World champion Tyson Gay ran the fastest 100 metres of all-time to win the American Olympic trials, a wind-assisted 9.68 seconds. The victory put Gay into his first U.S. Olympic team but the wind speed of 4.1 metres per second deprived the 25-year-old of a world record. Only marks set with assisting winds of 2.0 metres per second or less can be considered for record purposes.

Senza quella raffica di vento, che soffiava a 4,1 metri al secondo (ben oltre il limite di 2 fissato dalla Iaaf per omologare i tempi), Tyson Gay sarebbe ora l’uomo più veloce del mondo. Ma il suo 9′68″ sui 100 metri nei trials Usa, la gara che assegna i pass olimpici, gli regala solo il biglietto per Pechino.

Kurt Busch had strategy and luck on his side. Tony Stewart had neither.

That’s how Busch wound up ending his 29-race winless string Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the rain-shortened Lenox Industrial Tools 301, while the frustrated Stewart simply added another disheartening loss to his own winless string that has reached 31 races.

Fifty laps were added to the SunTrust Indy Challenge this year, and it seemed every one of them was run behind the pace car. The IndyCar Series’ streak of generally clean oval races in 2008 came to a resounding end Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway. There were nine caution periods totaling 102 laps, more than one-third of the expanded 300-lap total, and only 13 of the 26 starters were running at the finish.

Ironically, the driver who has endured more bad luck than anyone else in the series this year managed to steer clear of misfortune on a night when carnage ruled. Tony Kanaan won his first race of the season, leading 166 laps and crossing the line for the final time with a comfortable 4.77-second margin over runner-up Helio Castroneves.

A third-place finish served as damage control for championship leader Scott Dixon on a weekend when the New Zealander was not the ultimate pacesetter. Dixon gained a position on the last lap when his Ganassi Racing teammate Dan Wheldon apparently ran out of fuel; his championship lead now stands at 43 points ahead of Castroneves and 52 points ahead of Wheldon.

Sunday was Dan Wheldon’s 30th birthday. His rivals provided plenty of gifts.

Under glorious sunny skies at Iowa Speedway, Scott Dixon had a rare off day (he finished fourth), Tony Kanaan crashed, and Helio Castroneves faded.

And the rest of the IndyCar field, led by rookie Hideki Mutoh, simply didn’t have the speed to beat Wheldon. It all added up to victory in the second running of the Iowa Corn Indy 250, Wheldon’s second win of the season and the fifth for Target Chip Ganassi Racing in 2008.

The swagger had vanished, and the cocky confidence went with it. A two-week slump sent Kyle Busch spiraling into crankiness despite his hold atop the points standings. With a win Sunday at Infineon Raceway, his mood instantly lifted.

Busch snapped his mini-slump by racing to his first Sprint Cup Series win on a road course with a Toyota that was so bad during practice he was certain he’d wreck.

Instead, he made his series-high fifth visit to Victory Lane this season.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is enjoying that old winning feel and he doesn’t much care what his detractors have to say about it. The most popular driver in NASCAR won this one by gambling, somehow going the last 55 laps on the two-mile oval, including three laps of overtime, without stopping for gas.

Kasey Kahne and team director Kenny Francis sat on the podium to answer questions after a dominant performance to win the Pocono 500 on Sunday and promptly were asked whether they doubted themselves and their Gillett Evernham Motorsports team before winning the All-Star race less than a month ago. Apparently not, and Francis backed it up with a rundown of how well they had done this season up until that point. There’s certainly no reason to doubt themselves after two points wins in three weeks — three wins in four counting the cash-only All-Star race — have propelled Kahne from 14th and outside the Chase cutoff up to ninth.

Scott Dixon, the calm and cool Kiwi, won again Saturday night. He is the studious master of his domain, a brilliant surgeon in a race car and possibly the best IndyCar driver in more than two decades. Only one problem. Dixon doesn’t sell tickets. With all due respect to his lovely new bride, Dixon is missing a racing version of sex appeal.

For the smallest moment Ryan Briscoe thought it was going to be another one of the bad luck days that have dogged him this season. The 23-year-old Australian was working hard late in Sunday’s IndyCar race at the Milwaukee Mile to hold off Indianapolis 500 winner Scott Dixon and, all of sudden, the track ahead was enveloped in smoke and all he could do was hit the brakes hard and hope.

No matter how bad the race is, and this one was the snoozer of the season, Kyle Busch and his team find a way to win. Busch easily won the Best Buy 400 on Sunday, his fourth Sprint Cup victory of the year, without making a single on-track pass for the lead. Quick work in the pits under green-flag stops put Busch out front in the No. 18 Toyota with 163 laps to go. Except for a brief reshuffling for the last green-flag stops, that’s where he stayed.