Ganassi sells entire NASCAR team Barca on Messi's future: 'Don't worry' Fan involved in Tour crash arrested SPORTS SHORTS

Chip Ganassi sold his NASCAR team to Justin Marks, owner of Trackhouse Racing, and declared Wednesday that he will pull out of the nation's top stock car series at the end of this season. Ganassi fields two cars in the Cup Series but will transfer his North Carolina race shop and all its assets to Marks for 2022. "He made me a great offer that required my attention. The team wasn't for sale," Ganassi told The AP. "I'm not out of racing, I'm just out of NASCAR. I still have an IndyCar team. I still have an IMSA sports car team. I still have a Formula E team." Marks, who drove 22 Xfinity Series races for Ganassi from 2016 through 2018, gets two charters for at least $10 million each as well as the Ganassi shop and assets inside the building. Marks said Trackhouse next year will field two cars, one for Daniel Suarez and one for a driver to be named later. He said current Ganassi drivers Kurt Busch and Ross Chastain are the leading candidates. He also said all current Ganassi employees on the NASCAR program will be considered for retainment, but Ganassi said his executive management team will stay with him. Ganassi won the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400, two of the biggest races in NASCAR, with Jamie McMurray in 2010.

Lionel Messi's contract with Barcelona ended Wednesday with no news from the player or the club about his future. The expectation is that the 34-year-old Messi, who's playing with Argentina at the Copa America, will stay at the Catalan club. He reportedly had been close to reaching a deal to extend his contract for two more years. Messi's future has been a mystery since he had his request to leave the club denied at the end of the 2019-20 season. He ended up staying and said he would reconsider his options when this season was over. A lot has changed since he announced he wanted to leave the club. Barca has a new manager in Ronald Koeman and a new president in Joan Laporta, who won the club's presidential election in part because of his good relationship with the Argentina star. He was the president when Messi's career started. Laporta said recently he was optimistic that Messi, above, would renew his contract. When asked about Messi's future on Wednesday, he briefly said "don't worry." In Messi's previous contract, signed in 2017, he reportedly earned $164 million per season.

Gendarmes in Brittany on Wednesday arrested a fan involved in a massive pileup at the Tour de France during the opening stage at cycling's biggest event. The fan brandished a large cardboard sign while leaning into the path of oncoming riders. She appeared to be looking in the other direction, apparently at a camera, and not at the approaching peloton. The woman wasn't publicly identified. Investigators had spoken to dozens of people since the incident on Saturday, the local radio station said. Tour organizers had announced after the crash on the stage from Brest to Landerneau that they would start legal proceedings against the fan, who disappeared from the crash scene. She had leaned into the path of veteran rider Tony Martin, who fell off his bike and took dozens of others down in his slipstream. German rider Jasha Sutterlin was forced to abandon the race. In Stage 5 on Wednesday, defending race champ Tadej Pogacar of Slovenia won the 16.9-mile time trial in Laval with a time of 32 minutes, 19 seconds. The 22-year-old UAE Team Emirates leader was 44 seconds faster than last year's Tour runner-up, Primoz Roglic. Mathieu van der Poel kept the yellow jersey but leads Pogacar by just eight seconds. -AP

Caption: Argentina's Lionel Messi warms up prior to a Copa America soccer match against Bolivia at Arena Pantanal stadium in Cuiaba, Brazil, Monday, June 28, 2021. With Messi's start in today's match against Bolivia he has become the Argentina player with the most caps with his national team, surpassing Javier Mascherano. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)