AUTO RACING
NASCAR promised radical changes to the 2021 schedule and delivered Wednesday with six road courses, the first dirt race for the Cup Series since 1970 and new stops in Nashville, Tennessee, and Austin, Texas.
Dropped from the lineup were Kentucky Speedway and Chicagoland Speedway, two “cookie-cutter” intermediate tracks that were part of a staid schedule that lacked variation or originality. Michigan International Speedway, Dover International Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway each lost one of two Cup Series points races.
Atlanta Motor Speedway and Darlington Speedway in South Carolina each added a second race to their schedules. New Hampshire Motor Speedway will again host the Cup Series in mid-July.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway will move the Cup Series cars to its road course after 27 years of racing on the big oval. The revamped “Brickyard Weekend” also will feature a new IndyCar Series race, making it a doubleheader for the second year in a row.
Indinapolis joins Road America in rural Wisconsin and the Circuit of the Americas in Austin as new road course events on a schedule that already included Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, Watkins Glen (N.Y.) and the Charlotte Roval.
Bristol will also experiment with a dirt race by filling the 0.533-mile bullring with dirt for the first race of its kind since Richard Petty won at the half-mile State Fairgrounds Speedway in Raleigh on September 30, 1970.
COLLEGES
FOOTBALL: The conference commissioners who manage the College Football Playoff have decided to stick with a four-team format during this pandemic-altered season after the Pac-12 made a request to consider expansion.
CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock said Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott asked the rest of the management committee to consider having eight teams play for the national championship this season. The request was made because conferences are not playing the same number of games, are starting play at different times, and there are no interconference matchups between Power Five leagues.
The playoff semifinals are scheduled for Jan. 1 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, and Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. The national championship game is set for Jan. 11 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
HOCKEY
NHL: The New York Rangers bought out the contract of star goaltender Henrik Lundqvist.
Since joining the team in 2005-06, Lundqvist, 38, won the Vezina Trophy (2011-12), led the Rangers to the Stanley Cup final (2014) and was selected to the All-Star game five times. He has a 459-310-96 record with a 2.43 goals-against average.
Lundqvist had one year remaining on his contract, but lost playing time this past season to young goaltenders Igor Shesterkin and Alexandar Georgiev.
SOCCER
ENGLAND: Raheem Sterling scored twice, offseason signing Ferran Torres added the third, and Manchester City advanced to the quarterfinals of the League Cup with a 3-0 win over Burnley.
FIGURE SKATING
GRAND PRIX FINAL: The Grand Prix Final has been postponed by the International Skating Union because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The ISU made the announcement without setting a new date for the competition, which also serves as a test event for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The final had been scheduled for Dec. 10-13 in Beijing.
CYCLING
FLECHE WALLONE: Marc Hirschi extended his stellar run in a breakout cycling season by winning the Fleche Wallonne one-day classic in Belgium.
In his first start at the race defined by the short but grueling Mur de Huy finishing climb, the 22-year-old Swiss rider went clear in the last 100 meters to win comfortably ahead of Benoit Cosnefroy. Michael Woods was third.
AMSTEL GOLD RACE: The only Dutch cycling classic has been canceled because of measures aimed at reining in the rapid spread of the coronavirus, organizers said.
The men’s and women’s Amstel Gold Races were to have been staged Oct. 10 after being postponed from the spring racing season because of the pandemic.
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