INDIANAPOLIS – The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum is celebrating the return of the Driven2SaveLives BC39 Powered by NOS Energy Drink USAC National Midget race to IMS with its second act of From Dirt Tracks to the Brickyard.

The event is an interactive panel discussion Tuesday, Sept. 3, with USAC racing legends and current stars.

From 4-6 p.m. in the IMS Museum gallery, join USAC legends Mel and Don Kenyon, along with current standouts Chad Boat, Michael Pickens and Chris Windom, for a two-hour trip through USAC racing history and current storylines.

Longtime USAC public address announcer and historian Pat Sullivan will serve as emcee.

The Kenyon brothers will be the featured guests for the first 40 minutes, and then Windom, Boat and Pickens will join the panel.

The early start time reflects a second invitation: Immediately following the Museum event, fans are invited to the BC39 draw party at USAC headquarters, 4910 W. 16th Street in Speedway, just west of IMS Turn 1.

The draw will determine starting positions for the first night of BC39 racing at The Dirt Track at IMS on Wednesday, Sept. 4.

Tickets for From Dirt Tracks to the Brickyard are now on sale, and the audience is limited to 75, first-come, first-served. IMS Museum member tickets are just $15, and non-members are just $20.

Kenyon finished fourth in the Indianapolis 500 twice (1969, 1973) and in eight starts he earned a total of four top-five finishes, but it’s his midget racing prowess that places him among short-track racing’s legends.

Mel and Don, who served as crew chief, won seven USAC National Midget Series championships, finished second in points eight times and won more than 110 USAC national midget features, plus many more races in other series.

Windom has three USAC 2019 National Sprint car wins to date, most recently July 20 at Kokomo, the third race of Indiana Sprint Week. It was a major milestone for the Canton, Ill., native, the 24th win of his USAC National Sprint Car career, breaking a three-way career wins tie with A.J. Foyt and Roger McCluskey.

Auckland, New Zealand-resident Pickens has eight New Zealand Midget championships and won the 2016 Australian Speedcar series, the first New Zealander to do so.

His most recent USAC midget victory was June 1 in the southern Illinois town of Wayne City, less than 24 hours after a 13-hour flight from Auckland to Chicago.

Boat, the son of 1998 Indianapolis 500 pole winner Billy Boat, finished second in the inaugural BC39 a year ago. He has competed in Indy Lights and in numerous NASCAR races, including the Xfinity Series race at IMS in 2014.

CONCORD, N.C. — Speedway Motorsports Inc. announced recently that it has entered into a merger agreement with Sonic Financial Corp.

If the deal is consummated, the track operator will become a wholly-owned subsidiary and become privately owned.

Sonic Financial collectively represents various factions of the Smith family members. O. Bruton Smith founded Speedway Motorsports in the late 1950s, Marcus G. Smith is the CEO and Scott Smith is the co-founder of Sonic Automotive Inc.

RELATED: Sonic Financial Makes Offer To Acquire SMI

In April of 2019, Sonic Financial made an offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of stock for $18 per share. This was approximately a 25 percent premium to the previous 30-day trading price.

The offer has been raised to $19.75 per share. The merger agreement was unanimously approved by the Board of Directors, after a recommendation of a special committee of independent and disinterested board members.

The closing of the transaction is expected to take place during the third quarter of 2019.

The Smith family collectively owns more than 70 percent of the voting stock in Speedway Motorsports. The vote is subject to approval by over 50 percent of the remaining stock. Those shares are primarily held by institutional fund managers.

The company obtained a debt financing commitment from Bank of America, which includes a $250 million term loan and $100 million revolver.

If the deal in terminated by Speedway Motorsports, the company will have to pay a $24 million breakup fee to Sonic Financial and $40 million by the other side.

Advisors to the deal included Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, McGuireWoods LLP, BofA Merrill Lynch, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP.

LA Galaxy forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic has escaped punishment from Major League Soccer, but was given a formal warning by the league's Disciplinary Committee for elbowing LAFC defender Mohamed El-Munir late in last Friday's 3-2 LA Derby win at Dignity Health Sports Park.

The incident, which left El-Munir with a facial fracture, took place in the fourth minute of second-half stoppage time when the two players were involved in an aerial duel, with Ibrahimovic elbowing the LAFC defender on the right side of his face.

Ibrahimovic wasn't carded during the game -- but a foul was called as a result of the incident -- and he was confronted by LAFC assistant Zak Abdel after the final whistle.

An LAFC staffer confirmed to ESPN FC that El-Munir will undergo surgery this Friday to repair the fracture. El-Munir is expected to miss a minimum of four weeks.

In order to punish Ibrahimovic with a suspension for this incident, the MLS Disciplinary committee needed to vote unanimously that the incident was deserving of a red card, and it rose to the level of a two-game suspension. The Disciplinary Committee didn't reach a unanimous verdict on those two issues.

Now that VAR has been introduced to MLS, it is league policy that the Disciplinary Committee can't issue one-game suspensions for on-field incidents that don't result in a red card. Ibrahimovic has instead been given a formal warning, and could be suspended if he is involved in similar incidents in the future.

Ibrahimovic received a two-game ban in May for grabbing New York City FC goalkeeper Sean Johnson by the neck in a 2-0 home defeat to NYCFC. He was fined an undisclosed amount for diving in the May 8 defeat to the Columbus Crew.

Ibrahimovic also made news earlier this season for alleged verbal threats and a post-match confrontation with Real Salt Lake defender Nedum Onuoha.

You might have missed it as the camera angle was panned down to a close-up on the corner flag in the 79th minute. With Liverpool 3-0 ahead against Barcelona in their Champions League semifinal second leg but tied 3-3 on aggregate, the announcers were taking a breath ahead of what seemed like a run-of-the-mill corner kick and even Anfield itself seemed quiet.

An extra ball rolled over to a scampering ball boy; Xherdan Shaqiri shuffled toward the corner flag and Trent Alexander-Arnold measured his steps away from the ball. Then, while the Barcelona players were still setting up their marking assignments, Alexander-Arnold suddenly cut his set-up short, scampered back to the ball and bent in a low cross along the ground to Divock Origi, who was standing unmarked in the 6-yard box.

All commentator Martin Tyler could spit out was "QUICKLY TAKEN" before Origi's shot looped in at the first post. That made the score Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona -- the comeback after a 3-0 first-leg defeat was complete, and a couple of weeks later Jurgen Klopp's team would lift the European Cup in Madrid.

Given what Liverpool would go on to do, Origi's second goal against Barcelona was probably the most important goal of the season. And it was also the most fitting.

Back in September, Liverpool hired a throw-in coach. Yes, a throw-in coach. It was an easy target for bad jokes but nearly 12 months on, it looks like a clear indication of the club's new dedication to dead balls. According to postgame reports, everyone at the club -- all the way down to the ball boys -- were briefed on the potential for a quick corner kick against Barcelona. It wasn't a pre-scripted play, but Liverpool were able to capitalise in that specific moment because everyone involved knew there was a chance something similar would arise.

More from Ryan O'Hanlon:
- How Ozil, Isco and traditional No.10s are becoming obsolete
- What if Mbappe, top soccer stars started running down their contracts?
- Will Barcelona have a Messi problem next season?

Thanks to that newfound focus, Liverpool led all teams in Europe's "Big Five" leagues with 22 goals from set pieces last season in domestic play; no one else had more than 17. Take a couple of those away and there's no title race in England and perhaps no sixth European title, either. But Klopp & Co. aren't the only dead-ball dynamos to experience success last season.

Their opponents in the Champions League final, Tottenham, were joint-fifth (16), as were their semifinal opponents, Barcelona, and the Serie A champions, Juventus. Germany's title winners, Bayern Munich, were just one back with 15 (in four fewer games), while France's finest, Paris Saint-Germain, snuck into the top 25 with 13. And guess who led the Champions League in set piece goals? The surprise semifinalists Ajax, with eight.

Despite the attacking talent and beautiful, complex interplay these teams are all capable of from open play, they each needed dead-balls to score as many goals as they did. Set pieces, then, are as important as they ever have been.

Back in 2014-15, FC Midtjylland, a small club located on the Jutland peninsula, won its first-ever Danish league title. The club is owned by Matthew Benham, a former hedge fund manager and sports bettor who also owns Brentford in the English Championship. Under Benham's ownership, Midtjylland have become the closest thing in European soccer to a professional baseball team: unafraid of unconventional behaviour, looking for inefficiencies wherever they can find them. During that championship campaign, they scored 25 set piece goals while no one else in the 12-team league broke 11 and just three others reached double-digits.

One of the reasons why some coaches, players and analysts bristle at the idea of spending more practice time on set pieces is that practice time is finite. The more time you spend on set pieces, the less time you're spending on possession; wouldn't the improvement in dead-balls just be cancelled out in the decline in production from open play?

Eventually, everyone else in Denmark started to copy Midtjylland. In the 2017-18 season, they led the league with 25 set piece goals again and they won the league again, too. Except, this time, two other teams broke 20 set piece goals, and eight others broke into double-digits.

"It was almost an unintentional economics experiment," Ted Knutson, who used to work for Midtjylland, told ESPN.

The league had expanded to 14 teams, but the number of set piece goals per game had increased from 0.55 in 2014-15 to 0.75 in 2017-18. On top of that, the number of goals also increased, from 2.41 per game to 2.91. Everyone got better at set pieces and everyone scored more goals.

"It pointed to a huge under-exploited tactical wrinkle in the game that could help teams score enough goals to win a title," Knutson said. "And it's repeatable across the entire sport. That's a pretty big deal."

Knutson now runs Statsbomb, an analytics consultancy with clients across the world. They also teach a course on set piece design.

"Right now, the average team scores between 0.30 to 0.35 goals a game from set pieces," he said. "The best teams can bump this up to 0.75 to 0.80. That type of leap in production takes an average Premier League forward and moves them into the realm of Neymar, except without the transfer fee or the massive cost in wages."

Liverpool averaged 0.58 set piece goals per game last season, so Knutson believes that not even the best team is executing on set pieces as best as it can. But his comparison still works: Only seven Premier League players (Sergio Aguero, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Sadio Mane, Harry Kane, Gabriel Jesus, Mohamed Salah and Jamie Vardy) averaged more than 0.58 goals per 90 minutes last season.

Given everything that could go wrong, every open-play goal is a minor miracle. In order to develop an efficient and productive open-play attack, there has to be an innate understanding between players who must move in sync with each other and then execute a succession of high-level skills at a fast pace. They're never replicating an exact pattern of movement or passing -- every goal is as unique as a snowflake -- but rather constantly interpreting a set of pre-practiced principles. That takes a lot of time to develop. But with set pieces, teams can literally import the exact routines they practice directly onto the field.

The 2018 World Cup was further proof that dead-ball training can provide immediate dividends. National teams simply don't spend enough time together to develop the necessary open-play cohesion. (It's not a coincidence that perhaps the two best international sides of the past 10 years, Spain and Germany, included an outsize number of players from Barcelona and Bayern Munich.) But they can develop their set piece proficiency.

In Russia last summer, there were 70 set piece goals, eight more than the previous record set in 1998. Gareth Southgate studied the plays of both NBA and NFL teams before the tournament, and then England scored nine set piece goals, breaking the record Portugal set back in 1966.

However, despite both England and Liverpool's success with set plays, the best team in the U.K. is still lagging behind. Manchester City's 12 set piece goals were tied for eighth most in the Premier League last season. Pep Guardiola's side had the best goal differential of any team in Europe in 2018-19. Could there still be room for improvement?

"Pep is a genius, but Man City can definitely get better at executing in that one phase of the game," Knutson said. "I'm not sure it will be good for the Premier League as a whole if they do though."

NEW YORK -- Jurgen Klopp has ruled out a Liverpool return for Philippe Coutinho, telling ESPN FC he hopes the midfielder "finds his luck at Barcelona."

The 27-year-old left Anfield for Camp Nou in a £142 million deal in January 2018, but has found it exceedingly difficult to cement a starting spot in the centre of the park for La Liga's champions or win over their fans.

Barcelona are already looking to offload their most expensive signing, with Coutinho's agent Kia Joorabchian accusing the Catalan club of providing mixed messages for his client.

- When does the transfer window close?
- All major completed transfer deals

Liverpool have been an easy and obvious link given Coutinho's four-and-a-half happy years on Merseyside before his aggressive push, which included handing in a transfer request that was rejected in the summer of 2017, to join Barcelona.

And while Klopp greatly appreciates the Brazil international as a player and person, he will not sanction a massive outlay to re-sign him.

"In general, Phil Coutinho helps each team in the world, still -- 100%," Klopp told ESPN FC during an exclusive interview in New York during Liverpool's pre-season tour. "It's not about that. I like Phil, I think he's a fantastic footballer and all that stuff, but it would be a big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big-money signing and it's not our year for that.

"It's just not possible. As I said, having him would make each team better -- us included -- but I really hope that he finds his luck at Barcelona.

"Or maybe he found it there. We have contact, but not that close contact that I know exactly how he is doing, but the rest is only newspaper talk and stuff like that.

"If everything was true what newspapers write about me -- wow! If it's similar to what they write about me, I would say he's completely happy at Barcelona and wants to sign a new six-year contract or whatever."

ESPN FC also understands that Liverpool have not considered a loan deal for Coutinho, who scored 54 goals in 201 appearances for the club following his £8.5m transfer from Inter Milan in January 2013.

The European champions are expected to do minimal business this summer, with their policy of player retention being paramount.

Liverpool plays the last of their three match pre-season tour of the U.S. against Sporting CP at Yankee Stadium on July 24.

Nottinghamshire 155 for 3 (Clarke 45) beat Northamptonshire 152 for 8 (Christian 3-32) by seven wickets

Joe Clarke rediscovered some of his best form to help Notts Outlaws open their account with a first victory in this season's Vitality Blast competition. Notts had already been defeated by Worcestershire Rapids and suffered a washout in their other match but had the better of their Trent Bridge encounter with Northants Steelbacks, eventually triumphing by seven wickets with 11 balls to spare.

Clarke, who has had a lean season with the bat, scored 45 from only 34 balls and put on 79 for the first wicket with Alex Hales as Notts chased down a victory target of 153 to maintain a lengthy winning streak against the Steelbacks. Hales followed up his 52 against the Rapids with a stylish 33.

Notts had the run chase in control right from the start, although Pakistan international Faheem Ashraf did begin with a maiden to Clarke. Hales helped both Nathan Buck and Dwaine Pretorius over the ropes in the initial overs and Clarke then heaved Ashraf over wide long-on to end the Powerplay on 60 without loss.

A crowd of 13,691 - a Trent Bridge record for a midweek T20 match - lapped it up as the home side found the boundary repeatedly.

Clarke was eventually dismissed by Nathan Buck and Hales followed, falling to former team-mate Graeme White but the onslaught continued. Ben Duckett, playing against his former side, scored 26, effectively setting the contest with two sixes off Pretorius in the 15th over.

Dan Christian, the Outlaws' captain, enjoyed a fine match and finished with an unbeaten 22, with Tom Moores bludgeoning the ball over the ropes for the winning runs.

Earlier, the Steelbacks made 152 for 8 after winning the toss and opting to bat. They limped their way to 39 for 2 from the opening six overs, with Matt Carter removing the dangerous Adam Rossington with the sixth ball of the match.

Josh Cobb hit both Carter and Samit Patel for sixes but was then completely bamboozled by Harry Gurney's slower delivery and could only balloon the ball up to cover. Christian couldn't have had a better start with the ball, bowling Rob Keogh with his first delivery and having Matt Coles caught behind with his fifth.

The Steelbacks' new overseas pairing of Pretorius and Ashraf mounted a counter-attack, adding 36 in just three overs together but neither could see out the innings. Ashraf was unlucky, having plundered 24 from only 14 balls he was caught by a diving Gurney at short third man, giving Christina his third wicket.

Pretorius fell to Jake Ball for 34, leaving White to muscle some useful runs in the closing couple of overs, hitting two sixes in his unbeaten 24.

On a decent surface, with a fast outfield, the eventual total appeared light and so it proved, extending Northants' unwanted record of never having beaten Notts in the group stages.