WELCOME, N.C. — Richard Childress Racing’s Tyler Reddick will celebrate NASCAR’s history at Darlington Raceway with a throwback car design honoring Kyle Petty’s 1980s 7-Eleven scheme.

The paint scheme will prominently feature both 7-Eleven and blu, a leader in the electronic cigarette industry, that retails at 7-Eleven.

“We’re excited to enter the sport of NASCAR and partner with Richard Childress Racing, one of the most iconic teams in the sport,” said Greg Moser, VP of Marketing at blu. “Naturally, we did a lot of homework before taking this step and in the end, it was a natural fit. NASCAR is a passion point of our existing blu consumers and the sport has a well-documented adult audience, where the incidence of smoking is higher than the national average. This was a perfect opportunity to connect adult smokers with our myblu product and recognize one of our top retail partners, 7-Eleven, with an iconic scheme for the No. 2 myblu Chevrolet.”

“The Throwback weekend at Darlington Raceway is always one of my favorite races of the year because I love NASCAR history and it’s so fun to celebrate the heritage of our sport at one of NASCAR’s oldest and most exciting tracks,” said Reddick. “I grew up watching Kyle Petty race, so being able to celebrate his career and impact on the sport is special to me. I’m so thankful to be able to participate in NASCAR’s Throwback weekend and honor an icon of the sport this year.”

Petty’s 7-Eleven machine was an iconic scheme for much of his career in the 1980s, including his 1986 win at Richmond Raceway that came after Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip wrecked hard on the final lap.

The No. 2 myblu Chevrolet Camaro pays homage to the scheme with its layered lines and 7-Eleven orange stripe.

When the Columbus Blue Jackets were eliminated by the Boston Bruins in Game 6 of the second round of the playoffs, it marked the furthest the franchise had ever advanced in the postseason. It also marked the end of the Blue Jackets as we had come to know them.

There was some muted optimism that the band could be kept together. "You never know what's going to happen this summer. Who's going to stay? Who's going to go?" said winger Cam Atkinson.

Here's who decided to go: Winger Artemi Panarin, one of the league's top point producers, who signed with the New York Rangers; goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, a two-time winner of the Vezina Trophy, who signed with the Florida Panthers; center Matt Duchene, a trade-deadline acquisition who signed with the Nashville Predators; and Ryan Dzingel, another trade-deadline acquisition who signed with the Carolina Hurricanes.

All four of these players were involved in one of the boldest decisions by an NHL franchise in recent memory, as the Blue Jackets went "all-in" by holding on to Panarin and Bobrovsky -- despite many signs pointing to their imminent departures in unrestricted free agency this summer -- while acquiring rentals in Duchene, Dzingel, goalie Keith Kinkaid and defenseman Adam McQuaid, none of whom are under contract with the team for next season, and all of whom cost the team a bevy of picks and prospects.

So now what? Have the Blue Jackets swung for the fences only to end up face down in the batter's box? Or do they still have another swing in them?

We spoke with Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen about the team's deadline gamble, his efforts to keep Panarin and Duchene, and whether those who are forecasting a step back for the team are underestimating them.

ESPN: With the benefit of hindsight, do you have any regrets in going for it like you did at the trade deadline?

Jarmo Kekalainen: Not at all. It was a decision that we made as an organization, from the ownership all the way down to the management. Let's have this group together, for the last time, and let's see what we can do. It was a calculated risk. It had a price that we felt we could endure with the depth of our prospects. We beat Tampa Bay, one of the all-time best teams in the regular season. We gave Boston a hell of a run. It was a close series. The better team wins the series, and we lost, but we were right there with them. I think we showed everybody that we did have a chance to go all the way and win the Cup. That was our goal.

We weighed the risks. It wasn't just us swinging [at] something because we felt it at the time. We talked about it. We weren't going to trade Panarin and Bobrovsky for just picks and prospects. Now, if someone came along and gave us a package that was just too good to pass up, we might have made a different decision. But it wasn't there. So we decided to go all-in. There are no regrets.

ESPN: Why don't you think Matt Duchene stuck around?

Kekalainen: I'm not the guy to answer that. It was his personal decision. He was fine with us. Did what was expected, and was that guy we needed in our top six.

But it was a bit of a two-way street [in the offseason]. We felt where our team was at, to give up another first-round pick [to Ottawa, per conditions of the trade if Duchene re-signed] and then go into the term of that new contract with the dollar amounts that were involved ... it was a tough decision for us, too.

I'm sure he had a lot of options. Everyone talked about Nashville. Everyone seemed to think that's where he was going all along. And that's where he did go. It is what it is. Panarin was the guy we did everything to keep.

ESPN: Before Panarin signed with the Rangers, you made a last-ditch offer to keep him, an offer that the Rangers have told me had them worried in the 11th hour that he might still head back to Columbus. Did you think that last pitch was enough to retain him?

Kekalainen: We just wanted to make sure that we showed him we did everything we possibly could to keep him. That it wasn't going to be a matter of not giving him a fair contract. We're going to do everything we could to make him feel appreciated. And he decided to move on. That's his decision. We have to respect that.

ESPN: When I spoke with him after taking over as Rangers president, John Davidson told me that people writing off the Blue Jackets are short-sighted. That this team can still contend.

Kekalainen: Yeah, I like that. Let's have all the people write us off. That's perfect motivation for our group.

We made the playoffs three years in a row. In the last three years, there are four teams with more wins in the regular season than we had. The year before Panarin arrived, we had 108 points. We didn't have Pierre Luc-Dubois then, for example. And we didn't have Duchene or Dzingel until the deadline, and we were in the playoffs. Our core group -- the guys that wanted to be here, the guys that wanted to win with the Blue Jackets -- they're all here.

There's not a player that can replace Panarin one-for-one. Not too many around the league can. We're going to have to do it by committee. And there's going to be a lot of players hungry for that ice time that he's going to leave open. A lot of guys hungry for that power-play time that he leaves open. We have some young guys that are ready to take that next step -- [Oliver] Bjorkstrand, who scored at a 40-goal pace that last 40 games of the year. And Dubois, who is only 20 years old. Josh Anderson is just scratching the surface. Cam Atkinson will be motivated to show that he scored before Panarin and can score after Panarin.

We have one of the best D corps in the league with Seth Jones and Zach Werenski hopping over the boards for 26 and 27 minutes a game. You feel pretty safe that the puck is coming out of our end. And I think we go eight or nine deep when you start counting them up on our end.

There's a lot of those [veterans] in our lineup, and a lot of young guys coming in. It's a great opportunity, and it's going to be a hell of a battle for that ice time. We're in pretty good shape, in our opinion.

ESPN: And then there's the goaltending.

Kekalainen: The goaltending's going to be a bit of a question mark. We'll see. We have two talented young goalies that wanted to take the opportunity and make the most of it.

ESPN: Joonas Korpisalo and Elvis Merzlikins have potential. But is this a situation where you're looking at a certain time period for this to work out before you explore other options? Was there any thought in doing that before the season?

Kekalainen: We're going to have an open mind. We're going to give the guys a proper chance to show that they belong. They're going to have that opportunity and we're not going to be in any rush. We're going to be patient.

The philosophy that we have here is that we have these two talented young goalies. Korpi was a No. 2. Elvis has been patiently waiting in Europe to become the best goalie over there at age 25. There are lots of examples of goalies who waited and waited and they then come over and step right in: Niklas Backstrom I had in Helsinki as a kid; it wasn't until he was 28 years old when he made it to the NHL. Jonas Hiller in Anaheim was about the same age as Elvis is right now. Elvis is a Swiss league superstar and a world championship superstar. That doesn't mean he's going to step right into the NHL and play great. But I think there's potential there.

If you look around the league, almost every goalie has been a No. 2 or moved once or twice before they become a No. 1. I've been involved in drafting a couple of them. Like Ben Bishop, who we had in St. Louis, and then he went from Ottawa to Tampa to Dallas before he was a Vezina finalist. It's not too many that become No. 1 right away. You can count on one finger on one hand the number of goalies who stepped into the league as No. 1s. So we're going to give these guys a chance to prove they can do it.

There's not a real No. 1 available, so to speak, right now, that you can just go and get. Rather than watching our guys get moved and become No. 1s somewhere else, we're going to give them the chance to show they can do it with us.

ESPN: I ask this next question with no disrespect to Bobrovsky, but do you think the system that your team plays is beneficial to a goalie, to the point where his numbers are bolstered by it?

Kekalainen: I think time will tell. I don't want to take anything away from Bob or his accomplishments. But I think with the D that we have playing in front of the goalies, I think goalies can appreciate that. Let's put it that way.

[Bobrovsky] was a great goalie for us. He decided to move on and he had that right. Now he's an opponent. So we're not going to wish him too much luck.

ESPN: Are you at all worried about the development of Alexander Wennberg? That's a player a lot of fans mention as a point of frustration, as far as potential not being met.

Kekalainen: It certainly hasn't gone in the right direction the last couple of years. There's no physical decline, so I'm still confident that he can bounce back. He has the skill. He has the sense. He has the instincts to play the game. He's shown us he can do it. He had 59 points the year we signed him to that long-term contract.

He's disappointed in himself. He needs to change the way he plays a little. He's a pass-first guy. If you want to score in the NHL, you need to have a more direct line to the net to create more offense. It can't always be a dish off. He needs to shoot the puck more. Go to the net more.

It's funny how things work: We sign him to that contract and everyone says how great the contract is. And then we sign Seth Jones, and everyone says we're paying him too much money. And now it's the other way around. People say we have a great contract in Seth Jones and the s---tiest contract with Wennberg. But we still believe he can bounce back.

ESPN: Speaking of contracts: As we speak, Zach Werenski doesn't have a contract as a restricted free agent. You've said you expect him in by camp. But how frustrating is it for you, as a general manager, to constantly have to wait for the dominoes to fall in free agency?

Kekalainen: Yeah, but the real frustration for me [is when it] drags on into training camp, because that's a time for "team." That's the time when the boys come here together. They start preparing and jelling and building that chemistry that we need as a team. When it goes to training camp time, it takes away from that preparation. It takes away from the team. That's what I'm concerned about.

And that's where we've drawn the hard line before: We don't believe in taking that preparation time away from the team. We think it should be resolved before the team gets together and gets ready for the season.

ESPN: Finally, there was a big name that rejoined the Blue Jackets this offseason: Rick Nash returned to the organization as a front-office executive. Obviously, we all wish it were under different circumstances -- considering he had to retire because of issues with concussions -- but he comes back home. How did that come together?

Kekalainen: We talked a lot about him playing for us, if he was going to play. That was the first contact, last summer. But with the concussion symptoms not going away, and his health concerns, he decided to retire.

As soon as he made that decision, I was in contact with him. I said if he ever wanted to have a coffee and talk about his career off the ice, we'd be interested in talking with him. We met, we were impressed with his knowledge of the game and the insights that he had that he could bring into a front office. All things together, we decided to make him a full-time guy, learning the ropes. We'll see what he wants to do, but I think he's into it. And he's willing to put in the hours, go to the games, and do the work.

ESPN: When do you retire his number?

Kekalainen: [Laughs] That's for another conversation, in the future.

PUEBLA -- Puebla fans who attend the club's Liga MX match against Juarez on Thursday will receive free beer if the home side fails to win, the club has announced.

The free beer would be distributed at the club's next home game on Matchday 9 (Sept. 13) against Atletico de San Luis.

¡Si no ganamos el jueves, una cerveza de regalo en el partido ante @AtletideSanLuis!#LaFranjaQueNosUne? https://t.co/p12YgJzrdY

— Club Puebla? (@ClubPueblaMX) August 27, 2019

"If we don't win on Thursday, you get a free beer in the match against @AtletideSanLuis!," read a tweet from Puebla's official Twitter account.

The Camoteros have not won in their past five matches and are second-to-bottom in the standings with only two points, having secured only a pair of draws thus far. The club hopes that tables will turn with the arrival of manager Juan Reynoso, and will be looking for their first victory in the 2019 Apertura season.

In their three home games this season, Puebla lost 3-1 to Xolos de Tijuana, drew with Chivas and suffered a humiliating 4-0 defeat against Pachuca.

The announcement comes a week after officials at Estadio Azteca took legal action against vendors who were caught watering down beers at the famous stadium. Video showed the perpetrators filling part of the cup with liquid from the ice-filled bath the beers are stored in.

I hope it's not a revelation to you that when it comes to football managers, the four apocalyptic horsemen are injuries, defeat, the sack and the transfer market.

The first will lead to the second. Injuries provoke an increase in dropped points. Accumulate enough defeats and the clattering hooves of the third will soon be heard. But the fourth, the transfer market, can look deceptively like he's mounted on a friendly, exquisitely-groomed, well-tamed thoroughbred until the beast rears its forelegs and thumps unsuspecting football managers full in the face. That's why it has been fascinating and uplifting to see how Zinedine Zidane and Ernesto Valverde trying to turn into horse-whisperers over the past 10 days, each of them actively battling the collateral damage the transfer market is trying to inflict on them.

The main actors in this theatre of defiance and risk, directed and produced by "Zizou" and Valverde, are Ansu Fati, Gareth Bale, Carles Aleña, James Rodriguez, Luka Jovic, Carles Perez, Vinicius Jr., Sergio Busquets and Sergi Roberto. Neither manager actually needs to lie in bed at night cold-sweating the arrival of the third horseman. They're not immune to being sacked, but they're also not currently in danger.

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Valverde has his critics, but he looks safe until his contract ends in June 2020. Zidane? In theory, given his brilliant champions league legacy as a player and coach, he should be the unsackable coach. However, on Tuesday, Marca, a newspaper consistently drip-fed information by Florentino Perez, splashed its front page with the headline "Zidane Loses His Immunity." Zidane and President Perez are in a battle of wills as to whether it should be Paul Pogba or Neymar shipped in before the transfer market closes next Monday.

If Marca plasters "Zidane Loses His Immunity" across their front page, to be seen or read by several million people around the world, it must be accepted as a rap across the knuckles from a higher office than merely the season ticket-holders. "Get your nose out of the Neymar affair, forget about Pogba and get the team playing better" -- that sort of message.

The first two apocalyptic riders, the pale and the red horses of injury and defeat, have visited Zidane and Valverde from almost the minute their summer holidays ended.

Madrid have been blighted by eight major injuries in 47 days, which crippled their preseason stamina-building, team understanding, sharpness and new-player induction. It was brutal for Ferland Mendy and Eden Hazard, new arrivals, while Real also bid goodbye to Marco Asensio for most of the season. Meanwhile, Barcelona lost Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele to a plague of muscle problems that would have sent many managers gibbering to a psychiatrists couch with claims that "life has got it in for me!"

These things, while either improved or worsened by a club's fitness practices, are largely out of the control of football managers. That particular horseman will visit: it's inevitable.

What about defeats? Madrid lost 7-3 to Atleti in New Jersey and Barça kicked off the season with a defeat for the first time since 2008. These things do damage managers, all of which means that studying Zidane and Valverde's decisions of who to pick or drop in their four matches, has been riveting for anyone who likes to people-watch in football and try to get under the skin of the main on-stage actors.

We've seen serious, ambitious but overburdened men making it crystal clear that they will embrace risk, that they will enforce principles, that they will stand defiant against certain club wishes... if it helps them deflect the damage the fourth horseman can inflict. The transfer market can become a pestilence for these two elite, seemingly untouchable and vastly successful men because it's a beast that they cannot outright control. No way. It leaves them fighting to become survivors, not victims.

Zidane wants Pogba this summer, though not only does it seem sure he's not going to get Manchester United's marquee player, but Perez doesn't appear particularly interested in trying to force a deal through. Zidane neither wants nor needs Neymar, sentiments that are of little or no interest to his employer.

Up front, Luka Jovic is far from the finished article as a striker. Zidane's assessment seems to be that Jovic has little in his locker beyond the fact that the young, burly Serb inarguably tucks away goals. But "suck it up, Zizou!" is the message from the big Bernabeu offices. This is who you're getting, regarding Jovic, so Zidane drops him.

As for Valverde? He'd love to be able to rely on Ivan Rakitic, one of his "most-used" footballers since the Basque (himself nicknamed "the Worker Ant") discovered the Croatian's unselfish, team-oriented relentless "all for one and one for all" playing ethic. But Rakitic is one of the few transfer-market coins that cash-strapped Barca have at their disposal.

The likeliest resolution is that Rakitic's stubborn insistence on staying will win the day when the market shuts on Monday. Meantime, the club's requirement that Ivan-the-terribly-good doesn't get injured, thus scuppering any possibility at all of putting him in a deal to secure Neymar, has been dominant.

Of Barcelona's 180 competitive minutes so far in 2019-20, Rakitic has only been given 45. Those only came while Suarez was already off injured and Messi was absent. In other words, in extremis. Valverde has had no choice. The point is this: when Valverde opted to deploy 16-year-old Ansu on Sunday he did so as if he was saying "I'm taking back control!"

The previous week at San Mames, he'd already ignored Sergio Busquets and Junior Firpo on the bench and given 21-year-old winger Carles Perez only his second-ever senior appearance. Then Valverde started the kid again at the Camp Nou in week 2.

Against Betis, when Ansu was made Barcelona's second-youngest player in club history, Valverde left on the bench two big-reputation (and big salary) players, Samuel Umtiti and Arthur, on the bench despite each of them crying out for game time.

Ansu may well be an emerging phenomenon and Perez a confident, talented young buck. But this was quite clearly a series of very firm messages. To President Bartomeu: "I don't need Neymar, I've got the super-kids and I'll use them." To the senior players who have been ignored: "It's time to sharpen up." To the unreliable Dembele: "Get professional or get ready to languish on the bench or in the stands." To the fans, media and to young academy players, including Ricki Puig, who some Barça media personalities and fans think is a mercurial genius already worthy of an automatic first-team place: "Youth will be trusted when I think it's time."

Zidane's decision-making in Madrid can be regarded as a little more pragmatic but like Valverde, it's still heavily laden with important declarations of self-determination, independence and potential conflict to come.

In order to have any chance of raising the cash to buy Neymar, Madrid's bean-counters would need to sell or trade James or Gareth Bale. Or both. Zidane may not have been terrifically keen on either man until now but the instant the Premier League market closed, he exercised some good old common sense and extended the olive branch of peace to the Welshman, who has since started both Liga matches and played all but fifteen minutes of the 180 available.

James, ripe to be sold or traded before the other major markets close next Monday, was picked on merit against Valladolid and played well; he wasn't wrapped in cotton-wool as Valverde has felt forced to do with Rakitic. The result? A good performance, but an injury now removes the Colombian as a trading piece from Florentino Perez's shopping basket.

Zidane took back control. The club haven't benefitted, but perhaps the team has. Perhaps he, himself, has. The manager's authority, his character and how he's viewed by the rest of the squad: all of those things have been reinforced. More, Zidane's decision to drop Jovic demonstrated his thoughts on the Serb's current form and preseason performances.

Cost: €50 million. The amount Zidane cares about that? Zero. It's a message to the striker, message to those who signed him. Oh, and as for Alvaro Odriozola, signed after Zidane quit Madrid in June 2018? He was dumped out of the squad altogether at the weekend.

Neither manager has won all his bets, and each has faced criticism. But both of them wrenched back the idea that "the buck stops with me and I'm not just flotsam or jetsam to be tossed around by the furies of the transfer market."

I think each man burnished his reputation, reaffirmed his authority, won back self-respect and faced down the fourth horseman of the apocalypse for football managers. How they must yearn to hear those hooves echoing into the distance next week.

Mithali Raj remains committed to playing T20Is for India, making herself available for the home series against South Africa in September. However, it is unclear whether the team still has space for the 36-year-old batsman.

Mithali was at the centre of a great deal of controversy at the last T20 World Cup, where she claimed she was unfairly excluded from the XI for the semi-final, which India lost. India's coach at the time, Ramesh Powar, had said that she had gone as far as to threaten retirement if she wasn't allowed to open the innings.

Things, however, did calm down with time and she was picked for each of India's last two T20I series, against New Zealand and England. But there is increased focus on her role now with the team looking to groom players for the next T20 World Cup, which is six months from now.

"I am definitely available for the T20 series next month but, at the moment, haven't really thought about the T20 World Cup. I usually take it series by series," Mithali told PTI when asked about her plans for the shortest format.

The selectors are set to meet in Mumbai on September 5 to pick India's squad to play South Africa. That series, in Surat, will be followed by three ODIs in Baroda.

Harmanpreet Kaur led the team to the semi-final of the T20 World Cup last year. But since losing that game to England, India have hit a slump, losing each of their last six games.

"As a team, we still have a lot to catch up on the T20 format," Mithali said, "But we do have youngsters coming in and with the exposure of T20 leagues around the world they will get more experience and mature faster.

"Genetically we can't be like other teams [and power hit to victory] but we can be more smart in our planning and shot selection. We worked very hard on our fitness in the recent camp in Bangalore and you can see the girls are much fitter on the ground and that reflects in their drills."

Mumbai have reappointed Vinayak Samant as their coach in controversial circumstances just before the start of the upcoming domestic season. Samant was retained after former Mumbai coach Sulakshan Kulkarni, who served them from 2011 to 2014, turned the offer down following disagreements with the Mumbai Cricket Association's (MCA) ad-hoc committee, primarily over the remuneration offered to him.

Kulkarni claims that when he was initially interviewed in May for the post by Dilip Vengsarkar, chairman of the MCA's Cricket Improvement Committee (CIC), he was offered a remuneration of INR 24 lakh for one year, from June 1, 2019 to May 31, 2020, as posted on the MCA website. However, Kulkarni says, the MCA delayed his appointment and sent him a contract in mid-August with an offer of INR 14 lakh, valid from September 2019 to March 2020, which he turned down.

"I told them I won't accept the contract like this if you reduce the amount from 24 to 14 lakh, there's no chance" Kulkarni told ESPNcricinfo. "It's not my mistake because I was ready to take up the job on 1st June. The delay was from their side."

Kulkarni was also unhappy that the MCA made this and other changes in the contract without consulting the CIC. Karsan Ghavri, a member of the CIC, said this was unacceptable.

"The ad-hoc committee [of the MCA] cannot overrule a decision which has already been made by the CIC," Ghavri told mid-day. "They should have had a meeting with the CIC to discuss the issue [after Kulkarni did not agree to MCA's contract terms]. If this is how MCA is going to function by taking their own cricketing decisions, then I don't wish to be on the CIC. I am going to resign in a couple of days.

"We [CIC] held several meetings, each lasting for nearly five hours, to interview coaches and support staff for the junior and senior teams. [By appointing Samant] they have not just treated CIC badly, but also the coaches and support staff."

Kulkarni said there were more changes in the contract he was eventually offered, which didn't make sense to him.

"When I was the Mumbai coach in 2011, the daily match allowance was INR 10,000," he said. "Now, nearly 10 years later, they are offering only INR 5,000 per day. The amount should have actually gone up, there is no common sense in this."

According to Kulkarni, the MCA also reduced the number of leaves offered from 60 to 15 per year and changed "many other" terms and conditions which he "was not ready for". Kulkarni said he turned the offer down on August 20.

Last week, the MCA then went back to Samant, who had also applied for the post in May as he had been appointed only for the 2018-19 season last year. In that season, he helped Mumbai lift the Vijay Hazare Trophy but they then went downhill and failed to qualify for the Ranji Trophy quarter-finals, and couldn't make the final in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

"Among the main drawbacks last season was that we didn't have many pace bowlers and established spinners," Samant told ESPNcricinfo. "We were banking on only a couple of bowlers out of whom Tushar Deshpande was unfit in the second match. To win matches outright, you need to take 20 wickets. And if you don't have the bowlers to pick up those wickets, then you're going to suffer. Then that adds further pressure to the batting which was not up to the mark."

Samant started working with the team in Mumbai on Tuesday and will travel with them to Nagpur on September 4 with a 15-man squad for the Bapuna Cup, a pre-season tournament for which they are trying several fringe players. They have named Suryakumar Yadav captain for the tournament as they want to groom him as a leader for whenever regular captain Shreyas Iyer is unavailable because of national duty. Mumbai are also going to try out 19-year-old Arjun Tendulkar, a left-arm quick, before the domestic season begins.

"We want to try him and see how effective he is. I saw Arjun at the MPL (Mumbai Premier League), he bowls very well. He bowls quick and is very accurate," Samant said.

"We're looking to make Surya the captain in Shreyas' absence. He's a very good captain. Surya has had some issues in the past but we're backing him again and grooming him for captaincy."