TALLADEGA, Ala. – The ARCA Menards Series has been a part of Talladega Superspeedway’s history since the track’s inaugural season in 1969.

Over the course of those 50 years, the series has run 55 races on the daunting 33-degree banks, where speeds approach 200 miles per hour.

The list of previous winners reads as a mixture of a who’s who of racing and some of the greatest underdog stories in stock car racing.

ARCA first visited the rolling foothills of Talladega in 1969. Jim Vandiver won the first race, a 500-miler, by two laps over Ramo Stott and Freddie Fryar. He averaged an impressive 156.017 mph in a race that was slowed five times by cautions.

Since then, drivers like Mark Martin, Davey Allison, and Jimmy Horton used Talladega wins to propel themselves into rides in the NASCAR Cup Series, while drivers like Rick Roland, Sandy Satullo, and Jim Vaughan all scored their only series wins at the 2.66-mile tri-oval.

Most recently, Talladega has been a proving ground for young drivers who need experience racing at high speeds and in the draft before gaining approval to race in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series or the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Daytona.

Current NASCAR drivers with a win on their resume at Talladega include 2008 ARCA champion Justin Allgaier and his JR Motorsports teammate Michael Annett – both of whom race in the Xfinity Series – as well as Gander Outdoors Truck Series rookie Gus Dean, 2011 ARCA champion and Monster Energy Cup Series regular Ty Dillon, Xfinity Series regular Justin Haley and Cup Series contender Paul Menard.

For NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Martin, who won at Talladega in 1981 as a 22-year-old superspeedway rookie, he already had a solid record of success on the midwestern short tracks. At the time, he had won three American Speed Ass’n championships and was preparing to take his small team to the big leagues.

He outran Joe Ruttman and Tim Richmond, two drivers who would forge their own paths to stock car success, for the win.

Interestingly, 1985 Indianapolis 500 winner Danny Sullivan finished sixth that day.

“(That win) was huge for us in a couple of different ways,” Martin said. “First, it was with my own little team that we raced late models with around the Midwest. And it was my first race on a superspeedway in preparation for Daytona in February of 1982. It was my plan to get some experience at a monster race track like Talladega and then run some other Busch Series – now Xfinity Series – races to prepare myself for the full 1982 season.

“We raced out of North Liberty, Indiana,” Martin continued. “We came down and we had a really fast car. We qualified second and ran strong all day. It was a big deal to get experience on a track that big because all of my experience had been on tracks that were a quarter mile or a half mile long.”

Martin’s 1981 ARCA win was, at the time, seen by many one of those dramatic underdog wins. However, Martin didn’t necessarily agree with that assessment.

“I didn’t really see it that way at the time,” he said. “We had already won three ASA championships in a row in 1978, 1979, and 1980. We were pretty strong. Yes, we were on a different playground, but we were strong. The guys we were racing against like Tim Richmond, Joe Ruttman, and Billie Harvey, all the guys in that race, I understood that I didn’t know a lot about their kind of racing, but we had plenty of experience.

“At the time it was really cool, but I just didn’t see it as an underdog win because we were really strong,” Martin added. “I can see how others might have because we just didn’t have a lot of experience at that kind of racing. We were pretty good at doing our homework.”

Through tremendous perseverance and dedication, he managed to also join that who’s who of motorsports list later in his career.

The Carolina Hurricanes erupted for five goals to beat the Capitals in Game 3, but they will be missing some firepower for Thursday's game.

Coach Rod Brind'Amour said Wednesday that power forward Micheal Ferland is not expected to play with an upper-body injury.

"I would say (he's) still a ways away," he told reporters.

That news comes after he said Tuesday that 19-year-old forward Andrei Svechnikov is in the concussion protocol after being knocked out in a fight with Alex Ovechkin and is unlikely to be back for Game 4.

Ferland, 26, tried to lay a hit on Washington tough guy Tom Wilson in the first period Monday. He left the game shortly after and did not return.

Svechnikov has three points in the Hurricanes' three playoff games. Ferland hasn't registered a point in the postseason, but he was fourth on the team in scoring with 40 points during the regular season.

Carolina trails the opening-round series 2-1 after winning 5-0 Monday.

Fare thee well, Tampa Bay Lightning and Pittsburgh Penguins. We hardly knew ye.

Here's what happened in the NHL Tuesday night (check out replays of every playoff game on ESPN+), and what to watch for Wednesday night, in today's edition of ESPN Stanley Cup Playoffs Daily:

Jump ahead: Last night's games | Three Stars
Play of the night | Today's games | Social post of the day

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About last night ...

Game 4: Columbus Blue Jackets 7, Tampa Bay Lightning 3. (Blue Jackets win series 4-0.) If you go by Vegas odds, the Washington Capitals' loss to No. 8 seed Montreal in 2010 was technically the bigger upset, but it's the manner in which the Blue Jackets dispatched the Lightning that makes this one of the most shocking series results in Stanley Cup playoff history: a four-game sweep. The final score was inflated by a few empty-netters, because this was a one-goal game for most of the third period.

To the Lightning's credit, their stars finally showed up. But that was after Columbus built a 2-0 lead just 3:48 into the game. The soul-crushing moment of Game 4: Oliver Bjorkstrand's goal on a delayed penalty with 1:14 left in the second period, coming 54 seconds after Brayden Point tied the game. The team that tied the NHL record for most wins in a season, eliminated in four straight games. "If you don't accomplish the goal of winning it all, it's a failure. We don't care about what happened in the regular season," Steven Stamkos said.

Game 4: New York Islanders 3, Pittsburgh Penguins 1. (Islanders win series 4-0.) It took four games, but Sidney Crosby finally earned a point in this series, assisting on Jake Guentzel's goal just 35 seconds into a do-or-die Game 4.

That would be the only goal the Penguins would score, as once again the Islanders' combination of stingy team defense, solid goaltending from Robin Lehner (32 saves) and timely scoring never gave the Penguins even a hint of momentum during the game -- like when Jordan Eberle answered the Pittsburgh goal just 1:34 later, his fourth goal of the series. The Islanders are in the second round of the playoffs for just the second time in 26 years. And they didn't need John Tavares to do it.

Game 4: Winnipeg Jets 2, St. Louis Blues 1 (OT). (Series tied 2-2.) If the question was whether Blues rookie goalie Jordan Binnington could bounce back from a subpar effort in Game 3, the answer is yes: He stopped 37 shots and was solid. If the question was whether Winnipeg could do what the Blues did to them and take two games on the road, the answer is also yes: Thanks to 31 saves from Connor Hellebuyck and clutch goals from Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor, who had the overtime winner, this series is now deadlocked.

Game 4: Vegas Golden Knights 5, San Jose Sharks 0. (Knights lead series 3-1.) The Sharks are in deep trouble, as the Knights have a chance to knock them out of the playoffs for the second straight season. Marc-Andre Fleury made 28 saves, Max Pacioretty had two goals and two assists, and the Knights once again jumped on the Sharks early and didn't look back. Martin Jones was pulled again after allowing two goals on seven shots in the first period. "He's gotta be better. Both the goalies gotta be better," said coach Peter DeBoer. "You can't put this all on the goalies, you have to score, too." The Sharks, who were missing center Joe Thornton due to suspension, have now been outscored 16-6 in their three straight losses to Vegas.

Three Stars

1. Mark Scheifele, Winnipeg Jets. His crease-crashing goal tied the game at 7:33 of the third period, and his shot-rebound-pass sequence in overtime resulted in a layup goal for Connor. That was all the offense the Jets needed to beat Jordan Binnington and the Blues.

2. Max Pacioretty, Vegas Golden Knights. His four-point game (two goals, two assists) set a career playoff high for the winger. Pacioretty's goal at 1:11 of the first period was also the 10th time in 18 games that the Golden Knights scored in the first five minutes against the Sharks.

3. Robin Lehner, New York Islanders and Sergei Bobrovsky, Columbus Blue Jackets (tie). We don't usually do ties here, but we'll make an exception for the backbones of their teams' respective first-round sweeps. Bobrovsky gets some extra credit for shattering the narrative that he's a leaky playoff goalie, posting a .932 save percentage for the series. Meanwhile, Lehner's rocking a .956.

Play of the night

A wild Steven Stamkos appears! pic.twitter.com/XDV71D2apQ - Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) April 16, 2019

It took four games -- well, six if you track it back to last postseason -- but Steven Stamkos didn't leave the postseason without a little goal-scoring wizardry, dekeing through the Columbus defense.

Dud of the night

Martin Jones. The biggest vulnerability for the Sharks entering this series was goaltending, and it remains that way after four games. He's rocking a playoffs-worst .838 save percentage, having been pulled twice in the series.

On the schedule

Boston Bruins at Toronto Maple Leafs, Game 4, 7 p.m. ET (Leafs lead series 2-1)

Toronto tries to build on its impressive Game 3 win -- again without Nazem Kadri -- while the Bruins seek to do what they did in Game 2 to beguile them.

Nashville Predators at Dallas Stars, Game 4, 8 p.m. ET (Predators lead 2-1)

In this goalie duel, Pekka Rinne (.936) has been slightly better than Ben Bishop (.931), while the Predators' offense (2.33 goals per game) has been slightly better than that of the Stars (2.00).

Calgary Flames at Colorado Avalanche, Game 4, 10 p.m. ET (Avalanche lead 2-1)

Hey, the lowest-seeded wild card in the Eastern Conference just took out the top seed, so anything can happen. Especially when the Avs have been rolling in the past two games, as Nathan MacKinnon has three goals in three games.

Social post of the day

#NewProfilePic>pic.twitter.com/jeapifK8u2 - Matt Hendricks (@MattHendy26) April 17, 2019

A tribute to teammate Kyle Connor from amateur Photoshop artist Matt Hendricks. We'll let you suss out the acronym.

Quotable

"I had beers poured on me!" -- John Tortorella, on the Blue Jackets' bench celebration when they scored their (first) empty-netter.

Paris Saint-Germain missed another opportunity to seal their eighth Ligue 1 title when their much-changed side were beaten 3-2 at strugglers Nantes on Wednesday.

Victory would have put PSG out of reach at the top of the standings with six games left, but Dani Alves's opener was cancelled out by Diego Carlos before Majeed Waris and an own goal by Alves gave the Canaries all three points at La Beaujoire.

PSG's Metehan Guclu reduced the arrears a minute from fulltime in his maiden Ligue 1 appearance.

It was an embarrassing performance from runaway leaders PSG, who have 81 points from 32 games and lead second-placed Lille by 17 points.

Thomas Tuchel's side, who have now picked up only one point from their last three Ligue 1 outings, will be crowned champions on Sunday if they beat Monaco at home.

PSG were without the injured Neymar, Edinson Cavani, Thiago Silva, Marquinhos and Thomas Meunier, a situation that led the German coach to complain about the lack of depth of his squad last weekend.

Marco Verratti and Juan BernatJuan were suspended while Kylian Mbappe and Angel Di Maria were rested ahead of Sunday's league game against Monaco and the April 27 French Cup final against Stade Rennes.

Their firepower was sorely missed as Eric Choupo-Moting barely threatened throughout, apart from when he hit the post in the second half.

Alves, however, opened the scoring after 19 minutes with a splendid long-range lob after collecting a cross from Leandro Paredes.

Yet Carlos headed home the equaliser four minutes later as PSG, who suffered a 5-1 humiliation at Lille last Sunday, looked shaky.

Waris put the hosts ahead a minute before the interval when he deflected a team mate's shot past Gianluigi Buffon.

Nantes doubled their advantage six minutes into the second half as Carlos's attempt form a corner deflected in off Alves.

Guclu, 20, celebrated his first top flight appearance by finding the net with a fine low shot from inside the box.

The result lifted Nantes up to 14th on 37 points, 12 above the relegation zone.

A Florida judge issued a temporary protective order Wednesday stopping the release of video evidence of sexual services Robert Kraft allegedly received from a massage parlor.

Kraft's legal team had been scrambling to stop the release after the Palm Beach County State Attorney's office surprised the New England Patriots and other defendants Wednesday morning by announcing they would release the video as soon as possible, saying Florida's broad open records laws gave them no other option.

Judge Joseph Marx has scheduled a hearing for April 29 to rule on the video evidence.

Kraft and 24 other men were charged with misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution in February after police identified them as having received services at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida. Part of the evidence collected against the men, as well as two women who ran the spa, was video surveillance installed by police.

Kraft and other defendants filed motions to have the video evidence sealed and suppressed last month, and a hearing was scheduled on the matter for April 26. But State Attorney Dave Aronberg filed an intent to release the evidence Wednesday morning as part of the case against the two women, Hua Zhang and Lei Wang, not in the cases against Kraft and the other men.

Kraft, who is fighting the two misdemeanor charges with a notably large legal team, responded by filing a motion to intervene in the case against Zhang and Wang. Kraft's team argues that there is no public interest served by releasing the video, and that no action should be taken before a judge has a chance to rule on their motions to seal or suppress the evidence.

Prosecutors offered him and the other defendants a diversion agreement last month that would allow them to have the cases expunged and the evidence sealed if they agreed to certain conditions, including an admission that they would have lost had the case gone to court. But Kraft has refused to concede that he committed a crime, and has, instead, mounted an expensive legal defense that has surprised both prosecutors and some members of his own inner circle.

A group of media companies, including ESPN, have intervened in the case, suing for the release of all material, including the video evidence. State prosecutors said in court documents that there is nothing about Kraft's case that allows them to withhold the evidence from the public. The material might be obscene, but that's not a reason to exempt it from release, they argued. The filing also noted that as a practice, the state pixelates or blurs sexually graphic content.

The Alliance of American Football, which suspended operations earlier this month in the midst of its first season, filed a petition for bankruptcy Wednesday in a Texas court.

Based on the filing of assets and liabilities, the league -- under the limited liability corporation Legendary Field Exhibitions LLC -- had $11,372,298.68 in assets and $48,366,188.90 in liabilities.

Those liabilities include $9,642,171 in money owed to creditors.

"We are deeply disappointed to be taking this action," the AAF said in a statement Wednesday. "The AAF was created to be a dynamic, developmental professional football league powered by an unprecedented alliance between players, fans and the game. The AAF strove to create new opportunities for talented players, coaches, executives and officials while providing an exciting experience for fans. We are proud of the fact that our teams and players delivered on that goal."

The AAF said a trustee would be put in place to resolve all matters related to assets and liabilities, "including ongoing matters related to player contracts."

The league, despite millions of dollars invested in it, has $536,160.68 in the bank and only $78,582 in licenses, franchises and royalties. The money was held in three accounts -- $500,000 in a collateral money market account, $36,116.72 in an LLC operating account and $43.96 in an account with the Birmingham Iron name on it.

Among the debt is $7 million owed to MGM Resorts International for "security interest in intellectual property."

The league and a lot of the LLCs created with it -- including AAF Players, AAF Properties and Ebersol Sports Media Group -- are filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy petitions.

"We thank our players, coaches and employees for their commitment to the game of football and to this venture," the AAF said in its statement. "Our fans believed in the AAF from the beginning, and we thank them for their support. We are hopeful that our players, coaches and others will find opportunities to pursue their football dreams in the future."

Chapter 7 bankruptcy is the most common form of bankruptcy. It means the league will gather and sell its assets to pay creditors according to the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Property such as real estate -- although it isn't clear whether the AAF owned any -- can be exempt, but all other assets can be liquidated.

That includes equipment purchased by the league that was returned to a San Antonio warehouse earlier this month, according to a league source.

"The AAF is committed to ensuring that our bankruptcy proceeds in an efficient and orderly manner," the league said in the statement.

The AAF had financial struggles throughout its existence, eventually necessitating a pledge of $250 million in funding from Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon -- the league got much less -- before the second week of games to keep the league afloat.

Dundon decided to shutter the league two months later, on April 2, which has spurred three class-action lawsuits.

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Gonzaga forward Brandon Clarke, who led the nation in blocked shots this season, plans to skip his senior year and enter the NBA draft. Clarke is No. 12 in the ESPN rankings of top NBA prospects.

Under new NCAA rules, the junior can sign with an agent and still return to school if he chooses. Clarke has until May 29 to make a final decision.

Clarke's 117 blocks were the most in the country. He averaged 16.9 points and 8.6 rebounds per game in his first season with Gonzaga after transferring from San Jose State. Clarke also led the nation in field goal shooting percentage (68.7).

Earlier this week, Gonzaga forward Rui Hachimura also said he would skip his senior year to enter the draft.