Die Macht » a short track, said six-time Sprint Cup champion

Andrew Bogut?exceeded all expectations - including his own - with a powerhouse performance as Australia trounced France 87-66 to open an Olympic mens basketball tournament with a win for the first time in 20 years.Bogut was initially considered unlikely to even make it to Rio after damaging his knee in game five of the NBA finals in June.But the newly-minted Dallas Maverick underwent a gruelling rehab program and recovered in the nick of time, showing on Saturday why he was so crucial to the Boomers chances of Olympic success in Rio.He had 18 points on nine-of-10 shooting, five assists and four rebounds and was also an imposing figure on the defensive end.I didnt know how I was going to pull up, said Bogut, whose first points came courtesy of an alley-oop pass from Matthew Dellavedova.But when you make your first basket in an Olympic Games it helps get your confidence rolling and I felt good after that.Tonight everyone will be talking about offence, about dunks, about me scoring and Patty (Mills) scoring, but it was won defensively.We knuckled down defensively. Before the tournament we said that we need to be pricks defensively.We need to be physical because thats the only chance we have to beat a lot of these teams who are a little more talented than us.Mills had a game-high 21 points, outscoring his San Antonio teammate Tony Parker by three.The superstar French guard threatened to take the game away from the Boomers with an astonishing 14-point second quarter, but he was only used sparingly by his coach Vincent Collet in the second half.I thought we did a pretty good job of throwing bodies at Parker, said Australian coach Andrej Lemanis.Between Delly (Dellavedova), Patty, Kevin Lisch even through Damian Martin, just making it tough for him, to wear him out over the course of 40 minutes.The San Antonio playmaker drained 14 second-quarter points, including a buzzer beater which slashed Australias lead to 36-33 at halftime.Parker and his former Spurs teammate Boris Diaw - who was traded to the Utah Jazz last month - scored 25 of Frances 33 first-half points between them.Bogut continued to be an offensive threat in the third term, both as a scorer and with two superb assists for Ryan Broekhoff and Mills.Lemanis ended up giving Bogut 22 minutes and 35 seconds of game-time, with the centre playing with heavy strapping and padding on his knee.He did an unbelievable job of looking after himself during the rehab period and doing what he had to do to get here, said Lemanis.Its a great testament to him, how much he wanted to be in the Olympics playing alongside his mates and playing for his country.Fellow big Aron Baynes also had a considerable impact on the match, finishing with 14 points and eight rebounds.Having won their opening match at an Olympics for the first time since the 1996 Atlanta Games, the Boomers will now turn their attention to key games against Serbia on Monday (early Tuesday AM AEST) and the United States two days later. 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He said Tuesday thats a big reason why he is now the new coach of the Tennessee Titans. Whisenhunt said he hit it off quickly with Ruston Webster when interviewing for the job Friday night. NASCAR mulled three choices on which rules package it would use at Michigan International Speedway this weekend.It could have gone with the current 2016 aerodynamic package, which would give valuable data on how the 2016 package performed vs. the proposed 2017 rules, which were run at Michigan in June. But with NASCAR already believing it would make the changes for 2017, there was little reason for this additional data.NASCAR, though, is thinking about tweaking its proposed 2017 rules to help address the two main complaints -- too much front downforce when balanced with the rear downforce, and too little sideforce that made the cars turbulent when side-by-side.But then NASCAR decided the other option -- run the exact same specifications as in June one more time -- would work best so teams could build on what they learned in the races at Michigan in June and Kentucky in July. The specifications reduce the amount of downforce and sideforce that has been the trend for NASCAR the past couple of years.NASCAR reduced downforce by about 900 pounds for this year, with a target of 1,800. The teams have gotten back a few hundred, and NASCAR hopes the new package will have 1,600 pounds of downforce. Thats down from 3,500 a couple years ago. Side forces could be reduced by 125 pounds.Some of the teams said that they might want to do a little tweak [to the rules] but at the same time they said this depends on mechanical grip so much, we still have some things we havent tried, NASCAR senior vice president Gene Stefanyshyn said. So we believe going to Michigan will give us that last piece of information.NASCAR would like to get the 2017 rules package to the teams sometime in the next four weeks. Not only does that give the teams time to start building cars, but it also gives NASCAR a chance to work with Goodyear on deciding what tires will work the best at each track.Goodyear will bring the same tire it brought to Michigan for the June race. NASCAR already has tentatively set a test for Martinsville once the rules package is confirmed.You get into the corner with the car that already doesnt drive good and now youre putting it in a vulnerable position, said Joey Logano, who won the Michigan race in June. Its a good thing. Dont get me wrong. Thats what we need.We need crazy interesting stuff. ... We have more crashes because theyre really hard to drive and its hard to make the moves, and guys are getting loose underneath each other or tight and sliding up..ddddddddddddThe package reduces the spoiler from 3.5 inches high and 61 inches long to 2.5 inches high and 53 inches long, and adds a deck lid fin. It also has decreased the surface area of the front splitter that sits underneath the car by about three inches. NASCAR also will eliminate any rear skew -- the angle of the rear housing that helps cars turn and create side force.At a track such as Michigan, the drivers enter the corner with these changes a little bit faster but have to reduce speed by more than 10 mph to drive through the turns. Drivers have wanted less corner speed, which not only allows more passing but also could decrease the harshness of a crash in the corner.Both the 2-mile Michigan and recently repaved and reconfigured 1.5-mile Kentucky have been challenging tracks for NASCAR to have good races, at times having one primary fast groove and with cars getting strung out.Id love to see [this package] on a short track, said six-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson. Id love to see it on [another] 1.5-mile before we make a decision and move on. But the truth of the matter is we dont have that luxury, especially when we get into the Chase.The teams have told NASCAR that they do not want to test the 2017 package during the Chase, that they have spent the season developing the current package and cant afford that new twist.NASCAR agrees, and just like a year ago, it wont make changes for the final 10 races of the season.Its cool that you can run closer to the back bumper of somebody, but there must be a lot less sideforce because now when youre next to somebody, its a handful, said Kyle Larson, who likely needs a win in the next three races to make the Chase. I wish we could take this package somewhere thats got a better surface.Michigan is already pretty narrow, Kentucky with the brand new repave definitely was one lane. ... I know Chicago is in the Chase, but Chicago would be the perfect place. It would be cool to see what its like where youre not really running on somebodys door because the lanes are so narrow because I think the racing would be that much better.One thing drivers do expect: chaos on restarts.I expect there be lots of wrecks on restarts, Larson said. Its always sketchy there no matter what package we take to Michigan on restarts. Especially that last race there, it was a handful. ' ' '