CONCORD, N.C. — Bold Rock, the second leading hard cider brand in the United States, has partnered with Speedway Motorsports at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Bold Rock launched its lineup of hard teas and lemonades late last year to continue on its path of building Bold Rock into a multi-segment, total alcohol beverage brand.

Bold Rock is capitalizing on high growth segments from cider, hard seltzer, canned cocktails and now, hard tea and lemonade.

As the Official Hard Tea and Hard Lemonade of AMS, BMS and CMS, Bold Rock will bring the familiar flavors of tea and lemonade with a bold kick to the world of motorsports, offering new choices to fans on race day.

The Bold Rock Bold Race Day Experience will enhance the upcoming NASCAR events at AMS on March 21, BMS on March 28, CMS on May 30 and the fall event at BMS on Sept. 18.

As part of the Bold Rock Bold Race Day Experience, race fans will have an opportunity to win future race tickets, prizes and sample a variety of Bold Rock products across a wide spectrum of craft beverage.

Bold Rock Hard Tea and Hard Lemonade also will be featured on the Performance Racing Network’s national radio broadcasts with the Bold Move of the Race as selected by PRN’s racing radio analysts.

Additionally, Bold Rock Hard Tea and Hard Lemonade will award shoppers with VIP race experiences through a consumer sweepstakes at select grocery and convenience stores in the local race markets.

PARKER, Colo. — Capstone Motorsports, a new sports car racing team, will debut this weekend at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway when team principal and driver John Allen pairs with co-driver Kris Wilson in the season-opening doubleheader for the Pirelli GT4 America SprintX Series.

Allen and Wilson will drive in the “Am” class for the twin 60-minute races Saturday and Sunday at Sonoma at the wheel of the No. 16 Capstone Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT4.

Capstone also continues Allen’s longtime support of his alma mater, the University of Alabama College of Engineering, with a trackside sports car racing internship program designed specifically to immerse UA Engineering students in the data-driven and technology aspects of modern-day sports car racing.

The establishment of Capstone Motorsports continues an evolution for Allen and the UA Engineering internship program which has been an at-track technical curriculum the last couple of years.

Allen, a 1979 UA College of Engineering graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, was named in 2018 a UA Distinguished Engineering Fellow in acknowledgement of his vast professional, military and philanthropic achievements.

It was at that year’s Distinguished Engineering Fellows induction celebration that Allen shared his vision for an engineering-based internship program in the world of modern-day sports car racing.

Active in the sport since 2013, Allen is quick to see the connection between sports car racing and the educational programs offered in the UA College of Engineering.

“Sports car racing today is about so much more than just driving fast and flat out,” Allen said. “Along with driver ability, engineering is the most important aspect of success in today’s high-tech arena of sports car racing. We established the internship program a couple of years ago to open this world to UA Engineering students that might not be aware this incredible opportunity exists. Establishing Capstone Motorsports is another key step in the growth of both our racing team and the internship program. We can’t wait for the season to get started this weekend.”

The Capstone Motorsports name was chosen to reflect the team’s close ties to the University of Alabama.

“The Capstone” is a nickname for The University of Alabama coined by former UA President G. H. Denny when he used the reference, meaning “the top stone or high point,” to describe the University as the “capstone of the public school system of the state” in 1913.

The establishment of the team also marks a high point for Allen and Wilson who have been competing successfully together in Pirelli GT4 America SprintX the last two seasons with independent teams.

Last season saw Allen and Wilson put together a solid record of six podium finishes in a shortened schedule of nine races, including four class wins at Road America, Sonoma Raceway and a pair of victories at Virginia Int’l Raceway.

The duo also earned runner-up honors in the Am class in the 2019 Pirelli GT4 America SprintX championship.

Racing for more than 30 years, Wilson won a 2016 Pirelli World Challenge driver championship and has competed on every major racetrack in North America over the past few decades.

“Starting Capstone Motorsports allows us the freedom to really make the University of Alabama engineering internship program an integral part of the team,” Wilson said. “We just had a test at Sonoma two weeks ago to make sure we have all our processes in place. Everybody seems to be working well together. Most of the guys on the team were with us last year running the Mercedes-AMG, so we have built a pretty good notebook of setups for the car.

“You never know how you’re going to stack up against the competition until you get out there and start racing them, but we have a good foundation, and the Mercedes-AMG GT4 seems to do everything well. Only two goals for the year: to win races and the championship. Anything less will be a disappointment.”

A familiar group of experienced and race-winning motorsports professionals joined the Capstone team at its inception.

In addition to Allen and Wilson, lead Capstone personnel includes engineer Grant Barclay, team manager Kelly Brown and crew chief Eric Madsen.

Rick Cameron is another key part of the engineering department and will serve as the main technical interface with the UA engineering interns on race weekends. Jon Berry, who was Allen’s initial driving coach and adviser, has also joined Capstone as Vice President of Finance.

CONCORD, N.C. – Spire Motorsports announced Wednesday that NationsGuard will be the primary sponsor of the No. 77 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

For the third consecutive race, Justin Haley will handle driving duties for the No. 77 team.

Created by car dealers for car dealers, NationsGuard gives dealer groups total control over finance & insurance products and prioritizing the customer experience while generating income, cash flow and wealth.

“Spire Motorsports is happy to showcase NationsGuard on our No. 77 Chevrolet this weekend,” said Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson. “Justin Haley does a great job on the race track so we’re confident he’ll give the NationsGuard Chevrolet a good run.”

INDIANAPOLIS — The death this past November of legendary sprint car mechanic Kenny Woodruff reduced by one the ranks of American racing’s Knights of the Road, a generation for whom the highway was just one more obstacle the sport threw at a man.

In an era before semi-trucks with sleeper cabs and — egad! — cushy toterhomes, Woodruff towed all over the map with pickup trucks and, only later, crew-cab duallies.

In 1978, Woodruff’s car, with Californian Jimmy Boyd in the seat, came out on top in the first event held by a new organization called the World of Outlaws. That was at Devil’s Bowl Speedway, outside of Dallas. In time, Woodruff’s string of victories literally crisscrossed the nation, from Skagit Speedway in Washington to Florida’s Volusia Speedway Park, and from Lebanon Valley Speedway in eastern New York to Ascot Park in southern California.

Smack in the middle of the heartland, at Iowa’s Knoxville Raceway, came two of Woodruff’s best days: In 1997, when he won the Knoxville Nationals with Dave Blaney, and in 2005, when he was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame.

He demanded as much from his drivers as he did from himself. Once, when his rookie shoe was struggling to find speed at a speedway he’d never been to, I asked Kenny, “How many times coming back to a track do you figure it should take a driver to learn the place?”

Woodruff was cranky. “How many times coming back? How about hot laps?”

The old mechanic looked ready to put his tools down for good. Yeah, right. He finished out that season, and at least 10 more.

I never saw Woodruff look anything but weary. Even his smile had weight to it. The road-dog racing life will age a man. It calluses the hands and carves lines into faces, lines that start looking like the maps that put them there.

There was a night in the late ’60s at the old Norwood Arena, a paved bullring outside Boston, when Bugs Stevens — in the middle of a three-year run as NASCAR national modified champion — walked to a dressing room to put on his uniform. Gene Bergin, one of New England’s best, was sitting there. Stevens looked bad enough that Bergin asked if he was sick.

Stevens shook his head. He explained that on Thursday night he’d raced in Vermont, just 30 miles from the Canadian border, and on Friday night he’d been in North Carolina, running a 200-lapper for the bonus points on offer. He had hurried back to Massachusetts for this Saturday-night race and his Sunday plan was to run at Thompson, Conn., in the afternoon and, after a 250-mile interstate blast, Vernon, N.Y., in the evening.

Bergin, who was telling me this story some 35 years later, said of Stevens, “I’ll never forget how tired he looked. But he had made it to Norwood and he was there to race.”

That season still had several months and dozens of races left to run. What was the old poet’s line? “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

But the ultimate road-dog racers were the sprint car hardcases of the old International Motor Contest Ass’n. Across the 1950s and early ’60s, IMCA seemed intent on racing at every Midwest fairgrounds with a rundown horse track. Typically, they produced so much dust that Parnelli Jones divided the IMCA venues into two categories: “Those where you could barely see, and those where you absolutely could not see.”

If the tracks didn’t kill you, the schedule might. It was not unusual for IMCA to sanction Saturday and Sunday races 500 miles apart.

So why mess with the fair circuit at all? Well, because it toughened its best drivers to the point where they were ready for anything. Jones, A.J. Foyt, Jim Hurtubise, Bobby Unser, Johnny White and Bobby Grim climbed from IMCA to the Indy 500.

Hoping to follow that same path, a promising sprint car gladiator named Johnny Rutherford found himself on a moonlit two-lane, halfway through an all-night solo drive between fair dates. Sapped by the racing and the travel, his eyelids heavy, he was thrilled to happen upon a greasy-spoon diner in the middle of nowhere.

Inside were a counterman and, over in the corner, a trucker who had obviously followed his slice of pie with a handful of “bennies,” the Benzedrine tablets that, in those looser times, were a freight hauler’s best friend.

Rutherford said, “He was standing at the jukebox, plugging in nickels, just a-jiggin’ and be-boppin’. The waiter said to me, ‘Boy, you look tired.’ I explained that I was because I’d been racing somewhere a few hours earlier, but now I still had to get down the road and make it to another race.

“Well,” laughed Johnny, “that truck driver spun around and said, ‘Man, I’ve got a pill that’ll keep you awake the rest of your life!”

That offer declined, Rutherford gobbled down a quick breakfast, swallowed the last of his coffee and drove off into the night.

He was bound for the next fairgrounds track, bound for Indianapolis and bound for glory.

MONTREAL — Alex Tagliani is gearing up to make a run at the NASCAR Pinty’s Series championship, beginning with the opening round at Ontario’s Sunset Speedway on May 23.  Tagliani has won twice at the Innisfil track.

After finishing just a few points shy of the title in 2018, Tagliani was sidelined in 2019 due to a medical condition and did not compete in the full schedule last season due to conflicts in his racing schedule.

Despite not running the full schedule, Tagliani picked up two top-fives and and three top-10s. In addition to main sponsors RONA and St. Hubert, the Team 22 will carry VIAGRA on its No. 18  Chevrolet Camaro.

“I am really looking forward to get back on track, as are the race fans eager to see us compete door-to-door for the win at every corner of the track,” Tagliani said. “NASCAR did amazing job behind the scene and worked closely with the promoters to have an early schedule and to ensure a race season for the drivers, the crew and the all the fans In Canada. We all learned the hard way, with the pandemic, I think now we are all going to appreciate racing even more.”

The team used the ovals last year to test numerous set ups to improve their performance. Having always competed well on road courses including victories at Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres, Toronto Indy and the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, it is the ovals that will determine the success of its championship hunt.

NEW YORK -- Carolina Hurricanes forward Nino Niederreiter was fined $5,000 by the NHL on Wednesday for interfering with Nashville goaltender Juuse Saros, the maximum amount allowed under the collective bargaining agreement.

Niederreiter hit Saros up high in a collision behind the net five minutes into the Hurricanes-Predators game Tuesday night. He was given a two-minute minor penalty for roughing.

Saros remained in net for the rest of the first period before being replaced by Pekka Rinne to start the second. The Predators said only that Saros would be reevaluated Wednesday and provided no details about the nature of his removal from the game.

"The ref called a penalty," Predators coach John Hynes said. "It was a hit to the head; we'll have to see where it goes from there. There's not much more to comment on it. What we all saw was what happened."

Saros allowed two goals after the collision, and Nashville lost the game 4-2 after Rinne allowed one on 17 shots. Saros has started 12 of Nashville's first 22 games, though Rinne figures to take the reins moving forward.

Kasimir Kaskisuo would then serve as the Predators' No. 2 goaltender. Kaskisuo has one game of NHL experience, allowing six goals on 38 shots last season with Toronto.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's department has executed a search warrant to obtain the "black box" from the SUV that Tiger Woods was driving when he was involved in a single-car crash last week, according to multiple outlets.

The data retrieved from the device can indicate a vehicle's speed, steering angle, acceleration and braking activity. Probable cause that a crime was committed, even a misdemeanor, is needed to issue a warrant. Sheriff's Deputy John Schloegl told USA Today Sports that the matter was due diligence.

"We're trying to determine if a crime was committed," Schloegl said. "If somebody is involved in a traffic collision, we've got to reconstruct the traffic collision, if there was any reckless driving, if somebody was on their cell phone or something like that. We determine if there was a crime. If there was no crime, we close out the case, and it was a regular traffic collision."

Schloegl added that there was "no probable cause" for a warrant to obtain Woods' blood, in order to determine if he was under the influence of alcohol, drugs or prescription medication at the time of the incident.

Woods was involved in a single-car crash outside of Los Angeles on Feb. 23. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said the following day that it was "purely an accident" and that his department would not file any charges against Woods.

"The Sheriff spoke about the information known at that time, and said it appeared to be a traffic accident," the sheriff's department said in a statement to USA Today Sports on Tuesday. "However, the traffic collision investigation is (on)going and traffic investigators have not made any conclusions as to the cause of the collision."

Woods is currently recovering at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for continued care and recovery after surgery to repair damage to his right leg and ankle.

The Korda sisters, winners of the first two LPGA events this season, will be grouped alongside one another in the opening round of the Drive On Championship at Golden Ocala.

Nelly and Jessica Korda will be joined by world No. 1 Jin Young Ko at 8:11 a.m. ET. Nelly won last week’s Gainbridge LPGA while Jessica captured the season-opening Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions.

Live Golf Channel coverage begins at 10 a.m. ET.

This is the third consecutive event in Florida. Golden Ocala Golf & Equestrian Club is known for its eight tribute holes:

• Par-3 fourth: No. 8 at Royal Troon
• Par-5 fifth: No. 9 at Muirfield
• Par-3 sixth: No. 16 at Augusta National
• Par-3 11^th: No. 12 at Augusta National
• Par-5 12^th: No. 13 at Augusta National
• Par-4 13^th: No. 17 at the Old Course at St. Andrews
• Par-4 14^th: No. 1 at the Old Course at St. Andrews
• Par-3 15^th: No. 4 at the Lower Course at Baltusrol

ORLANDO, Fla. – For those wanting to see Bryson DeChambeau drive the sixth green this week at Bay Hill, his two water balls Wednesday probably didn’t inspire much confidence. But the weather forecast does provide a glimmer of hope.

While there was about a 15-mph wind humming in off the right and slightly into him, DeChambeau came up well short on both attempts during his practice round for the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

The par-5 sixth is listed at 555 yards, but from the back tee box it requires about a 350-yard carry to safely clear the water. On Wednesday, DeChambeau teed his ball up at the very front of the back tee box, about 10 yards in front of the markers.

“Everybody wants to see this,” DeChambeau said as roughly a dozen phones and video cameras fixated on him.

With two launch monitors set up around his ball, DeChambeau unleashed on the first ball, which splashed about 30 yards short and 10 yards left of the putting surface. He immediately asked for his caddie, Tim Tucker, to throw him another ball, and then ripped another shot, this time on a line about 40 yards left of the first one but with a similar result: well short and wet. One of the guys monitoring DeChambeau’s numbers said he reached 194 mph ball speed.

After failing twice, DeChambeau moved back to the proper teeing ground and hit a 275-yarder into the wind, leaving himself about 230 yards into the green. He then hit his next shot to 25 feet and two-putted. It’s also worth noting that DeChambeau dropped a ball in the fairway about 100 yards out and almost pitched it off the back of the green.

DeChambeau said in January that if the conditions were right, he would “100 percent” try to drive the green.

“If I play this year I will definitely do it,” DeChambeau told Golf.com. “No. 6 at Bay Hill is one of those I’ve been eyeing. I think I can do some pretty cool things on it.”

DeChambeau lamented the unfavorable wind on Wednesday, but he said that if the wind switches, he’ll likely aim for the last fairway bunker and try to draw it back toward the green, which would require about a 340-yard carry to clear the water and leave him less than 30 yards into the green for his second shot.

While Wednesday’s forecast hindered DeChambeau, as the week progresses it could be a different story. Beginning Friday, the wind is supposed to change to a more northeasterly direction, which is what DeChambeau needs for optimum help. Sunday’s forecast, though it will be chillier (high of 70 degree) will feature 10-20 mph winds.

In 1998, John Daly made an 18 on the sixth hole after trying to drive the green multiple times, first with driver off the back tee and then five more times with 3-wood from the forward tees. Daly eventually took an easier line with his 13^th shot.

Jurgen Klopp has raised the prospect of Liverpool withdrawing players from World Cup qualifiers later this month, saying it is "just not possible" for squad members to spend 10 days isolating in a hotel after returning from countries on the UK's COVID-19 Red List.

Direct travel to and from Red List countries is banned in the UK, with the whole of South America and Portugal still under those strict measures. Liverpool have three Brazil internationals -- Alisson, Fabinho and Roberto Firmino -- and Portugal forward Diogo Jota all likely to be called up by their countries later this month.

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Anyone that returns from countries on the Red List must quarantine in an airport hotel for 10 days, with no exemptions for elite athletes, and Liverpool manager Klopp admitted his concern about the potential impact of players flying around the globe for the World Cup qualifiers.

"Having more information would be great, but we don't get the information," Klopp told a news conference on Wednesday. "I think that FIFA was kind of clear, saying we don't have to let the players go this time and I think all the clubs agree that we cannot just let the boys go and solve the situation when they come back, with our players having a 10-day quarantine in a hotel or whatever.

"That is just not possible. I understand the need of the different FAs, but this is a time when we cannot make everybody happy. So we have to admit that the players are paid by the clubs, which means we have to be first priority. That's how it is.

"It means we all have understanding for different needs, with competitions coming up in the summer, I get it. But you cannot make everybody happy at the same time in this period of our lives.

"People need time to make decisions and we don't think too much about it because we are not influential in it, but we just deal with things other people decided.

"But I think everybody agrees -- we can't let the players go and play for their country and then quarantine for 10 days in a hotel. That's not how we can do it."

The South American qualifiers in the CONMEBOL region are most at risk of disruption, with Brazil's games against Colombia and Argentina likely to involve several Premier League players.

But with FIFA giving clubs permission to withhold players for this round of qualifiers in the event of COVID-19 issues, Klopp has said that the interest of clubs must come first.

The COVID-19 infection rate in the UK has dropped in recent weeks to the extent that the government has now laid out a roadmap towards the relaxation of social distancing measures, with all restrictions due to be lifted by June 21.

But despite the progress in the UK, Klopp said that clubs are concerned about the prospect of players leaving their COVID-19 secure bubbles to join up with their international squads.

"First and foremost, we are concerned, yes, about all the things which happened from a virus point of view in the last few months, when somebody had to leave the bubble," he added. "Within the bubble, we were not without cases, but we have been without cases for a long time now and it never spread.

"There were two periods -- in the last international break, when more cases came up than before and the Christmas period, which was a challenge for all of society.

"And now in England, it is all going in the right direction and looks positive and promising, but yes we are concerned about things."

CONMEBOL will meet internally on Wednesday and have a virtual meeting with FIFA president Gianni Infantino planed for Thursday to discuss the issue.

Sources have told ESPN that CONMEBOL leaders are not considering playing in a bubble, and will not play the qualifiers without their European players.