ROSEVILLE, Calif. — Derek Thorn looks to continue his dominance in the SPEARS SRL Southwest Tour as it returns to action Saturday night at All American Speedway.

Thorn added his fourth victory in the season’s six races when the series visited the third-mile asphalt track on Aug. 16.

Despite having not raced at All American Speedway since 2012, he’s won four times in seven starts there. He hopes to continue that streak in Saturday’s JM Environmental Inc. Wild West Shootout Round No. 2, featuring the Thunderstruck 127 presented by 51 FIFTY.

Thorn holds a 132-point championship lead over Linny White in his hunt for his series’ record fifth title.

Thorn won the August visit in dramatic style, spinning late in the event and charging through the field to take the lead with seven laps remaining.

White is hoping to rebound from a disappointing 13th-place finish in August, while defending series champion Cole Moore is hoping to close on the frontrunners.

The winner’s share of the purse will be $5,000 – with an extra bonus for the driver leading lap 27. The SRL Tour will be joined by the NASCAR late models, limited modifieds, super stocks, F4, junior late models and the bandoleros and mini cups.

All events will be streamed by SPEED SPORT Network affiliates.

The SPEARS Southwest Tour Series event can be seen on SpearsRacing.TV, with all NASCAR Weekly Series divisions shown by AllAmericanSpeedway.TV.

INDIANAPOLIS – Helio Castroneves will return to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course for next weekend’s Harvest GP presented by GMR, but he will not be driving for Team Penske.

Castroneves, who has driven for Team Penske since 2000, will take over the No. 7 Chevrolet for Arrow McLaren SP for next weekend’s doubleheader, subbing for rookie Oliver Askew.

Askew, the team’s regular driver, was forced to withdraw from next weekend’s action because of a medical issue. He was ruled not fit to drive by the IndyCar Medical Team because of a balance and coordination issue he began to experience after the recent Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio doubleheader on Sept. 12-13.

According to Arrow McLaren SP, that issue triggered an examination from the IndyCar Medical Team. As a result, Askew is not medically cleared to race and is subject to IndyCar’s Return to Racing protocol.

“This was an incredibly tough call, but I have to follow the advice of the IndyCar Medical Team and my doctors. My priority right now is focusing on my health,” Askew said. “Despite not being in the car, I will be at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Harvest GP, giving whatever insight and support to Arrow McLaren SP that I can.”

Castroneves will join fellow driver Pato O’Ward at Arrow McLaren SP next week at Indianapolis.

“First and foremost, we wish Oliver the best and that he is able to take time to recover,” Castroneves said. “I look forward to getting back on track and helping to build on the great progress that Arrow McLaren SP has made this year.”

Castroneves has 30 Indy car victories, including six in CART and 24 with the NTT IndyCar Series. He is a three-time Indianapolis 500 winner, all with Team Penske.

The last time Castroneves competed in an Indy car for a team other than Team Penske was the 1999 CART season-finale at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., on Oct. 31, 1999.

Castroneves drove for Hogan Racing that season but replaced the late Greg Moore at Team Penske the following season after Moore was killed in that race at Fontana. That was just one day after Moore was announced as one of two new drivers at Team Penske for 2000.

The other was Gil de Ferran, who would go on to win the 2000 and 2001 CART championships and the Indianapolis 500 in 2003 for Team Penske.

Team co-owner Sam Schmidt said the decision to have Askew sit out was difficult, but noted the 23-year-old must treat his mysterious balance and coordination issue.

“The welfare of Oliver, our team members and fellow competitors is paramount,” Schmidt said. “We therefore support Oliver and the decision of INDYCAR. Withdrawing to focus on his health and recovery is the right thing to do.”

MOORESVILLE, N.C. — NASCAR Xfinity Series rookie contender Riley Herbst hasn’t had the maiden voyage he expected in his first full-time season in the division.

While the 21-year-old made the playoffs and has been a consistent top-10 runner through the first 26 races of the year, Herbst has yet to crack victory lane. He’s also lacked much of the normal practice and testing time afforded to first-year NASCAR drivers due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions.

That has left the Las Vegas native and Joe Gibbs Racing driver with a bit of a chip on his shoulder going into the playoffs, with Herbst hoping to make a statement that he belongs.

“I felt like I had a little bit of a point to prove, yeah,” Herbst told SPEED SPORT during Xfinity Series Playoff Media Day. “Every driver kind of looks at it differently. Like I’ve said before, it’s mostly myself and my crew chief Dave Rogers, but someone who I’ve leaned on a bunch is (TRD simulator and test driver) Drew Herring. The three of us have kind of had horse blinders on all season, to be quite honest with you. I don’t really care what people say. We have no time for that. We are just trying to improve week in and week out.

“It’s all about trying to be better than we were last week and I think that’s shown throughout these seven months. Hopefully, into the playoffs that continues and we can go out and get a win.”

For Herbst, having someone like Herring in his corner has been a valuable resource, considering Herring has been able to give him a lot of information he’s lacked due to minimal on-track time.

“Drew has been awesome. He’s helped me tremendously,” said Herbst. “Just going to these race tracks that I’ve never been to before and having to fire off and go race there, he’s helped a lot. Drew has been to most of these places and he’s a really fast race car driver. He teaches me what to expect at these race tracks, what I’m supposed to be feeling, who to pay attention to, and who not to pay attention to.

“He’s big at keeping my mindset right. He’s been working with me for a while now and it’s helped me in so many ways.”

When he looks back at his season so far, Herbst has struggled to define it to this point, largely because the COVID-19 pandemic uprooted everything that he thought the season would be after just four races.

“It’s a difficult question to answer, to be honest with you,” said Herbst when asked how he would rank his run through the regular season. “When we set our plans and objectives in January of where we wanted to be in June and entering the playoffs, we counted on having all four test sessions that a rookie gets and all of the practice that I should have gotten. So that kind of threw a wrench in our plans a little bit, but I thought we would have had a win by this point in the season.

“We’ve had some highs and lows as part of the season, but I’m looking forward to this last stretch because I think that I have the confidence and the car to go win in the playoffs.”

Asked what he’d consider a “successful” playoff run, Herbst turned his focus to the next three races and advancing intothe Round of 8.

“I’m kind of bummed about our starting position now, nine points out. We are going to chip away at Las Vegas, Talladega and Charlotte and, hopefully, when the cards are down, we will be able to move on to the next round,” Herbst said. “I would really be disappointed if we didn’t get out of the first round.

“I think that I have the crew chief (Dave Rogers), the car and the team to do it. Joe Gibbs Racing has given me the tools to perform and now it’s on my shoulders and I have to go do it.”

The NASCAR Xfinity Series playoffs begin Saturday at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway.

It’s a home race for Herbst, who grew up in Sin City watching his family race off-road trucks in the desert.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Sabres signed right winger Curtis Lazar to a two-year, $1.6 million contract Thursday.

Lazar was a restricted free agent who split the 2019-20 season between the NHL and the American Hockey League. He had five goals and five assists in 38 games with the Sabres.

The 25-year-old has six seasons of NHL experience and was selected in the first round (17th overall) of the 2013 draft by Ottawa. Lazar played two-plus seasons in Ottawa before being traded to Calgary.

He signed with Buffalo in free agency last summer, following a season in which he appeared in just one game with Calgary.

Overall, he has 20 goals and 61 points in 284 career games.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Nashville Predators have signed forward Yakov Trenin to a two-year contract worth $1.45 million.

The Predators announced the deal Thursday. Trenin will be paid $700,000 for the 2020-21 season and $750,000 for 2021-22.

Trenin, 23, skated in 21 games as a rookie this season for Nashville, and he scored two goals with four assists and nine penalty minutes. The 6-foot-2, 201-pound forward averaged 9 minutes, 44 seconds of ice time with the Predators.

He ranked second for the Predators' AHL affiliate, Milwaukee, scoring 20 goals in 32 games in 2019-20. He has 87 points in 155 career AHL games. Nashville drafted Trenin at No. 55 overall in the second round in 2015, and the native of Chelyabinsk, Russia, played for Russia at the 2017 World Junior Championship.

Rule 15.1 of the Rules of Golf permits that golfers can “remove a loose impediment without penalty anywhere on or off the course and may do so in any way.”

This includes boulders a la Tiger Woods at the 1999 Phoenix Open. This also covers large tree branches – branches like the one Padraig Harrington and his caddie, Ronan Flood, removed Thursday at the Irish Open.

Harrington had missed the fairway badly on the par-5 10^th hole during his opening round at Galgorm Castle Golf Course in Ballymena, his ball ending up in some thick brush under a tree. However, Harrington noticed that one of the branches – a very large one at that – had fallen off, hence making it a loose impediment.

So, Harrington and Flood teamed up to do a bit of landscaping, carrying the branch away from the area so that he could hit the shot.

Despite the hard work, Harrington, who was supposed to have been captaining the European Ryder Cup team this week at Whistling Straits, ended up making double bogey on the hole en route to an opening 1-over 71.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico men's national team head coach Gerardo "Tata" Martino has spoken to LA Galaxy duo Julian Araujo and Efrain Alvarez recently to discuss the possibilities of both dual U.S.-Mexico nationals playing for El Tri.

Alvarez, 18, has already featured for Mexico at youth team level, but 19-year-old Araujo has played for United States youth national teams, including the Under-23s.

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"Efrain Alvarez and Julian Araujo are players we follow carefully," said Martino after he was asked about whether Alvarez could soon be called into the full national team squad. "In Efrain's case, I've had the opportunity to speak with him and he is excited about his situation with Mexico.

"[Alvarez] has competed in [Mexico's] youth national teams and in time he'll be a national team player for sure, in accordance with his development and growth with the Galaxy," continued the Argentine. "There's no need to rush him, he's very young, we have to go carefully."

Martnio admitted that the case of Araujo is a little different because of his relatively recent involvement within the U.S. set-up.

"Araujo is definitely doing really well," stated Martino. "I've had contact with him around 20 days ago. I told him that I hope he can be a part of the Mexican national team. He told us that he'll talk it over with his family and his agent about which path he will take [at national team level], but they are two boys we have a lot of hope for."

Araujo recently said he is undecided as yet as to his national team future.

"It's definitely hard, I stress a lot about it," Araujo told Extratime Radio. "I've received calls from both coaches, both staffs. It's hard because I have dual-citizenship. I've kind of put it aside right now because I'm getting minutes [with the Galaxy] so I'm focused on my club.

"For me being 19 receiving calls from both sides, it's a tough decision," he stressed. "[It's] not a feeling I like to feel. I'm just waiting on whoever gives me the better opportunity. So far the U.S. has given it to me. But you never know what'll happen. I'm going to go with whoever makes me more successful in my career."

The Mexico national team has other dual-national issues at present, with Cruz Azul striker Santiago Gimenez and Monterrey's Rogelio Funes Mori also making headlines in Mexico.

19-year-old Gimenez was born in Argentina and raised in Mexico. He has been called up by Martino although the Argentina national team is interested in calling him up.

"He's playing his first games and he's doing very well with Cruz Azul," said Martino. "I didn't speak to him about Argentina because I'm ruling it out. I see that his desire is to play for Mexico. He's shown very interesting qualities."

Argentine Funes Mori, 29, is established as a top striker in Liga MX and due to new FIFA rules could play for Mexico if he gets citizenship, which he said in a recent interview he would be doing.

Martino didn't want to talk directly about Funes Mori, but indicated he is open to calling in naturalized players if they are available and would add to the squad.

The former Barcelona and Atlanta United coach also announced his domestic-based squad for next Wednesday's friendly against Guatemala.

Goalkeepers: Guillermo Ochoa, Hugo Gonzalez, Alfredo Talavera, Rodolfo Cota

Defenders: Luis Rodriguez, Jorge Sanchez, Cesar Montes, Salcedo, Gilberto Sepulveda, Johan Vasquez, Jesus Gallardo, Miguel Layun, Luis Romo

Midfielders: Roberto Alvarado, Uriel Antuna, Ivan Rodriguez, Carlos Rodriguez, Fernando Beltran, Sebastian Cordova, Luis Chavez, Orbelin Pineda

Forwards: Alexis Vega, Santiago Gimenez, Henry Martin, Jose Juan Macias

Raul Jimenez is firmly established as a fan favorite and key player at Wolverhampton Wanderers, but the 29-year-old Mexican striker had no idea where the team played a little over two years ago.

Wolves' 2019-2020 players' player of the season had to investigate the club and its whereabouts when he heard about the interest from the team in the summer of 2018, while he was preparing for the World Cup.

"About Wolverhampton, I didn't know [where it was]," said Jimenez in a talk with the Mexican embassy in the UK. "I only knew London. With the national team I had to go to Newcastle, Wales, I knew a little about England, but Wolves and Birmingham I did not know anything.

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"I knew about teams from England, but I even asked where Wolverhampton played and they told me, 'Well, in Wolverhampton,'" said Jimenez, laughing, before replying: "'Oh, it's a city?'"

Liverpool and Arsenal will play each other twice in four days next week after being drawn to meet in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup.

The Premier League champions eased past Lincoln City 7-2 in the third round on Thursday, while Aston Villa and Manchester City also won their ties to advance to fourth round matches against Stoke City and Burnley, respectively.

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Arsenal and Liverpool will meet at Anfield in the Premier League on Monday evening and will then line-up on Merseyside again later in the week, most likely on Thursday. It will be the third time they have met in little over four weeks, with Arsenal winning the Community Shield on penalties following a 1-1 draw.

Brighton & Hove Albion and Manchester United will also face back-to-back meetings at the Amex, firstly on Saturday and then again in midweek.

Holders Manchester City will travel to Burnley, while Everton will host West Ham United. Newport County have a home tie against Newcastle United, who notched their record away win when thrashing Morecambe 7-0 on Wednesday night.

Chelsea must await news on the outcome of the postponed Leyton Orient vs. Tottenham Hotspur third-round tie, which was called off after the League Two club returned several positive coronavirus tests. It is being reported that Orient will have to forfeit, which will send Spurs straight through to the fourth round and a home game against Chelsea. However, Spurs will also face Maccabi Haifa at home in the final qualifying round of the Europa League on Thursday, which means an under-23 team is likely to take on Chelsea earlier in the week.

FULL DRAW

Liverpool vs. Arsenal
Burnley vs. Manchester City
Brentford vs. Fulham
Everton vs. West Ham
Aston Villa vs. Stoke City
Leyton Orient or Tottenham vs. Chelsea
Newport County vs. Newcastle United
Brighton vs. Manchester United

The fourth round will be played on Tuesday to Thursday next week, with select matches available in the U.S. on ESPN+.