CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Hendrick Motorsports has locked down the driver and sponsor of its No. 5 car with an extension of Great Clips for driver Kasey Kahne.The two-year agreement covers the 2017 and 2018 seasons and gives Kahne 10 races of sponsorship each year. Great Clips, which has been with Hendrick Motorsports since 2012, also will be a major associate sponsor of the No. 5 team each year.Kasey has been a member of the Great Clips family for over 13 years and is a great ambassador of our brand, said Terri Miller, senior vice president of marketing and communications for Great Clips.Kahne has been with Hendrick since 2012 and has five wins and three berths in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. He has not made the Chase the last two years, and is currently 17th in the standings. There had been speculation that Hendrick would replace him in the No. 5, but his contract and sponsorship keeps him with the organization at least through 2018.Great Clips has believed in me throughout my career, Kahne said. Theyre a big part of the No. 5 team, and we feel like members of their team, too.---SADLER BACK IN THE CHASETwelve years after participating in his first Chase for the championship, Elliott Sadler is back in the field.This time, though, its the inaugural Chase in the Xfinity Series.Sadler is one of the 12 drivers competing in the Chase for NASCARs second-tier series title. In 2004, he was among the 10-driver field that made the original Chase. He finished ninth in the standings that season.I dont know if thats good or bad, Sadler said, unsure if it gives him any sort of edge over 11 drivers who have no playoff experience.Its not like Im a seasoned quarterback that can read the defense better than a rookie quarterback coming in. I think thats when experience plays a part, he said. I think now its just about which teams can get their cars the fastest, what driver can get the best information and not make mistakes on the track. I feel like everybody thats a part of this Chase, all 12 guys, can do just as good a job as anybody else, no matter their age or where theyre from or how many years theyve raced.---PAGENAUD-PETIT LE MANSFresh off his IndyCar championship, Simon Pagenaud has already lined up another race.Pagenaud will join Action Express Racings points-leading No. 31 Corvette at Petit Le Mans on Oct. 1. Hell joint drivers Dane Cameron and Eric Curran on the team that holds a one-point lead in the standings over fellow Action Express teammates Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa. The Fittipaldi-Barbosa lineup will be bulked for Petit Le Mans with Filipe Albuquerque.Pagenaud was a regular competitor in sports car racing from 2008 until 2010, primarily participating in the American Le Mans Series. In three years, Pagenaud had eight wins.He then transitioned to IndyCar and earned his first title on Sunday driving for Team Penske.Also getting an additional driver for Petit Le Mans will be Wayne Taylor Racing, which added Max Angelelli to the lineup of brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor. Ryan Hunter-Reay will join Marc Goossens and Ryan Dalziel on the Visit Florida Racing Corvette lineup.Ford Chip Ganassi Racing has added a pair of IndyCar stars to its two-car lineup. Four-time champion Scott Dixon will join three-time winners Richard Westbrook and Ryan Briscoe, who are second in the standings in the No. 67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT.Le Mans 24-Hour GTE Pro class winners Joey Hand and Dirk Mueller will co-drive with four-time IndyCar champion Sebastien Bourdais in the No. 66 Ford GT. Mel Stottlemyre Yankees Jersey . -- Jakob Silfverberg is making himself right at home with the Anaheim Ducks, scoring four goals in his first four games. Joe DiMaggio Yankees Jersey .C. -- Manny Malhotra had two goals and an assist, leading the Carolina Hurricanes to a 6-3 win over the Ottawa Senators on Saturday. https://www.cheapyankees.com/1461g-johnny-damon-jersey-yankees.html . Manuel was offered a position the day he was fired. He accepted earlier this week and the team made the announcement Friday. Mike Tauchman Yankees Jersey . With Parker having a quiet game for once, Nicolas Batum and Boris Diaw provided the scoring as France won its first major basketball title by beating Lithuania 80-66 on Sunday. It was a victory that ended a decade of frustration for Parker and a talented French generation, which lost the final against Spain two years ago and took bronze in 2005. Aroldis Chapman Yankees Jersey . Scott won the Australian PGA last week in his first event in Australia since winning the U.S. Masters in April. American Matt Kuchar, ahead by two strokes with four to play and even with Scott with one to go, double-bogeyed the 18th after taking two shots to get out of a bunker. RIO DE JANEIRO -- American sabre fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad had spoken so often and movingly about her life as an openly observant Muslim and African-American woman at this particularly tense juncture in world events, it was easy to forget sometimes that her Olympic journey was about delivering a medal along with her message.But the athlete in the 30-year-old Muhammad showed up Monday midway through her Round of 16 match at the Rio Summer Games against Frances Ceclia Berder. Muhammad was fighting to stay in the Olympics. She got frustrated over a lost lead and then a series of calls, and the white-hot competitiveness she always told us was in her -- Trust me, she often said with a laugh, its there -- came spilling out.Muhammad pulled off her masked helmet and began talking to the referee after Berder went ahead, 11-7. Scoring is always highly subjective in fencing, especially when both fencers clash blades or trade touches at nearly the same instance. The athletes often both pump a fist at the same time, trying to buy a call or lay claim to the same point. But this time, Muhammad got a yellow card warning. Her early 6-2 lead and the match had changed to the rallying Berders favor now, and a few moments later, the ninth-ranked Frenchwoman, who sat one slot behind Muhammad in the world rankings, stopped Muhammads Olympic run two wins short of the medal round with a 15-12 loss.#USA fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad made history 2day: She is the first American to compete in a hijab. #fencing pic.twitter.com/mllDimffb8- Rio 2016 (@Rio2016_en) August 8, 2016After that, it took the deeply disappointed Muhammad more than an hour to arrive at the postmatch media area. But when she did, the advocate who has caught attention in America and beyond for the grace of her message and eloquence of her example, was standing here again. She was asked to put her remarkable journey to this point in perspective. As usual, words didnt fail her.Someone suggested perhaps it had been a burden to undertake all she had done -- training at the same time she was speaking out tirelessly about being the first American Olympian to compete in a hijab; taking on what she calls misconceptions about Muslims in general, and specifically Muslim women like her who wear modest clothing in observance of their faith -- but she answered the same way she always has.Its been a blessing, Muhammad insisted.I feel like things meant for me will never miss me, she added. And I realize this moment is bigger than me. No matter what happens in my life, I try to accept it for what it is, whether its winning or losing. I realize even with hard work, sometimes you may fall short. I worked so hard for this moment. But at the end of the day, I feel this is part of being in sport and representing my country and the Muslim community. So I always end every single match with the same sentiment, and thats that Im thankful to God for the experience, for allowing me to even be present in this moment.She was smiling now.I think this was written for me. It just fell the way it did.Muhammad, who grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey, before attending Duke University, still has another chance to win a medal here in Rio when the U.S. women compete in the team sabre competition. But she hasnt elaborated much on her plans beyond that.The witnessing she did over the past two years, in particular, pushing back against the anti-Muslim rhetoric that has heated up around the world, both within and without the Muslim community, and her message of tolerance earned her widespread attention. Everyone from sports networks to political figures, womens organizations to religious groups sought her out. Entertainers such as Stephen Colbert and Ellen DeGeneres put her on TV, President Obama asked her to take part in a discussion panel when he made his first visit as president to an American mosque, and Time magazine named her among its 100 most influential people of 2016 and elaborated on her story.But nobody tells the story as well as Muhammad herself.Monday, she patiently, calmly, sometimes humorously recapped parts of it again in the cattle-chute media zone underneath Carioca Arena 3 for the latest wave of people whod never heard it before.ddddddddddddShe stressed how honored she was to represent the U.S. and the transformative effect sports has had on her life. She talked movingly about how she was struck at Fridays Opening Ceremony by sports beautiful ability to bring people of different cultures together under this umbrella for one purpose. ... I think thats the most important thing I take away from my whole experience at the Olympics. This whole message of tolerance.She also spoke of hearing from girls on social media who say she has inspired them to consider doing things theyve been discouraged from doing. She only obliquely alluded to the various examples she has given over these many months of how she herself has been discriminated against for wearing her hijab. (There was a stranger in Times Square who asked her if shes a terrorist who intends to blow something up; the South by Southwest security worker who smirked when she declined to remove her hijab while going through the medical detector, even though she explained she wore it for religious reasons. Yeah, well, youre in Texas now, he said.) Monday, she preferred to dwell on the takeaway she hopes people get.Muhammad was asked to name the biggest misconceptions she still fights, and she said: That someone is forcing me to wear hijab. That Im oppressed. That I dont have a voice. Anyone who knows me knows Im very vocal. ... Very comfortable expressing myself. She stressed what shes doing is not just to challenge misconceptions outside the Muslim community, but also within the Muslim community. I want to break cultural norms. I want to show girls that its important to be active, its important to be involved.Has she been successful changing peoples minds?I hope so, she said. I dont know necessarily what is going through everyones mind at this moment.Unless she reconsiders plans to retire from fencing, her Olympic career will end after the sabre team competition later this week.She hasnt said what she intends to do after the Olympics, beyond continuing to run her online clothing business, Louella, which makes modest clothing for religiously observant women. A couple of questions about the coming elections in November didnt tease out any of her plans, either. But its hard to imagine her sitting quietly on the sidelines given how Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump - a target of hers before -- has called for a national registry for all Muslims, much like some convicted criminals must now do. Muhammad has already called such talk a throwback to dark times in our nations history.It is hard to imagine her fading away quietly now.I think anyone who listens to the news reports at all would realize the importance of having a Muslim woman on Team USA, she said. Its not just any team, its the United States of America. And in light of whats going on in our country, the political thoughts that we hear about -- all these things -- I feel kind of circle back to my presence on Team USA and, again, just challenging those misconceptions that people have about who the Muslim woman is.Its almost like how could you not see that Muslims are like any other group, you know? We are conservatives and we are liberals, there are women who cover and women who dont. There are African-American Muslims, there are white Muslims, there are Arab Muslims. There are so many different types of Muslims. There are so many Muslim countries that have had women as their heads of state. Those are things that I want people to be aware of.If Muhammad is right -- if this indeed has all been written for her, and things intended for her will not miss her -- its smart to stay tuned. Her time in the 2016 Olympic spotlight is almost over. But Ibtihaj Muhammad is not the kind of woman whos inclined to sit on the sidelines for long. Already, she has made the conversation about race and religion in America more intelligent with her voice and example. It will be fascinating to see what she undertakes next. ' ' '