as a 13-year-old, Dominguez has stood out for his developed physique and ability to hit balls far. Scouts took to calling him El Marciano, or The Martian, because they said there was no way he was from this world.

In addition to his $5.1 million bonus, Dominguez will receive $250,000 in potential scholarship money from the Yankees should he choose to further his education.