It's been described as one of the greatest catches of all time. Here's what viewers, commentators, team-mates and the man himself said about Ben Stokes' incredible grab to dismiss Andile Phehlukwayo off the bowling of Adil Rashid.

Ben Stokes:

"I was actually in the wrong position. I made a relatively straightforward catch into a hard one. It would have been a regulation catch if I was in the right place. It is one of those that sticks or doesn't. We do train hard.

"Was it better than the one in the 2015 Ashes? Nah. That one was against the Aussies. So that one ranks higher.

"The crowd's reaction behind me was pretty awesome. I just tried to take that in as much as I could. I bowled the next over and Morgs had to come to me and ask if everything was all right, if my heart rate had gone down. Things like that catch do get you fizzed up. I didn't really know quite how to react to be honest, I just tried to take it in. The crowd today were phenomenal. It's the best thing about having a home World Cup."

Eoin Morgan:

"We see a lot of him in training do stuff like that all the time. You just shake your head because it doesn't happen every day.

"He misjudged it at the start. He ran in, stopped and then I thought it was going to be way over his head. The next leap in that direction … unbelievable.

"I've only seen a catch like that made before by AB De Villiers in a game in Bangalore."

"I'm going to take my clothes off and run up and down the street naked with England winners in a minute, it was just that big a win."

Beware, people of London - @Swannyg66 is getting carried away! #ENGvSA #CWC19 pic.twitter.com/59SvDuPqOu

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) May 30, 2019

Moeen Ali:

"He ran in for no reason. He screwed it up! [smiles] I'd have just stood there and it would have gone straight in my hands!

"We see him do that in practice all the time. He's always got a great chance of catching those. He's a big part of this team."

Faf du Plessis:

"It was as good as it gets."

Nasser Hussain: (on TV commentary)

"No way! No, no way! You cannot do that, Ben Stokes. That is remarkable. That is one of the greatest catches of all time!"

Amazing how "boundary riding" has become fielding focus in the modern game - only time @hershybru and I ever left the inner ring was to chase the ball down en route to the rope!!!! https://t.co/lKBmJHOUT3

— Jonty Rhodes (@JontyRhodes8) May 30, 2019

Hey Jonty Have You Seen Stokesy catch another Jonty2019 Pull Of 2019 ......

— Bhanu Chander (Gunnu) (@evry1ns4me) May 30, 2019

Andrew Miller: (ESPNcricinfo ball-by-ball commentary)

"Ben Stokes, that is absolute fifth! Absolutely leathered through deep midwicket ... and Stokes somehow launched himself horizontally towards the rope, timing his jump like a mortar from its tube, and clinging onto a certain six, in his outstretched, reverse-cupped, right hand! My God, that is an utter, utter worldy! If Alisson got a mitt to a screamer like that in Madrid on Saturday and tipped it over the bar, we would be talking about it for years..."

If David Warner pulls up all right on Friday, he is set to open the innings for Australia in their first World Cup outing on Saturday against Afghanistan.

Struggling with a sore right glute, Warner was put through a fitness test at the start of Australia's training session Bristol on Thursday. Following the test, Warner suggested he felt much better than on Wednesday - when his lateral movements were hampered - and went on to have a hit in the nets, during which he didn't look in apparent discomfort.

Batting, though, has not been a problem. Nor has running in straight lines. It is when he has to field or turn sharply or make sideways movements that he has complained of pain. Overnight pain medication has done some work for him, but Australia still face the dilemma of whether to risk aggravating it against Afghanistan. The trade-off is losing out on an opportunity of easing him back in in a less challenging game.

However, one decision has been made for sure. There had been speculation around whether Warner would walk back into the opening slot occupied by Usman Khawaja. Australia tried Warner at No. 3 in the unofficial warm-up against New Zealand in Brisbane. He returned to the top of the order in the official warm-up against England before missing the one against Sri Lanka.

Justin Langer, the Australia coach, acknowledged there had been some indecision, but said Warner was going to open the innings if and when he was fit. That is a decision, Langer said, they want to make as soon as possible because they want to be fair to the player missing out: Khawaja or Shaun Marsh.

"We'll have a pretty good idea today, how he moves and how he pulls up in the morning," Langer said before the start of the training session. "But what I have expressed to him is it's really important to be fair to the other players, we don't want to be getting to Saturday morning and making a call.

"When a couple of other guys are wondering if they are going to play or not going to play, the earlier we can make the decision the better. Hopefully we can make it tonight where he says 'yep, I'm ready to go' or 'I'm not sure' if he pulls up sore in the morning. But the earlier the better. He knows that, and collectively we're really strong on that."

Langer emphasised the importance of selecting Warner only if he is fully fit, lest he aggravate the injury.

"He had throwdowns yesterday, and was just a bit sore in his right glute," Langer said. "He's obviously desperate to play, he would love to play. Like all 15 players would, he is jumping out of his skin, his energy is up, and he's laughing a lot, which is a really good sign.

"But we've just got to make sure he can move, particularly in the field. Batting seems okay, running in a straight line seems okay, but going side to side we've just got to make sure we don't aggravate it."

Steven Smith and David Warner are humans too. They made a mistake - a pretty big mistake - and have paid a price for it - a pretty heavy price. Stop booing them. That's the plea from Australia coach Justin Langer to crowds in England after the duo were made to feel welcome upon their return in the IPL. However, they have had to cop it in the World Cup warm-up games in England, where they will likely stay back to play the Ashes too.

Smith and Warner - captain and vice-captain at the time - spent a year out of cricket for their role in the ball-tampering scandal in the Cape Town Test last year. These will be their first international matches back after they resumed competitive cricket during the IPL.

The booing at the warm-up game was a wake-up call for Australia after which Langer spoke to the duo.

"We have talked about it a lot," Langer said. "We are expecting it. That said, when it happens, it doesn't make it any easier. You can take about it as much as you like but that doesn't make it any easier. I mean they are human beings, and that's the truth. That's where I find it hard.

"I am a dad, and I have got kids. A lot of the time, players feel like they are my kids. And you see that happen. You know, you feel for them personally. They are going to have to have thick skin. We have talked about earning respect. I think it is really important that people show some respect as well. Because they are humans, they are really good cricketers. They made a mistake. They have paid the price for it. Big price actually. I feel for them as people more than anything else."

Langer said speaking more about it was not going to make much difference.

"After the experience of the other day at Hampshire, I think they have got a pretty good idea what to expect," Langer said. "And, as I said, you can talk about it as much as you like, you can put strategies in place to make sure they deal with it, but no human likes it. That is the truth. As professional cricketers, they will put that out of their mind. They will go and do their job but no one likes that."

Forget Smith and Warner, Langer said he didn't want to see any cricketer booed. "I will be disappointed any day if any cricketer is booed on a cricket ground," Langer said. "Regardless of what country they play for. It is not the spirit that any of us like to see.

"Obviously it hurts because I have got an emotional attachment, and personal attachment, to our players. But it is never a good look, is it, when that happens."

This appears to be consistent with how Australia reacted to the booing of visiting captain Virat Kohli in the home summer when he copped it in pretty much every Test. Ricky Ponting, assistant coach now, called it "disgraceful", and Cricket Australia asked fans to show more respect to the visitors.

It is a departure from the time when Stuart Broad was booed all summer in the 2013-14 Ashes, when then-coach Darren Lehmann said: "I just hope the Australian public give it to him right from the word go for the whole summer and I hope he cries and he goes home."

It wasn't quite the chronicle of a defeat foretold but South Africa talked this game down so much in the run-up, it did feel, long before the actual end, inevitable. One of the messages that kept coming out through to game day was that the format of this tournament affords them an early loss or two. The opening game was important, but far from decisive.

If it is at least out of the way now, there is slightly less margin for error than before. And this World Cup moves - less than a week from today they'll be playing their third game, against India who will be playing their first.

"Yeah, this is where it's important for us to make sure that you look at the World Cup for what it is," Faf du Plessis said after a 104-run defeat.

"You know, you're going to play games. You're going to come up against quality opposition. Today England was better than us in all three facets of the game. They show why they are such a good cricket team, and now we have to look at the league. It's a league competition.

"As disappointed as we are with our performances today, you have to make sure you learn from it quickly and put every single dart to bed because there is a next game and you have to make sure you play good cricket again."

In many ways the result revealed more about England's credentials for the challenge ahead rather than South Africa's. It was England who had to overcome a slow pitch and show that there is another side to their game.

Given England's batting, South Africa could have considered restricting them to 311 a job well done, especially with an attack built on three specialists and a couple of allrounders and part-timers. In particular, conceding just 76 in the last 10 was a mini-triumph, more so for Lungi Ngidi who overcame a nervy start to pick up three cheap wickets at the death.

"Yeah, I thought after the first half, that we did a good job with the ball," du Plessis said. "You know, as I said before this game, England more so than any other team in this World Cup, bat longer than anyone else. So if you can stop them with the long batting line-up you have, then you're doing a great job with the ball.

"For them to score as little runs as they did the last 15 overs and us picking up as many wickets as we did, was a great achievement by our both units. But yeah, as I said, 310 is still a big score, so what you need to do you is need to start well, and we didn't have that luxury today."

The chase was on until the moment Hashim Amla went off, having been pinged by a Jofra Archer bouncer. That disrupted the start but it also reaffirmed perhaps how much South Africa's batting will depend Quinton de Kock, Amla and du Plessis himself (though Rassie van der Dussen must feel like a welcome addition).

"When you are chasing a big score like 310 what you need is a good start," du Plessis said. "You need to make sure that you settle the bats in the dressing room with a good partnership, whether it's zero down or one down, but a good start is really important and obviously with him [Amla] coming off, and then a few overs later, Aiden got out and then one or two overs later, I got out. When you go three-down on a big score like that, you're making it really tough for our batting unit to perform. And then the score just looks big. It looks too far."

For the first two weeks of the baseball season, WAR goes dark. Baseball-Reference.com didn't roll out the first run of its all-encompassing stat until the morning of April 9, by which point the Los Angeles Dodgers' Cody Bellinger was hitting .435, slugging .978 and on pace to hit 103 home runs and produce 20 wins above replacement.

All of those would be records, but, of course, paces like that never hold. Bellinger's home run pace fell behind 73 on the last day of April, his slugging percentage fell below .863 in early May, and his batting average dipped below .400 -- almost certainly for good -- last week. Yet one pace holds: More than a third of the way through the season, the third-year outfielder has 5.4 WAR, in 55 team games, on track for about 16.0. The single-season record is 14.1, by Babe Ruth in 1923.

This pace, too, likely cannot hold. But it's a rare occurrence when we can see, over such an extended period, what the greatest season of all time would even look like. This is what it looks like:

April 21: Bellinger entered play with 2.2 WAR, having hit .371/.477/.686 since April 9.

In his first at-bat against the Milwaukee Brewers, he fell behind 0-2 and then singled to drive in a run. In the second, he fell behind 1-2 and singled again, driving in another run. He then struck out looking and drew a walk, and in the eighth inning he robbed Christian Yelich of a home run. "Is there anything he can't do?" one of the game's broadcasters screamed.

Last year, there was. Bellinger struggled against lefties enough that he ended up in a platoon. (Most Dodgers were in platoons. It was a very deep roster.) But this year, he has hit .343/.438/.701 against lefties, the best left-on-left line in baseball, better than all but nine right-handed hitters. With the game on the line, he was facing Josh Hader, who has been tougher on lefties over the past couple of years than any other pitcher in baseball.

Hader got ahead and threw Bellinger a 1-2 slider. It was down the middle, and it's easy to say that Hader missed his location. But Bellinger used to swing and miss a lot, even on pitches down the middle. In his first two years, he whiffed on about 25 percent of middle-middle pitches. This year: 11 percent.

Even Hader's mistakes are difficult to hit, especially for lefties. As Bellinger swung, his hips cleared early and he hooked the ball deep and over the right-field wall for a home run, giving the Dodgers the lead and the win.

He finished the game with 2.7 WAR.

April 28: Bellinger entered play with 3.3 WAR, having hit .400/.500/.933 since the home run off Hader.

Bellinger hit a sacrifice fly in the first, then batted with one out and nobody on in the fourth. The Pirates' Trevor Williams got ahead 1-2, then threw a slider that was clearly below the bottom of the strike zone -- a called strike less than 1 percent of the time, according to ESPN Stats & Info. If you freeze the action a split-second before bat hits ball, Bellinger looks like he's just trying to make contact, a game of pepper, his back leg folding down:

But the image is misleading. His hands are actually screaming toward the ball, trying to get the bat under it like a lob wedge. He gets there, and his high, deep fly ball again lands over the wall for a homer.

Bellinger's ability to do damage this year can be traced to ... well, to almost everything. But one especially striking point is this:

On pitches out of the zone, he's hitting .320 and slugging .460. (This includes strikeouts.) It's even better to not swing at pitches out of the strike zone -- and he's chasing fewer of those this year than he ever has -- but nobody can avoid swinging at some wayward pitches, either because they're fooled or because they have to protect with two strikes, as Bellinger arguably did there. When he puts those pitches in play, he's slugging .639 and hitting .444.

Later in the game he would strike out and single. He finished the game with 3.5 WAR.

May 14: Bellinger entered play with 4.2 WAR, having hit .357/.449/.429 since the home run against Williams.

The Padres starter was rookie phenom Chris Paddack, who had a 1.55 ERA going into the game. Bellinger popped out in his first at-bat, then batted with a runner on first and two outs in the third.

Paddack fell behind 2-0, then got a foul (on a 2-0 changeup) and a called strike (on an inner fastball) to even the count. With two strikes, batters are hitting .110 against Paddack this year, nearly half of those at-bats ending in K's.

Paddack threw a 95 mph fastball in the upper half, and Bellinger fouled it off, and then came a curveball way low, which Bellinger managed to tap foul toward his first-base coach.

These two fouls don't seem like all that much in the moment, but Bellinger's ability to stay alive in two-strike counts has been dramatically better this year: In his first two seasons, he made contact with 72 percent of his two-strike swings. This year, it's 86 percent. This is how he has cut his strikeout rate from 24 percent (worse than league average) last year to 14 percent (among the league leaders) this year. And that's how he has been one of the league's half-dozen best two-strike hitters this year. He hit the seventh pitch from Paddack for an opposite-field home run.

Bellinger finished that game with 4.5 WAR.

May 27: Bellinger entered play with 4.9 WAR, having hit .286/.405/.629 since the home run off Paddack.

Bellinger popped out twice, drew an intentional walk, lined out and, against Jacob deGrom, homered. His game was more memorable for two defensive moments:

In the first inning, he threw out Michael Conforto at home with a perfectly placed throw.

And in the eighth, with the bases loaded and one out, he ended the inning by throwing out Carlos Gomez at third for a double play:

Those were Bellinger's sixth and seventh assists of the season, and they can be used to make the case for why Bellinger could break the all-time WAR record, or for why his early-season WAR is propped up by unsustainable defensive numbers.

The case for: WAR is the everything stat. It rewards (or penalizes) a player not just for his offense but his defense and his baserunning. Bellinger is one of the league's fastest runners and has one of its best arms. He can play center field well, and he's outrageously good in right. Now that he rarely strikes out and has improved his plate discipline, he is nearly flawless, perfectly built to help a team win in myriad ways (and pile up WAR).

Baseball Reference uses defensive runs saved for the defensive component of WAR. Bellinger, a third of the way through the season, has 16 DRS, on pace for nearly 50 runs saved. No right fielder has ever topped 40 DRS; Bellinger's 16 this year would have led the National League last year and nearly led in 2017. That's the case against: His WAR is built on too many defensive runs saved to take seriously.

It's easy to believe he really has earned those 16 runs on his ledger, or at least most of them. He robbed that Christian Yelich home run earlier this year. He has thrown two pitchers out at first base on apparent singles and three runners out at home. (He plays one of the shallowest right fields in the game.) He's a 95th percentile runner, according to Statcast. He's had great range and positioning this year, according to Sports Info Solutions, the data company behind DRS. And DRS isn't alone in loving his glove: Statcast's outs above average and Baseball Prospectus' fielding runs above average agree that Bellinger has been excellent, if not quite as good as his DRS and WAR say.

But as hard as it is to imagine Bellinger continuing to hit .380 with 60-homer power, it's even harder to imagine him keeping this defensive pace. Every week, Bellinger the hitter sees 120 or so pitches, 120 chances to do something extraordinary. In that same week, though, he might get three chances to do something extraordinary in the field, and all of them will turn on margins of a couple of inches. Further, he might only get two. Or he might get none. A lot of that is just out of his control.

Anyway, you already knew that Bellinger probably isn't going to end up having the best season of all time. But this is what it would look like if he did: He hits lefties and righties. He hits pitches in the zone and out of the zone. He takes huge swings and he hardly ever swings and misses. He's more aggressive in the strike zone and less aggressive out of the strike zone. He gets tons of walks and he rarely strikes out. He's one of the strongest hitters in baseball and one of the fastest. He's incomprehensible on offense and even better on defense. He's worth a win every 10 days. That guy probably doesn't exist for six months; nobody fitting that description ever has. But he did for two months, and we should never forget it.

British sprinter finishes almost half a second ahead of Olympic champion Elaine Thompson in Diamond League 200m

Cool temperatures and blustery winds led to a number of upsets at the Diamond League in Stockholm on Thursday (May 30) but the testing conditions did not bother Dina Asher-Smith.

The British athlete is used to this kind of weather and scorched away from a world-class field to win in 22.18 (1.3m/sec).

Olympic champion Elaine Thompson of Jamaica was almost half a second behind in 22.66 with world champion Dafne Schippers of the Netherlands a further 12 hundredths of a second back.

Asher-Smith also had a pleasant surprise by discovering her mum, Julie, had decided to visit the Swedish capital to watch. I didn’t know my mum would be here,” said the 23-year-old. “She tends to just turn up so when I saw her I was so happy.”

Asher-Smith handed her victory bouquet of flowers to her mum after the race and added: “Next week is Rome Diamond League then I will be back to solid training. I am happy with that. My aim was to come, win and run my own race which is very important in a race of that calibre.”

The European champion added: “I was very happy to win but I didn’t expect to run that kind of time as it is quite cold out and late at night.”

Thompson said: “Dina is a great athlete. She’s been doing great last season, and to come here and get a win is very good.”

On a good night for British athletes, Laura Muir also returned to winning ways after finishing third behind winner Melissa Courtney in the Vitality Westminster Mile four days earlier.

Muir was not at her best in the London event due to hay fever and after having just finished a tough block of training but in Stockholm she cruised away from her rivals in a non-Diamond League 1500m with a 61.7 last lap to clock 4:05.39 – three seconds ahead of runner-up Malika Akkaoui of Morocco.

In fourth came Muir’s training partner Jemma Reekie in 4:10.16 while Sarah McDonald, who beat Muir in the Westminster Mile, was fifth in 4:11.01 and Amy Griffiths eighth in 4:13.80.

“I feel very happy with that,” said Muir. “It is much more representative of where I am at.

“I was quite disappointed after last weekend’s race. Today was about the win rather than the time with the conditions as they are. I am happy that I executed the race well and got the win.

“I knew from training I was in really good shape last weekend so it is frustrating when you know your race and can’t do what you want but I had heavy legs from a full week of training. I had much fresher legs today.”

The chilly and gusty weather played havoc with some of the results. Competing on home soil, Swedish athlete Thobias Montler handled it better than his high-profile rivals to produce a surprise win in the long jump with an 8.22m (1.5) PB.

The previous year Juan Miguel Echevarria almost jumped out the pit with a massive 8.83m (2.1) and since then the organisers had extended the pit at the 1912 Olympic Stadium. But this time Echevarria could only manage 8.12m to finish runner-up as Olympic champion Jeff Henderson was third, Luvo Manyonga fourth and Miltiadis Tentoglou – who beat Montler to the European and outdoor titles in the past 12 months – sixth.

The home fans in Sweden were also delighted to see a victory in the men’s discus as Daniel Stahl threw a fine 69.57m to beat Jamaican Fedrick Dacres’ 68.96m.

But there was a turn-up in the women’s discus as Sandra Perkovic, the Olympic and world champion from Croatia, finished fifth with 63.71m as Denia Caballero threw 65.10m to beat fellow Cuban Yaime Perez by one centimetre.

Agnes Tirop of Kenya took the win in the women’s 5000m in 14:50.82 after fellow Kenyans Lilian Rengeruk and Hellen Obiri fell earlier in the race.

Not only did Britain’s Eilish McColgan and Melissa Courtney manage to stay upright but they both ran well. Only a day after discovering her house in England had been burgled, McColgan finished a close seventh in 14:52.40 while Melissa Courtney was eighth in a Welsh record of 14:53.82.

A much-anticipated men’s 1500m was a bit of an anti-climax as Timothy Cheruiyot won in 3:35.79 after erratic pacemaking that saw the rabbits go through 200m in 25 seconds. Ayanleh Souleman finished second as Jakob Ingebrigtsen – underpar after a recent bout of illness – went from sixth to third in the final 150m as big names floundered with Samuel Tefera fifth and George and Eiljah Manangoi eighth and tenth.

Norwegian Karsten Warholm did not let the conditions bother him, though, as he won the 400m hurdles in typically aggressive style in a fine 47.85 as Brits Sebastian Rodger (50.50) and Jacob Paul (51.29) placed fourth and sixth.

“I had no problems with the cold or wind but I won in London (2017 world title) in the rain and I have to learn to run in all conditions,” said Warholm. “It is an outdoor sport so whether it is cold or warm I have to run.”

Mike Norman’s 400m of 44.53 was also good in the conditions as he comfortably beat fellow American Rai Benjamin (45.13).

The cold weather also did not seem to affect Keni Harrison as she ran a quick 12.52 (1.3) to win the women’s 100m hurdles in style from fellow American Sharika Nelvis.

World record-holder Harrison said: “I have raced in a lot colder conditions so I just had to come out here and focus on my lane and get the job done which I did.”

Wearing arm warmers, Mariya Lasitskene took the women’s high jump for the fourth time with 1.92m from Yuliya Levchenko and Erika Kinsey (1.90m).

Aaron Brown of Canada ran 20.06 (1.0) to beat world champion Ramil Guliyev of Turkey (20.40) in the men’s 200m, whereas one of the most entertaining races of the night was a men’s 800m that saw Amel Tuka surging from seventh place with 100m to go to pip Ryan Sanchez on the line to win in 1:46.68.

Due to the absence of Caster Semenya and Francine Nyongabo, the women’s 800m was one of the most talked about events as Ajee Wilson of the US cruised to victory in 2:00.87 from a field that included Lynsey Sharp, the Briton clocking 2:03.52 in seventh.

In the earlier non-Diamond League events, Rabah Yousif beat fellow Brit Cameron Chalmers by three hundredths of a second to win the 400m in 46.67.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — With rain and saturated grounds stifling most of the dirt-track racing in the Midwest, Kevin Thomas Jr. is heading south for a rare winged sprint car appearance this weekend.

Thomas will compete with the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series during the Music City Outlaw Nationals May 31-June 1 at Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville.

The paved Nashville oval has been covered with dirt for the weekend, one of two unique challenges for Thomas, who races primarily with the non-winged AMSOIL USAC National Sprint Car Series.

Thomas has converted one of his USAC machines over to winged specs to race at Nashville, something he and co-team owner Brodie Hayward keep a plan for “just in case.”

“We always have a set of wings just sitting there and we like to do it every once in a while, especially with how much we’ve been getting rained out lately,” Thomas told SPEED SPORT. “We just want to go race. All of our non-winged cars are still basically winged cars — they’ve got all the extra pieces on them — so everything’s good once you change the axles and get it ready to go race with the wing on it.

“It’s something that we’re always prepared for, we’re just usually wrapped up in either a Silver Crown car, a (USAC) sprint car or a midget, so we don’t have time to venture out and go do these things,” he added. “The Midwest basically flooding itself opened our schedule though, so we figured, ‘why not?’”

With $40,000 to win on the line if a driver can sweep both nights of the inaugural Outlaw weekend in Nashville, it made sense for Thomas and company to make the trip, especially considering Curb recording artist Tim Dugger, who is performing at the event, is a supporter of Thomas’ team.

“Nashville is a track that we think probably won’t put too much wear and tear on the equipment, so we feel like we can go down and run solid,” Thomas noted. “We run pretty well at Haubstadt (Tri-State Speedway) with the wing, so we figured that between that and the fact that there’s quite a bit of money on the line, we’d go give this deal a shot. It’s always a big deal when you can run with the Outlaws, especially in a city like Nashville that brings a lot of eyes as well.

“There’s definitely been crazier things that we’ve done than this in the past. We should be alright.”

Following his two-day sojourn with the Outlaws, Thomas will return to Indiana to compete in Sunday night’s Kokomo Klassic at Kokomo Speedway with his non-winged sprint car, making for the cap to a busy and diverse three-day weekend for the Cullman, Ala., driver.

“We’ve got our primary non-winged car sitting here ready to go, so once we’re done in Nashville, we’ll come back, load the non-winged car and head over to Kokomo … where I always enjoy running,” Thomas noted.

“The weather’s looking good for all three shows and I’m just excited to do something a little abnormal from what we usually do and hopefully come out with some pretty decent results.”

CHICAGO — The Badger Midget Auto Racing Ass’n open-wheel stars and cars visit Sycamore Speedway this Saturday for the first of six Sycamore appearances for the Zimbrick Chevrolet of Sun Prairie-sponsored midget series.

Qualifying begins at 6:30 p.m. with racing right after time trials. A full program of stock car racing is also on tap at the third-of-a-mile, dirt oval.

The following evening, June 2, the 73rd opening night will take place at Angell Park Speedway in Sun Prairie, Wis. The event is the first of the 1–race season at the popular third-mile clay oval, the long-time home of Badger midget racing. Also on the Sun Prairie card will be the MSA Sprint Cars and Wisconsin Dirt Racing Legends Series.

The past several years have seen the Badger midgets compete on a regular basis at the Sycamore oval. In 2018, six races were held with reigning Badger champion Scott Hatton winning two feature events. Andrew Felker, Chase McDermand, Tyler Baran and Ryan Probst each scored one win. Hatton, the Illionois native who now hails from Sharon, Wis., won his fifth Badger championship in 2018.

Weather has pretty much been the winner so far this year on the Badger schedule.  With rainy/cold weather plaguing the series, only one event has been held with Alaska native Billy Balog winning at Wisconsin’s Beaver Dam Raceway on April 20.   The Badger midget group has been sanctioning racing since 1936 when midget auto racing was in its infancy and gaining wide-spread popularity.

The Sycamore speed plant, actually located in Maple Park – a few miles east of Sycamore, some 65 miles west of downtown Chicago, has seen midget auto racing on and off since its first year of operation in 1963.  United States Auto Club, United Auto Racing Ass’n and World of Outlaws Midgets events have taken place there.  The USAC midgets traveled to Sycamore for the first time in 1966 with California’s Don Meacham driving his Myron Caves-owned midget to victory in the 40-lap feature on June 17, 1966 when the track was known as the Bob-Jo Speedway.

– Longtime Chicago area pavement stock car racer, Bobby Gash of Orland Park, Ill., won the UMP Pro Late Models 20-lap main event at Medaryville, Ind.’s Shadyhill Speedway last Saturday, winning his first dirt track feature race.

Gash, who was a regular at Illiana Motor Speedway in Schererville, Ind., until it closed after the 2015 season, began competing on the dirt at Shadyhill and at Kankakee County Speedway the last few years. Gash was the fourth-ranking driver in the late model division at Shadyhill in 2018.

Gash began his stock car racing career at Blue Island’s Raceway Park in 1980 and moved his racing to Illiana in 1983.  With his career always supported by his dad, Bob, who owned numerous late model cars in the 1970s and early 80s, Bobby Gash was a two-time sportsman division champion at the Illiana half-mile paved oval.

Gash won 22 sportsman feature races over a six-year span at Illiana from 1989 through 1994.  Gash moved into the late model ranks in 1995.  Gash’s son, Bobby Gash III, has also competed in stock cars in the past on both pavement and dirt and raced in the UMP stock car division at Shadyhill last season.

– Another driver making the change from asphalt to dirt this year is Billy Knippenberg.  The Joliet, Ill., speedster won the late model track championship at Grundy County Speedway in Morris, Ill., in 2005 and again in ’17, winning a dozen late model features at Grundy over the years.

The son of former Santa Fe Speedway dirt track champion, Bill Knippenberg, the second-generation driver got his start in racing on the dirt – where he competed for about eight years.  Moving over to pavement, Knippenberg was Grundy’s Mid American sportsman division champion in 2000 and ’11 after being named Grundy’s late model rookie of the year in ’97.  Knippenberg had a slick-looking Pro Late Model car at Shadyhill last Saturday but dropped out of the feature race early.

– Michael Marden is another former pavement racer that has taken to dirt track competition, racing in the UMP Pro Late Model ranks at several different speedways.  Another Illinois racer, Marden was second in the Pro Late Model points at both Shadyhill and Kankakee last year.

Marden competed in Mid American sportsman action at Illiana and Grundy during his years on asphalt and was seriously injured in a wreck at Illiana in 2004.  Marden’s racing career goes back to the 1980s when he made some USAC and ARCA starts and competed with Sal Tovella’s International Racing Ass’n series. He made one NASCAR Busch Grand National start at The Milwaukee Mile in 1984. Marden finished sixth in the 20 lapper at Shadyhill Saturday night.

– A crewmember for a number of local racing teams over the years, Lloyd Doogan passed away on May 24.  Doogan worked with several teams including Lorz Motorsports, Pockrus Racing, Nutley Racing and Matt Hagan Racing. Always smiling and having a good word to say, Doogan had been battling cancer.  RIP, Lloyd.