CONCORD, N.C. – After hitting the wall during the first quarter of Sunday’s 60th annual Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Martin Truex Jr. rallied back to win the third stage of NASCAR’s longest race.

Truex had a back-and-forth battle with Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch just past the midpoint of the 100-lap segment, but took the lead at lap 260 and paced the final 41 laps for his second stage win of the season.

The Mayetta, N.J., veteran and 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion is seeking his second Coca-Cola 600 victory in the last four years.

“It’s kind of amazing, really,” said Truex of his stage win. “I don’t know what this thing looks like, but it was pretty bad after (hitting the wall), so I wasn’t sure what we’d have. I feel like we have a pretty good car now, though, so I guess that’s why you never give up on it. We’ve worked hard, the guys have done a good job and now we’re in position to make something happen.

“We’ll see where this last 100 laps goes, but it’s a special night and hopefully we can get a special win.”

After caution-laden stages to kick off the night, the only yellow flag of stage three waved at lap 251, when Truex tagged Bayley Currey around and sent the No. 52 Chevrolet into the inside wall off turn two.

Truex received no damage, however, and continued on to take the lead shortly thereafter.

Busch finished second at the stage break, 4.239 seconds back, followed by Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney and Kurt Busch.

Alex Bowman, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Joey Logano, Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin completed the points-scoring drivers in the top 10 at the third and final stage break of the night.

Brad Keselowski, who topped the first two stages, found himself mired in traffic after pit stops and ended up a distant 14th with 100 laps still to run.

Stage 1 Sidebar: Blown Tire Forces Early Charlotte Exit For Jones

Stage 1 Report: Keselowski Tops Opening Stage Of Coca-Cola 600

Stage 2 Report: Keselowski Edges Bowman In Second Stage At CMS

INDIANAPOLIS – The winner of the Indianapolis 500 is often the best driver with the strongest car.

On Sunday, Team Penske’s Simon Pagenaud had both.

His victory in Sunday’s 103rd Indianapolis 500 completed a month of May sweep at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the second-straight year. He joins teammate Will Power as the only drivers to win the IndyCar Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500 in the same season.

The victory was the 18th Indianapolis 500 win for Team Penske and his third in the last five years.

Pagenaud led 116 laps – the most of any driver in an Indianapolis 500 since Dario Franchitti led 155 laps in 2010.

However, the Frenchman had another driver that was fighting for the title of best in the field. That was Alexander Rossi of Andretti Autosport, who turned Sunday’s race into an epic duel to the checkered flag.

Because of that, the 2019 Indianapolis 500 will go down as another great race in a long line of fantastic finishes at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

There were 29 lead changes in the race, an impressive number with the current Dallara chassis, although below the drafting days of the Dallara DW 12 chassis with the rear wheel pods.

Pagenaud pitted on lap 169 with a flawless final stop. Rossi pitted one lap later and was in and out after just nine seconds.

On lap 178, Rossi passed Pagenaud for the lead. Moments later, a huge crash in turn three involving Graham Rahal, Bourdais, Charlie Kimball, Felix Rosenqvist and Zach Veach brought out the red flag for 18 minutes.

During the red flag, Rossi radioed to his crew that he was, “Angrier than any other driver.”

When green flag racing resumed, there were 13 laps left and Rossi was determined to win. The battle between Rossi and Pagenaud was epic.

On lap 187 Rossi was the leader and Pagenaud passed him for the lead on the frontstretch. Rossi returned the favor to regain the lead in turn one on the next lap. One lap later, Pagenaud passed Rossi on the frontstretch.

At that point, Rossi decided to stay as close to Pagenaud’s rear as he could, waiting for the right moment to make what he hoped would be the race-winning pass.

With two laps remaining in the race, Rossi made the pass for the lead in turn one. But he couldn’t build a large enough gap over Pagenaud.

On lap 199, Pagenaud passed Rossi for the win in turn three. Next time by was the white flag and the lap after that, Pagenaud took the checkered flag in the Indianapolis 500 for the first time in his career by just .2086 of a second.

“We were able to get him back,” Pagenaud said. “Quite frankly I wasn’t really worried about getting back, I was just worried about the rhythm, when to get him back to finish first. There was a lot of planning, a lot of brake drafting, as well. It was a lot of fun, and obviously my teammates,

“I think about Juan Montoya, I think about Helio Castroneves, I think about Josef and Will (Power), and I think about Gil de Ferran, especially Rick Mears, as well, they’ve been teaching me so well the intricacy of driving on an oval, and I applied it today, and it worked.”

As Pagenaud celebrated the victory to the cheers of the huge crowd, Rossi spoke about his determined battle.

“We had the superior car, we just didn’t have it at the end,” Rossi said. “It’s going to be hard to get over, but it was a great day. Earlier in the race, there were a lot of lapped cars that wouldn’t move over. Fortunately, it didn’t make a difference in the end result.

“Blocking is disrespectful, but we will take care of that another day.”

Pagenaud kept his cool and knew he had better straight-line speed and horsepower when it mattered the most at the end of the race.

“Today was about attacking,” Pagenaud said. “We had our strategy meeting this morning, and we decided we were going to attack, we were going to control the day, and we were going to take our fate in our own hands. Destiny is what we decided to control.

“It was pretty cool. Obviously, everything played for us really well. The stars, like I’ve been saying, have aligned this month, incredibly, but especially today.”

Takuma Sato, the winner of the 101st Indianapolis 500 in 2017, was third followed by Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden and 2018 Indianapolis 500 winner Power.

After a winless and woeful 2018 season, Pagenaud has turned into a fighter this month of May at Indianapolis. It’s like someone flipped the switch and the driver from France is racing like a champion again.

“I think it’s fate, quite frankly,” Pagenaud said. “Obviously in racing you need a little bit of luck on your side. You need everything to go your way. So, it did today. I could do nothing wrong, quite frankly. Sometimes I can’t do anything right.

“That doesn’t mean I lost my talent, that doesn’t mean my team is not doing a good job. It’s just you have to accept that there’s a little bit of mystery out there that you can’t control. All you can do is the best you can and extract the best out of yourself in every situation. “

“The rest, it sorts itself out.”

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia -- The Rouyn-Noranda Huskies beat the Halifax Mooseheads one last time to win their first Memorial Cup.

Peter Abbandonato scored the go-ahead goal early in the third period and Rouyn-Noranda beat Halifax 4-2 on Sunday night in the winner-take-all major junior hockey finale.

Felix Bibeau, Joel Teasdale and Vincent Marleau also scored for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League champion Huskies, and Samuel Harvey stopped 23 shots. Samuel Asselin and Raphael Lavoie scored for the Mooseheads.

Rouyn-Noranda beat Halifax in six games in the QMJHL final to win the President's Cup and edged the Mooseheads 4-3 on Wednesday night in the final round-robin game in the four-team tournament.

In the semifinal Friday night, Rouyn-Noranda beat the Ontario Hockey League champion Guelph Storm 6-4.

Johnny Russell scored a hat trick to help Sporting Kansas City snap a seven-match winless streak with a 3-2 victory over the visiting Seattle Sounders on Sunday.

The teams combined for three goals in eight minutes of the second half, after SKC led 2-0 at the break.

Russell got the first goal in the 29th minute on a low, left-footed line drive from just outside the box. Nicolas Hasler got possession with a nifty steal in his own half. He fed Yohan Croizet in the right flank. Croizet battled Kim Kee-hee for the ball, finally winning control and feeding Russell in the perfect position for his fifth goal of the year, placed in the far left corner.

Russell got the brace in the first minute of first-half stoppage time. Ilie Sanchez fed him unattended 15 yards past midfield on the right side. Russell worked his way toward the goal, dribbling through four defenders before firing another left-footer past Seattle keeper Stefan Frei from just outside the 6-yard box.

Raul Ruidiaz pulled one back for Seattle in the 63rd minute. Kelvin Leerdam put a nice spin move on Matt Besler in the box to get in behind, pulling SKC keeper Tim Melia away from the goal. Leerdam fed Ruidiaz, who blasted it into the net.

Russell answered just five minutes later. Kelyn Rowe found him unmarked on the right side of the 18-yard box. Russell bent a first-touch left-footer past Frei for his first hat trick as a member of SKC.

Seattle (7-2-5, 26 points) wouldn't go away quietly. Leerdam scored on a header off a corner kick in the 71st minute, the first goal Sporting have conceded on a set piece this season.

Sporting Kansas City (3-4-5, 14 points) entered 0-3-4 in their last seven MLS matches, while Seattle had been unbeaten in their last six (2-0-4).

Sporting may be without Besler again. In his second match since missing four matches with a strained left hamstring, he went down in the 78th minute with another apparent hamstring injury.

Manchester United want to sign players with the talent and attitude to play for the club this summer. Sounds simple, doesn't it? They also want recruits who can fit into the attacking style Ole Gunnar Solskjaer desires.

The club, who have a recruitment team of scouts and analysts packed with people with top CVs, enjoys a positive communication with their new-ish manager. United have a plan of which areas they need to strengthen, the type of players they want, and they intend to stick to that plan. They want a right-back, a right-sided midfielder, a central midfielder and a central defender. And they would want a forward should Romelu Lukaku or Alexis Sanchez move on.

The plan, however, is not rigid. How can it be?

United will be linked with hundreds of names in the transfer window. Transfer stories do well. Fans like them and enjoy imagining what the arrival of each touted player could mean for the club. It helps beat the close-season ennui, it offers a hope of a brighter future after United's disappointing season, even if only fleetingly. Better to think about future success than the wretched end of the season or a forthcoming Champions League final between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur.

- When are the Premier League fixtures published?
- When does the transfer window close?

Yet Dan James of Swansea, whom United are hopeful of signing, is the most probable of the summer signings so far. Although a fee is yet to be agreed on for the flying winger, United have been in talks with his club, and it's understood the 21-year-old wants to move to Old Trafford. James is not like past big-name signings such as Angel Di Maria when he came from Real Madrid, the acquisition of Alexis Sanchez from Arsenal or Radamel Falcao joining from Monaco.

It might not be a bad thing considering United fans are so tired of this decade's transfer profligacy that they won't write off their club signing a speedy young British player who most had never heard of until recently. And if James fulfils his potential it will be more satisfying than buying a supposedly world-class star off the peg, especially as the aforementioned names seem to regularly fail at Old Trafford.

Despite criticism, United also feel like their scouting has improved and become more extensive. Having fallen behind Manchester City, the club have invested heavily into scouting, recruitment and youth development. United have much bigger budgets to buy emerging talents from around the world -- not specifically players slated immediately for the first team. Expect more-talented arrivals to boost the quality of youth players, as well as younger, highly scouted players such as James over franchise-name stars. Nationality is not an issue.

It would also be satisfying to see a player improve rather than regress after signing for the first team, as has happened too often recently. Some of United's best-ever signings have been young and barely known from smaller English clubs. Several have been wingers, from Steve Coppell who joined from Tranmere Rovers in 1974 to Gordon Hill who came from Millwall a year later. Both became heroes of the Stretford End. Fleet-heeled winger Lee Sharpe was with fourth-division Torquay United. The job of a football scout is to identify talent, and United's scouting department has done that.

The signing of James, if it goes ahead as expected, won't be seen as cost-cutting exercise, but a shift away from the previous ready-made, marquee names. James, 21, won't get a million likes from United's global fan base. It doesn't matter. United's commercial arm have played up the impact on social media that came with signing Sanchez, Paul Pogba and more. Juan Mata arrived by helicopter. Much has changed since Gerry Daly walked through arrivals at Manchester airport smoking a cigarette or Roy Keane was smuggled in through a back entrance at the same airport.

There's more glamour and razzmatazz now, but fans have grown weary at this since so many have underwhelmed after the initial excitement. Is it not better to underpromise and overdeliver?

United know the levels of dissatisfaction among fans. They have also seen what Ajax have done in Europe with young talents who were hardly household names even a year ago. They have seen that Bernardo Silva, Manchester City's best player last season, was hardly a huge name when he arrived. United are not closing any avenues in the areas they're looking for any more than when Sergio Ramos said he wanted to join the club, but they're less likely to get their trousers pulled down by a has-been with a big name. Thrice bitten, thrice shy.

That's why United will be very cautious over players like Antoine Griezmann, the club's No. 1 target in 2017. There will still be big targets this offseason. After all, they can offer a lot, including wages. United are interested in Matthijs de Ligt, but they're aware that he wants to play for Barcelona, and the Catalans are confident that he will sign for them -- more confident than they are about getting Griezmann, which appeared a given a month ago. Griezmann was a target for United two years ago and was up for moving to Old Trafford and joining up with his friend Pogba. Then he changed his mind and stayed in Madrid, where his buyout clause drops to €120 million on the first day of July.

Barca's board are split on whether Griezmann would be good value, especially as they have the highest wage bill in the world and need to trim it. They know that other clubs may offer more. With De Ligt, they have another issue in that the Dutchman wants assurances that he'll play regularly. Can Barca offer that when Gerard Pique and Clement Lenglet have been so effective? United wouldn't admit to being interested in a player like De Ligt or Griezmann, they keep their cards extremely close to their chest; to admit they want a player publicly not only weakens their negotiating position, but if they fail to get the player, it could be seen as a failure. United still like to see themselves as being in the mix for the world's best, especially if they are young.

There is a fan consensus about what Man United need, too, but consensus can be wrong. United fans got it badly wrong when they went crazy because Mark Hughes, Paul Ince and Andrei Kanchelskis were sold in the summer of 1995. Sir Alex Ferguson knew that he had talent ready to break through.

Solskjaer, a man keen on promoting youth, has to take stock of the youth talent at the club. It's he who decides when Axel Tuanzebe is ready for first-team football. Tuanzebe, who has captained United at every level apart from the first team, is highly rated and just enjoyed an excellent season at Aston Villa. Solskjaer has met with Ed Woodward, Matt Judge and the rest in recruitment to push for the names he wants. Getting them without the sweetener of Champions League football is another matter, but United remain optimistic.

However unknown they are, the fans will give new signings a chance, but they also, like their manager, want to see those new signings arrive as early as possible, ideally before July 1. That's the the day United's first team are due back in training, with double sessions planned in preseason to counter concerns Solskjaer had about the fitness of his charges last season.

Nearly four years ago, when I visited Bart Starr in his Birmingham, Alabama, home, he did not remember the five NFL championships he had won, or the Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi, he had won them for. He could not place Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers, even though he studied Rodgers closely through the DirecTV package his wife and high school sweetheart, Cherry, had bought him as a Christmas gift.

Starr even asked me if I had played for Lombardi, the former coach at my New Jersey high school. We shared a small laugh over that before I brought up the 1967 Ice Bowl, one of football's most iconic games settled by one of football's most iconic players. Starr did not remember anything about that either.

The then-81-year-old former quarterback had suffered multiple strokes, a heart attack, four seizures, and significant brain damage within the previous year, and some doctors could not believe he was still alive. During one stay in the hospital, a doctor told Cherry her husband likely would not make it through the night. Bart woke up the next morning in much better shape.

He lost his memory long before he lost his life Sunday at 85. But Starr never lost his dignity while he reminded the world, in his last great comeback, that he was the toughest NFL player who ever lived.

When we think of old-school toughness on the football field, we often think of big and vicious hitters, fire-breathing defenders who played through injury and enjoyed cutting skill-position players in half. Chuck Bednarik, Ray Nitschke and Dick Butkus. Mean Joe Greene, Jack Tatum, Jack Lambert and Mike Singletary.

But at 6-foot-1, 196 pounds, the gentlemanly Starr made the most difficult championship play under the most difficult circumstances in a game that never should have been played. With the ball at the 1-yard line at Lambeau Field, down three points to the Dallas Cowboys with 16 seconds to go, Starr ignored his frozen hands and body, the subhuman Green Bay conditions (the wind chill was minus-48 degrees), and the fact that he was an aging, athletically-challenged quarterback who had already been sacked by Dallas eight times. Starr asked to keep the ball in a huddle with Lombardi, who ordered him to push it across the goal line. "And then let's get the hell out of here," the coach cried.

Starr scored, of course, behind Jerry Kramer's famous block on Jethro Pugh, and afterward his wife was stunned by the severe swelling in his face. No NFL player had ever been asked to give more on a single drive or a single play. Starr would be named Super Bowl MVP for a second straight time two weeks later, and he never again managed a winning record as a starter.

He would endure profound tragedy in his life, losing his son Bret to cocaine addiction at age 24 in 1988, when he found his boy's body on the floor of his home. Only Starr didn't quit, because he would never quit on anything. He was a fighter, the son of a tough-love World War II veteran and Air Force master sergeant who lost his favorite child, Hilton, to tetanus when the boy was 11, and who didn't think Bart would amount to much. Starr was the 200th overall pick in the 1956 NFL draft, a non-prospect who was benched during his final, winless season at Alabama and who was only drafted in the 17th round because the school's basketball coach had a connection with the Packers' front office.

Starr played 10 postseason games for Lombardi, and he won nine of them. He willed himself into the Hall of Fame; no quarterback has ever been drafted as late as Starr and still made it to Canton.

After the strokes and seizures, Starr tried to will himself back to health. Cherry and his personal aide and nursing assistant would wrap their arms around him and, on a count of three, lift him out of his chair and get him going through his day. He underwent stem-cell treatments, and rigorous exercise sessions with his trainer, Brian Burns, who kept reminding the old quarterback of his greatness to motivate him to keep a scheduled farewell appearance at Lambeau in 2015 for the halftime unveiling of Favre's retired No. 4.

Starr barely survived a bronchial infection in late summer to make that trip, and his trainer saw considerable gains in his physical and mental capacities. "I ask him what his number was, and he says, 'Fifteen,'" Burns told ESPN.com at the time. "I ask him who he played for, and he says, 'Vince Lombardi.' I ask him what position he played, and he says, 'Quarterback.' One time he said, 'Linebacker,' and we got a good laugh over that. But he's made incredible progress. He is really coming back."

On a desk in Starr's study stood a captioned photo with the Lombardi quote, "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." By all accounts, the quarterback didn't just chase perfection on the field. Strangers from all over would show up at his Green Bay doorstep, and Starr was forever willing to pose for their pictures or even invite them inside. As a young boy at Packers training camp, Bart Jr. asked his old man why he had just spent so much time signing autographs for so many fans.

"Everybody who wants an autograph will get one as long as I'm not holding up the team," Starr explained to his son. "One thing you have to remember: These are the individuals who make this team possible."

Starr was the individual player who made Lombardi's dynasty possible. In the end, Cherry, his wife of 65 years, never stopped pushing him forward. She helped feed him and transport him from one appointment to the next. Even on nights when sundown syndrome dramatically altered his serene disposition, Bart asked Cherry to play him Il Divo's rendition of "Unchained Melody" before he fell asleep. Starr once asked her to promise she would play that song at his wedding. He meant to say his funeral, and his wife wouldn't stop teasing him about that.

Cherry believes that football contributed to her husband's decline; she saw too many concussive hits, and too much postgame pain, to think otherwise. His fingertips remained pale in later years, she thought, because of what he put himself through in the Ice Bowl. But Bart was not a man defined by regret, even if he had trouble finishing a sentence in the hours I spent with him in his home.

On exit that day in 2015, I told Starr that I thought he was the toughest man to play in the NFL.

He looked at the floor, as if the compliment embarrassed him. "Well," he responded, "I've been the luckiest football player ever."

Go look at the film of the Ice Bowl. When it came to Bryan Bartlett Starr, luck had absolutely nothing to do with it.