CONCORD, N.C. — Jumping into the crowd to celebrate a big race victory appears to have become a Team Penske thing.
Ryan Blaney held off William Byron to win the rescheduled Coca-Cola 600 on Monday at Charlotte Speedway, giving team owner Roger Penske a sweep of the Memorial Day weekend’s top races in the United States.
“I only did it because Josef did it,” Blaney said. “I was pretty fired up. I don’t get that excited very often, but I was super pumped. I loved how Josef did it Sunday. … I said, ‘I am going to go in the stands like Josef did and have some human contact.'”
Blaney compared it to jumping into a mosh pit at a metal concert.
A few moments later, he tried to hold back tears with the weight of 59-race winless streak lifted from his shoulders.
“You start to get to feel like you can’t win anymore,” Blaney said. “We hadn’t won in awhile and that can get hard. I want to thank the 12 (team) for believing in me.”
Blaney took the lead from Byron on a restart and led the final 26 laps to win his first Cup Series race since the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona in August of 2021.
“He’s under a lot of pressure to perform,” Truex said. “They’ve won a lot of races since his last race. I’m sure he questioned himself through some point during that streak that he was on. He’s had many opportunities to win and they’ve slipped away. Those are the hardest to think about so he’s probably thinking, ‘we finally did it.'”
It is the first time Team Penske has swept the Indianapolis-Charlotte doubleheader.
“The pressure was on us to try to sweep the weekend,” said Blaney, who said he texted Newgarden after the Indy 500 win. “So that was the goal. Fortunately we executed well enough to get it done.”
Blaney’s win came just days before Penske hosts a weekend of racing on the downtown streets of Detroit. The return of racing in downtown Detroit is Penske’s gift to the city he calls home. Then, the 86-year-old heads to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of the very few events he’s yet to win.
The 5½-hour race included five wrecks in the final 50 laps, including one with 26 to go when last week’s All-Star race winner Kyle Larson spun and took out defending Cup champion Joey Logano, Kyle Busch and Christopher Bell.
Blaney had passed Byron on the previous restart, and then got the jump on him again on the final restart and ran away with the checkered flag.
It was a rain-soaked weekend at Charlotte, which washed out practice and qualifying and postponed the race to Monday. That meant drivers began the race without ever having turned a lap in the NextGen cars at the 1.5-mile oval for the first time in Coca-Cola 600 history.
More rain caused the race to be red-flagged for nearly an hour after 158 laps, making the longest Cup race of the year even longer.
During the rain delay television cameras caught Aric Almirola shoving Wallace after the two exchanged words. Wallace refused to say what sparked the altercation, and said he wasn’t surprised at what unfolded.
“When you walk around with two faces, that’s what you get,” Wallace said.
It was a rough night for Jimmie Johnson and his new Legacy Motor Club team.
After saying he has never been more ill-prepared for a race due to his inexperience in the NextGen car, Johnson spun out on lap 78 in a single-car crash. He took his No. 84 Chevy behind the wall a few laps later and was joined by there by Legacy teammates Erik Jones and Noah Gragson, who suffered radiator damage.
After Johnson returned, he crashed into Gragson and spun out a second time and went behind the wall again. He finished last.
“I think I learned a lesson with this aero package that I didn’t know about,” Johnson said. “Much different than the car I have driven in the past.”
Kevin Harvick finished 11th in his final Coca-Cola 600.
Harvick, who is retiring after the season, won the race in 2011 and 2013. He started Monday’s race on the front row, but quickly fell back to the mid-20s and was never a major factor in the race.
Former NHL center Ryan Kesler has been charged with criminal sexual conduct in Michigan, according to court records obtained by multiple outlets.
Kesler pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct Monday in Bloomfield Hills District Court, according to court records.
Kesler posted $50,000 bond and was ordered not to leave the state of Michigan without court permission. His next scheduled court appearance is set for Nov. 6.
Kesler has denied the charges, which were filed last Thursday and stem from an alleged incident on Jan. 1 in Orchard Lake, Michigan, according to court records.
“Ryan emphatically denies the allegations and is completely innocent of the charges,” his attorney Robert Morad told The Athletic on Monday. “As the legal process begins, we ask for respect for his privacy and for the integrity of the judicial system. We are confident, when all the facts and circumstances are presented, that he will be fully exonerated.”
According to the criminal complaint, which was obtained by The Athletic, both counts allege Kesler engaged in sexual contact with a 16-year-old child “through force or coercion and/or (had) reason to know the victim was physically helpless.”
Kesler, 41, has been suspended from his role as a youth hockey coach by the Michigan Amateur Hockey Association (MAHA). Tom Berry, the president of MAHA, told The Athletic that Kesler also has been suspended from all USA Hockey activities. Kesler was in his third season coaching the Detroit-area Little Caesars AAA Hockey Club 15O Bantam Midget team.
Kesler played parts of 15 seasons with the Vancouver Canucks and Anaheim Ducks, appearing in 1,001 regular-season games from 2003 to 2019.
A two-time All-Star, Kesler had 258 goals and 315 assists in his career and won the Selke Award, given to the NHL’s best two-way forward, after the 2010-11 season. The Michigan native also was a member of the United States Olympic teams in 2010 and 2014.
Dallas Stars defenseman Thomas Harley has agreed to sign an eight-year extension with the club, a contract that features an average-annual value just below $10.6 million, sources told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan on Tuesday night.
The deal comes with a full no-movement clause past Year Nos. 1-3, and secures a key cog in the Dallas blue line as the Stars seek their first trip to the Stanley Final since 2020.
Harley, 24, a native of Syracuse, N.Y., had one goal and eight points this season, leading into Dallas’ home game against the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night. He skated in 79 and 78 games, respectively, for the Stars the past two seasons, and posted a career-high 50 points last year.
Harley, who was raised in Canada, received the call to join Team Canada earlier this year midway through the 4 Nations Face-Off. He was an injury replacement for Cale Makar, and was with the club when it won the championship game in Boston. In the final, a 3-2 win over Team USA, Harley finished with an assist in 31 shifts that covered 21:56 of ice time.
PITTSBURGH — A fan at Monday night’s game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues was taken to a hospital after falling from the upper concourse at PPG Paints Arena.
The incident happened early in the first period after Anthony Mantha‘s goal gave the Penguins a 2-0 lead.
Emergency personnel treated the fan, a man who was not identified, before taking him to Mercy Hospital, located a few blocks from the arena.
Play was not halted while the man was being treated. Pittsburgh police told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the man was in critical condition.
“Our concerns remain with the individual and his family at this time,” the Penguins said in a statement.
“It doesn’t feel right to be talking about points when you hear something like that,” Crosby said. “Obviously, our thoughts and prayers are with that person and their family and hopefully they’re OK.”
Penguins coach Dan Muse echoed Crosby’s sentiments.
“We all come here for a sport and a game, and when you hear something like that, it kind of puts everything else aside,” Muse said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.”
The fall was the third such incident at a Pittsburgh sporting event this year.
In May, Kavan Markwood fell over the railing atop the 21-foot-high Clemente Wall and onto the field at PNC Park late in a game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs. Markwood spent several days in the hospital but recovered. An acquaintance of Markwood was later charged with providing alcohol to Markwood, who was 20 at the time of the incident.
On Saturday night, a worker at Acrisure Stadium, home of the Pittsburgh Steelers, suffered injuries to his legs when he fell approximately 50 feet while doing work near the stadium’s scoreboard.
