MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson finally got take part in his first test in an Indy car Tuesday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The driver who was coaching him through the process was five-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon.

That’s a total of 12 major series championships between the two drivers.

Johnson drove a Chip Ganassi Racing Honda at the test. He was originally scheduled to drive an Arrow McLaren Racing SP Honda at Barber Motorsports Park the day after the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, but both the race and the test were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Johnson was later scheduled to do a test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway a few days after this year’s Brickyard 400, but that was canceled after Johnson tested positive for COVID-19.

Later that week, Johnson received two negative tests taken more than 24 hours apart and the Hendrick Motorsports driver returned to his NASCAR duties.

Johnson, who retires from full-time NASCAR competition this season, has publicly stated on numerous occasions that he would like to run a partial NTT IndyCar Series schedule on street and road course races beginning in 2021.

He took the first step toward that goal Tuesday on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Dixon said of working with Johnson. “It’s been on-again, off-again for Jimmie for a lot of different reasons backing up to Alabama with another team and then the COVID situation. Third time was the charm for him to get out there.

“Tough conditions, low grip, Very hot today. It gives him a good feel of the what the car is like. Through the course of the day, it’s been a lot of fun to talk back and forth, what things are different for him, what things are similar to driving style and video content that we can go through to help him because what we do is so different than what he does.”

Johnson worked with several of Ganassi’s engineers and crew members along with Dixon. Team owner Chip Ganassi was also present for the test as well as Chip Ganassi Racing Managing Director Mike Hull.

“Honestly, he’s been a very good listener and very able at replicating videos, which isn’t easy to do,” Dixon said of Johnson. “To see the data and the video, he is able to go out and replicate that, that’s pretty cool.

“So, it’s been very, very good.”

Johnson told the Associated Press that is was like the “first day at school.”

“It only lit the fire more,” Johnson told AP. “I want to do this more than ever before. It was something new, something different. NASCAR has been so good to me and I am so proud of the success I’ve had. But to try something new, man, this was really cool.”

Posting plenty of IG Stories if you want to follow through the day —> https://t.co/GprdUWlIbZ

Suffice to say, today is already exceeding my expectations ? pic.twitter.com/0rI8VVyRps

— Jimmie Johnson (@JimmieJohnson) July 28, 2020

The Chargers and defensive end Joey Bosa reached agreement on a five-year, $135 million extension that will tie him to Los Angeles for the next six years, league sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter on Tuesday.

Bosa's deal includes $78 million fully guaranteed at signing and $102 million guaranteed, the most ever in the NFL for a defensive player, sources said.‬

The deal is the largest the Chargers have ever given out and is the first $100 million deal in franchise history, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.

Bosa, who reported to training camp Tuesday, is entering the final season of his rookie contract, for which he is scheduled to earn $14.4 million.

Chargers general manager Tom Telesco said Monday that, even with the expected drop in the salary cap in 2021, the Chargers finances still align with their plans regarding contracts. Telesco otherwise declined to comment on any specific contract situations.

A two-time Pro Bowl selection, Bosa was the No. 3 overall pick in 2016, when he won Defensive Rookie of the Year honors. He had 11.5 sacks last season, bringing his career total to 40, the second-most through four seasons by a Chargers player since sacks became official in 1982, according to ESPN Stats & Info. (Leslie O'Neal had 42.5 through four seasons.)

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- The New Orleans Pelicans and Utah Jazz are discussing a plan to surround the Black Lives Matter signage on the Wide World of Sports arena court and kneel together during the playing of the national anthem on Thursday, league sources told ESPN.

The game is the first of the NBA restart.

Instead of having two groups protest separately, the Pelicans and Jazz are adamant that they want to display a united front, sources said. The coaches are expected to join the players in the demonstration.

League officials are not expected to enforce a 1981 anthem policy that says that "players, coaches and trainers are to stand and line up in a dignified posture along the sidelines or on the foul line."

Even before traveling to Orlando, Florida, players insisted that they do not want playing games to distract from the fight for social justice that has grown louder in the wake of George's Floyd's death. Floyd, a Black man, was killed after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for more than seven minutes.

Since arriving in the "bubble," players have used virtual media availabilities to call for justice for victims of police brutality and racism and to encourage fans to vote.

Other teams are also expected to protest during the playing of the anthem.

MINNEAPOLIS -- St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Miles Mikolas will have season-ending surgery to repair a tendon in his strained right forearm, creating an opening in the rotation.

The Cardinals placed Mikolas on the 10-day injured list before their game Tuesday at Minnesota. Mikolas was supposed to start Wednesday. Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said right-hander Daniel Ponce de Leon will take the mound against the Twins instead.

The 31-year-old Mikolas pitched four innings for the Cardinals in an exhibition game last week. He missed spring training because of the injury, but after nearly four more months to rest during the coronavirus shutdown, he ramped up his activity when camp reconvened.

Mikolas wasn't feeling right after his most recent bullpen, Mozeliak said, and an MRI on Monday prompted the procedure. The estimated rehabilitation time is four months. The elbow ligament was deemed fully intact, but pitching through the injury this summer would have put Mikolas at risk for more damage.

Mikolas was 27-18 with a 3.46 ERA in 64 starts for the Cardinals the past two seasons. He tied for the National League lead with 18 wins in 2018. Now the rotation -- which includes Adam Wainwright, Jack Flaherty, Dakota Hudson and Carlos Martinez -- has a hole. Closer Kwang-Hyun Kim was considered as a starter, but the Cardinals decided to keep him in the bullpen.

The 28-year-old Ponce de Leon, who has a 3.29 ERA in 82 major league innings, will get the first crack at filling the spot.

"He's more than earned the opportunity," manager Mike Shildt said.

Two right-handed relievers were added to the active roster on Tuesday. Giovanny Gallegos was activated from the injured list, and Jake Woodford was recalled from the team's alternate training site.

A coronavirus outbreak has officially put the Miami Marlins' season on hold.

Major League Baseball announced Tuesday it has postponed all of the Marlins' games through Sunday, while reshuffling the schedules of four other teams -- the New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, Philadelphia Phillies and Washington Nationals -- as a result.

What does this mean for the Marlins, who have now seen 17 members of their traveling party test positive for COVID-19, and for the rest of the 2020 MLB season? Our experts tackle the latest questions as the story develops.

Latest news | Season in jeopardy? | Schoenfield: An uneasy feeling

What does putting the Marlins' season on pause mean?

The Marlins won't play until Monday or Tuesday at the earliest -- their next scheduled game after Sunday is Tuesday at home against the Phillies. In the meantime, their series against the Orioles for Wednesday and Thursday has been postponed (the Orioles will instead play the Yankees) and their weekend series at home against the Nationals also is postponed. Starting Monday, that would leave the Marlins with 57 games remaining in the season -- with 56 days to play. Some of these games can be made up with doubleheaders, but the likely scenario is the Marlins won't play their full slate of 60 games, nor will some of the other teams affected by the residual scheduling fallout (Phillies, Nationals, Yankees and Orioles). -- David Schoenfield

Could this mean the Marlins' season ends because of this?

For now, no, the plan is to give the Marlins the rest of the week to regroup and give the baseball operations department time to figure out the team's roster, with the Marlins resuming play next week. The good news is that MLB has said that of 6,400 other tests since Friday, there have been no other positive results for on-field personnel other than the outbreak with the Marlins. Still, the number of positive tests on the Marlins is a reminder of how easily this virus can spread and why it's important to follow safety protocol. -- Schoenfield

Is it possible they would play far fewer games than other teams this season?

Yes. The games against the Nationals might be a little easier to make up. They play the Nationals twice more this season and both teams have a scheduled off day on Sept. 17, before the start of the final series. So they could play that day and schedule two additional doubleheaders. The four games against the Orioles will be more difficult to fit into the existing schedule. -- Schoenfield

What happens to their opponents during the time they're unable to play?

The Yankees and Phillies were scheduled to play Wednesday and Thursday, but the Yankees will now play the Orioles. The Phillies will continue their regular schedule on Friday, when they host the Blue Jays (in what are technically Blue Jays home games). Confused? A new schedule update will be sent out later this week, but here is the slate of games that would need to be made up pending no further postponements:

Marlins-Orioles: 4 games

Marlins-Nationals: 3 games

Yankees-Phillies: 4 games

In addition, two future Orioles-Yankees games might presumably be replaced with Marlins-Orioles and Yankees-Phillies games, although it will be interesting to see how much additional travel MLB will want to assign and whether MLB wants to load up a team's schedule with a bunch of doubleheaders. -- Schoenfield

What would need to happen to resume the Marlins' season?

As soon as a day goes by without a positive test, that's the beginning of a return to the field for the Marlins. They've had at least one positive every day since Friday. Considering the incubation period, this could continue over the next few days. By the weekend, there's a chance the team should know who is in the clear and who isn't. -- Jesse Rogers

If the Marlins play fewer games, what does that mean in the standings?

Playoff standings are based on winning percentage and if teams don't play the same number of games, then they will be ranked accordingly. Baseball already has said that tiebreaker games will not be used this year, so you would expect that to extend to situations where a team finishes within a half-game of another club in the playoff standings as a result of cancellations. Thus we could have a team like the 1972 Red Sox (85-70), who finished a half-game back of the Tigers (86-70) for the AL East title because the season was shortened by an early-season strike and no games were made up. -- Bradford Doolittle

From the Elias Sports Bureau: There has never been an American League or National League season in which one team played more than five fewer games than the rest of its counterparts. The last time this happened in any major league was the 1890 American Association, when Baltimore played just 38 games, Brooklyn played 100 games and the rest of the league played 125.

How many teams would it take this happening to for MLB to shut down the season completely?

It's unclear, but what is clear is the league will adjust, maneuver, and basically do whatever it needs to in order to keep playing -- at least with as many teams as possible. The revelation that some teams could play fewer than 60 games opens another avenue of flexibility not previously known. They'll probably need it. -- Rogers

ORRVILLE, Ohio – After a busy month of racing in July, the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series will kick off August by visiting two tracks recently added to the schedule.

The series will make its return to Wayne County Speedway for the first time since 1985 on Sat., Aug. 1 and then make the trip to Plymouth Speedway on Sun., Aug. 2. – its first time back to the Indiana track since 2017.

The two three-eighths-mile tracks will set the stage for a thrilling doubleheader weekend – with $10,000-to-win on the line both nights – to kick off the final half of the season with five drivers still in the hunt for the championship.

Below are some of the headlines as the World of Outlaws prepare for another busy weekend…

– Reigning champion Brad Sweet enters the doubleheader weekend as the current points leader, but last week showed how quickly that can change.

Ten-time World of Outlaws champion Donny Schatz began the Pennsylvania Swing last week by taking the points lead after earning his third win of the year at Lernerville Speedway. Four days later, he lost it to Sweet, and second-place to Logan Schuchart, after suffering a rare DNF at Williams Grove Speedway. Sweet – who has a win at Plymouth Speedway in 2016 – now holds an 18-point lead over Schuchart and a 26-point lead over Schatz.

The team championship points battle is even more intense with Jason Johnson Racing in the mix – thanks to Parker Price-Miller filling in for David Gravel when he missed a race during the DIRTcar Nationals. Sweet’s Kasey Kahne Racing with Curb team is 18 points ahead of Shark Racing and 26 points ahead of Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing and JJR.

– The origin to Sheldon Haudenschild’s racing career can’t be told without mentioning Wayne County Speedway, which is 15 minutes away from his hometown of Wooster, Ohio. While he’s yet to run a World of Outlaws event at the three-eighths-mile track, Haudenschild has seven wins there – two with the Buckeye Outlaw Sprint Cars and five with the All Star Circuit of Champions.

Haudenschild enters the weekend with the momentum of having won his first race of the year at Lincoln Speedway with his NOS Energy Drink Stenhouse Jr.-Marshall Racing team. Before suffering a rear end issue at Williams Grove Speedway, Haudenschild was on a hot streak of 18 top-10 finishes in a row.

– Jacob Allen, of Hanover, Pa., is having one of the best season of his career in 2020, currently sitting ninth in points – the highest he’s been in the standings with four top-five finishes and nine top-10s.

He earned his first podium finish since April of 2019 with a third-place run at Lincoln Speedway – after leading the first 14 laps. Then he backed it up with a top-five finish during the Summer Nationals finale at Williams Grove Speedway. He’ll look to keep that momentum going this weekend.

– Gravel, of Watertown, Conn., is on a hot streak of his own with two wins in the last seven races – including his recent Summer Nationals wins at Williams Grove Speedway – and 11 top-10 finishes in a row.

He’s the last driver to win a World of Outlaws race at Plymouth Speedway in 2017. And while he’s out of the hunt for the driver’s championship, he’s put his Jason Johnson Racing team in contention for the team championship – currently 26 points back from the lead.

– July saw a diverse group for winners with several first-time winners for the season and eight different winners in a row. Reigning champion Sweet and Gravel were the only drivers to win repeat races during the month.

Sweet opened the month by sweeping the weekend at the three-eighths-mile Cedar Lake Speedway. Gravel picked up the win at Wilmot Raceway and Williams Grove Speedway. Price-Miller – who will look for a home state win at Plymouth Speedway – Haudenschild and Shane Stewart all won their first race of the season. Schuchart earned his fifth win of the year at the Terre Haute Action Track. The next night, Kyle Larson earned his fourth win of the year during the Brad Doty Classic. And Schatz earned his third win of the season during the Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup.

The NBA is doing its best to replicate the game experience that players are accustomed to -- even blaring Randy Newman's "I Love L.A." over the public address system when the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Washington Wizards in a scrimmage when they were designated the home team in Orlando, Florida.

However, there is no denying things are different during the league restart. And with all the upheaval that has occurred, LeBron James is changing a postseason ritual of his own.

The Lakers star said Tuesday that he is doing away with his self-imposed social media blackout for the playoffs, something he refers to as "Zero Dark Thirty-23" mode, playing off the movie title.

"It's definitely going to have a different mindset, different feel to it," James said on a video conference call when asked about his approach to the Lakers' upcoming challenge. "I won't be turning my phone off during this run. I can't afford to. I have to continue to check in with my family every single day."

In past years, James would curtail the time he spent on Twitter and Instagram in April through June to sharpen his focus. But during those playoff runs, he had the balance of playing home and away, flying back from road arenas to spend time with his wife, Savannah; mother, Gloria; and three children, Bronny, Bryce and Zhuri.

James specifically cited his mom as someone he will "check in" with.

"Making sure everything is still going well, especially in the uncertainty of what 2020 has brought to all of us," he said. "So I can't afford to do that, just lose direct contact with everybody."

When asked if he'd ever been away from his family for this long -- James and the Lakers could be in Orlando for 3½ months during the coronavirus pandemic, should they make the Finals -- he said the only comparable experience was playing for USA Basketball in the Olympics. But the Olympics obligation was "probably like 30-some days," he said.

Social media has already provided James a way to keep up with his family since going to the bubble. Recently, his wife shared a video to her Instagram story of Bryce, 13, cracking up Bronny, 15, with an impression of their dad. It made James laugh, too, and he shared it on his Instagram.

James said with virtual parenting, "There's nothing that you can do to replicate time, presence," but the phone does help in staying connected.

"The communication can always be consistent and the leadership can always be consistent, and that's one thing I've always had control over," he said. "But you can't replicate actual presence when you're waking up and you're in the living room or you're in the kitchen, or you're outside playing with your kids or playing with your daughter, playing video games with your boys or working out with your boys. You can't replicate that. I'm not there.

"But Savannah is a beast at what she does: That's controlling the home and being that rock for our family. So I'm not worried about that. But you definitely, you have that miss factor when you miss your family, you miss your kids and things of that nature. But I thank Steve Jobs a lot and the team at Apple for having FaceTime, because that is a beautiful thing to have, especially during a time like this."

Shutting down social media for "Zero Dark Thirty-23" this year would also mean abandoning his platform at a time when James and his NBA brethren have been acting as spokespeople for social change. Thirteen of the past 27 Instagram posts James has shared with his 69 million-plus followers were geared toward social justice issues.

Perhaps a shift in direction is wise, anyway. Last season, the Lakers were 28-29 coming out of the All-Star break when James said his playoff mode had already been "activated" in late February. L.A. went 9-16 from there and James missed the postseason for the first time since 2005.

James' newest Lakers teammate, JR Smith, who played with the four-time MVP in Cleveland, said that James' shift in postseason persona is a bit of a misnomer, anyway.

"Honestly, he's the same person, bro," Smith said on the latest episode of the "Inside the Green Room with Danny Green" podcast. "I'm not going to lie to you. He will start reading more, though. He'll start reading more. He'll get off social media and he'll read. He will do that. But other than that, he's the same person."

No matter his methods in Orlando, James vowed to be prepared for what's ahead.

"I'll be as locked in as I can be under the circumstances," he said. "I won't cheat my teammates, I won't cheat our fans and I won't cheat myself. I'll be ready to go."

New Orleans Pelicans rookie Zion Williamson has cleared quarantine, and sources told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski he will return to practice with the team in Orlando on Tuesday night.

Williamson returned to Orlando on Friday night after leaving the NBA "bubble" for eight days because of a family emergency.

He returned negative COVID-19 tests daily while he was away but had to quarantine for four days and return four more negative tests before being allowed to participate.

Williamson now will have two practices with the Pelicans prior to making a decision on his availability for Thursday's game against Utah.

As the NBA prepares to officially restart its season in its bubble inside Walt Disney World Resort on Thursday -- and other sports, most notably Major League Baseball, struggle to deal with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic -- National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts said returning to a bubble might be the only feasible way for the NBA to complete next season, as well.

"If tomorrow looks like today, I don't know how we say we can do it differently," Roberts told ESPN in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon. "If tomorrow looks like today, and today we all acknowledge -- and this is not Michele talking, this is the league, together with the PA and our respective experts saying, 'This is the way to do it' -- then that's going to have to be the way to do it."

Roberts is inside the NBA bubble as the league completed its final day of scrimmages Tuesday and moved closer to tipping off the resumption of its season at 6:30 p.m. ET Thursday when the New Orleans Pelicans face the Utah Jazz. So far, the NBA has gone three weeks without a positive test inside the bubble, and only two happening at all -- both when players arrived on campus, thus preventing COVID-19 from penetrating it.

MLB, on the other hand, is attempting to play out its season with teams traveling from city to city and playing in their home stadiums -- albeit without fans. After an outbreak within the Miami Marlins, which has seen 17 members of the team's travel party test positive for the virus, causing the team's games for the rest of this week to be postponed, along with games between the Philadelphia Phillies -- Miami's last opponent -- and the New York Yankees, it's clear just how difficult trying to play sports outside of a closed, sterile environment will be.

"I'm not in the Trump camp in believing it's all going to go away in two weeks, but I'm praying, praying that there will be a different set of circumstances that will allow us to play in a different way," Roberts said. "But because I don't know, all I know is what I know now. So it may be that, if the bubble is the way to play, then that is likely gonna be the way we play next season, if things remains as they are.

"I hope not. Because I'd like to think that people can live with their families. But I can only comment on what I know, and what I know is right now."

What Roberts knows now is that, at least so far, the bubble is working. And, after she expressed to ESPN's Ramona Shelburne in May that she was concerned a bubble could have players feeling like they were incarcerated, Roberts said she's quite pleased with the conditions on the ground.

"I was worried that it was going to appear a little too much like an armed camp," Roberts said. "I really was. I said, 'Look. You can't incarcerate people. Even if it's a pretty prison, if it's a prison, it's still a prison.'

"But having gotten here, sure there's some things [that you have to do] -- having to take your temperature, and the testing. But it could not be easier. For me to comply with the health and safety protocols, obviously I have to wear a mask and all that, but the affirmative things you have to do are really simple, and the facilities where the players are able to play and workout are absolutely consistent with the quality that they need to have and are accustomed to using. The medical facilities and the physicians on campus, I'm not worried about anyone getting sick and not being able to get absolutely immediate health care. So, no, I am completely satisfied that we've come up with the right protocol.

"Nothing is perfect, and knock on wood every day and cross my fingers every day that no one has gotten infected since we've been here. But this is clearly, we've happened upon the way to play. And the players are largely cool with it."

Meanwhile, the league and the union also have begun preparing for negotiations about how to take care of what will almost certainly be a steep drop in revenue next season because of the ongoing pandemic, which will make it difficult to both play a full schedule and, more importantly, play games in front of paying fans. In a call with the players back in May, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said money generated from live game attendance could account for up to 40 percent of the league's annual revenue.

Roberts said the two sides are "beginning some very high-level discussions with respect to what the potential issues are," and said the laborious process that was necessary for the NBA and the union to hash out how to put the bubble together, and then actually go through the process of doing so, "took just about all of the oxygen out of the room."

One thing Roberts said she was sure about, however, was that when the two sides do sit down and talk about how to handle the likely drop in revenue for next season, there won't be discussions about a complete renegotiation of the league's collective bargaining agreement. While either side can opt out of the current agreement by Dec. 15, 2022, Roberts said that isn't her concern at the moment.

"My preference is that we take care of the only things that we have to take care of, and that is to deal with what presumably is going to be a reduction in revenue of some consequence," she said. "So, no, the notion of accelerating a renegotiation of the CBA, no. That's not something that has been addressed and, I would venture to say, is not going to happen.

"We'll do what we have to do and no more, and then we'll move on."