political issues), her position as the executive director of National Book

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Elliott Sadler raced in NASCARs inaugural Chase, competing with Mark Martin, Jeremy Mayfield and Jimmie Johnson for a shot at the championship.Twelve years later, Sadler is back in another first-year Chase, this time in the second-tier Xfinity Series. He is still searching for the first championship of his NASCAR career.Sadler has bounced around teams, series, suffered through lengthy winless droughts and won races over three decades. Its been a long road for the journeyman driver to his best Xfinity ride, driving for buddy Dale Earnhardt Jr. and poised to bust through Saturday and win the series championship.Sadler, one of the more popular drivers in the garage, needs to hold off JR Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier, and Joe Gibbs Racings Daniel Suarez and Erik Jones. Its winner take all on Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway to crown the 2016 champion.Sadler is ready for his moment.I dont look at things as now or never, Sadler said. If I did, I would have quit a long time ago.Sadler had his share of good days at the Cup level, beginning with his 2001 victory at Bristol driving for Wood Brothers. It led him to a ride at Robert Yates Racing and a breakthrough season in 2004, when he won two races, earned a spot in the inaugural Chase for the championship and finished a career-best ninth in points. Sadler was socked with ownership and sponsorship woes in the ensuing years -- he once threatened to sue to stay in the car when the team tried to dump him.He hasnt won a Cup race since 2004 and made only a combined six starts the last two years.I went through a time in my career I could have easily got pushed to the side and never been able to race again, Elliott said. To kind of battle back, put ourselves in this position again means a lot to me and my family. We want to go make the most of it.Sadler underwent a career renaissance in his first season driving for JR Motorsports. He won three races, has 13 top-fives and can take home the title he nearly won twice before (he was series runner-up in 2011 and 2012).Sadlers crew chief Kevin Meendering was suspended for the finale for a lug nut violation at Phoenix International Raceway. Mike Bumgarner will call the shots atop the pit box with a championship at stake.Its all on me, my shoulders, Sadler said. Im the quarterback, Im the leader of the team. I know that Mike is going to feed off of me and follow my lead.Sadler also wants to win one for mom. Sadlers mother has fought breast cancer since 2009 and was recently hospitalized with a gallbladder issue.She came by to visit me (Wednesday) night to send me off on my way before I came down, Sadler said. Shes back to her old ways. She wants her son to be focused. Thats her text message I get before every race: Stay focused.Here are other things to watch as JGR takes on JR Motorsports for the biggest prize in the Xfinity Series:SUAREZ SHINESSuarez became the first Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR national race in June at Michigan.Even though Suarez is part of just a small group of Latinos to find success in NASCAR, it seems as though hes been preparing for a career in racing his entire life.Suarez, 24, grew up around cars in Monterrey, learning the ins and outs of racing hanging out in his fathers car restoration shop. Suarez began racing when he was 11, and by the time he was a teenager it was clear he had a future in the sport.Suarez landed a full-time ride in the Xfinity Series in 2015 with Joe Gibbs Racing. He has two wins this season and NASCAR is banking on Suarez to become its breakthrough international star.Hopefully, I can get an opportunity to win the championship and have some fun, have some fun with everyone that has been supporting me a lot here in the U.S., in M?xico, and the entire Latin-American people, he said.JONESING FOR A TITLEThe 20-year-old Jones is competing in his first full season driving in the Xfinity Series for Joe Gibbs Racing. He won the Trucks Series championship last season and filled in for an injured Kyle Busch in Sprint Cup. Hell move next season to the Cup series and team with Martin Truex Jr. at Furniture Row Racing. FRR switched to Toyota this season and formed a technical alliance with JGR.For sure, a long-term goal of mine, especially after we got the Truck championship, was to try to go chase down all three, Jones said. It would be a big deal for me to go to Homestead two years in a row and win championships in two different series.JGR has won 18 of 32 Xfinity races -- a combined six for Jones and Suarez.ALLGAIER, TOOAllgaier and Sadler both carry the banner for JR Motorsports. Allgaier, though, is winless this season and has only three wins in 306 career starts.Look, a championship is a championship. If we get that route without a win, Ill still be extremely happy and take that championship trophy to the house, he said. I would love to have a win. But there is still one chance to win a race.Custom Hockey Jerseys . The third-ranked Ivanovic, who won the event in 2008 and 10, served five aces and broke Wickmayer, also a former winner in 2009, five times. "The result looked easier than it really was," Ivanovic said. Wholesale Custom Jerseys . After taking two big hits this week -- losing at home and dropping back-to-back games for the first time all season -- Indiana struck back by playing its most complete game of the year. http://www.customjerseysnearme.com/ . The giant slalom world champion slipped during her first run in the morning, landing on her back and then twisting forward before getting her leg caught in the protective material on the side of the slope. Custom Baseball Jerseys . -- Al Jefferson found a groove just in time for the Charlotte Bobcats. Custom Soccer Jerseys . Malkin got tangled up with Detroits Luke Glendening early in the third period and his left skate took the brunt of collision with the boards behind Pittsburghs net.Though it may not be immediately obvious, sports and literature have a lot in common. In both worlds, the infinitesimal has grand consequences. Coming up a yard short in sports has the same implications as being a word off in literature.Yes, the work is different, but the commitments to greatness are indistinguishable from one another.Its important, then, that there are people who dedicate themselves to ensuring that the devotion is valued. The greatness, celebrated.In the same way former NBA commissioner David Stern understood that fans who watched basketball were as important to the games popularity as the athletes who played, National Book Foundation executive director Lisa Lucas is working around the clock so that we understand literature is about more than just the people who write, edit, publish, market and sell books; theyre about us -- the people who are, and should be, reading them.Similar to the excitement and fanfare Stern drummed up for the NBA, Lucas is looking to bring a similar excitement to the world of literature by making noise for the National Book Awards, an annual literary award show that celebrates the best of American literature, where those who spend countless hours honing their skills in the dark can be brought to the spotlight, and where even the biggest skeptics can be converted into believers.Great writing can be subjective, but Lucass objective is clear. Elevating the game means thinking about it differently, reckoning with the potential whats to be gained and expanding the ideas of whats possible. And because the smallest things make a worlds difference, the biggest changes are subtle; creating a gradual influence that eventually changes everything. I think about the 1992 Dream Team when I write this.About how many generations of kids, home and abroad, male and female, were emboldened to give their life to a sport that couldve ultimately been regarded as just a game had Stern not opted to allow NBA players to represent the United States in the Olympics instead of college players, which was standard practice at the time.Sterns decision to showcase athletes at the highest level was him understanding that your best foot forward kept you a step ahead. It also makes people want follow your lead.It is not my or anyone elses place to say, This isnt for you, Lucas tells me at her Wall Street office. The statement had come in the midst of a conversation about the direction of the foundation, where its going, where she plans to take it. Serving as its third president and being the first woman and black woman to head the organization, theres an understandable pressure to say what people may expect, or want to hear. Lucas sidesteps the expectations of others by staying true to what brought her to the foundation in the first place: the experience of the reader.If you think youre going to get a specific answer as to what kind of reader Lucas has in mind, youre not. A deeply cherished conviction of hers is that any and every one is a potential reader. The question then becomes: Well, how do you find them? A question Luccas answers with her and her staffs -- team of eight -- incessant travels around the country, visiting various literary festivals, speaking at libraries, participating in numerous panels; anything that drives the point home that theyre serious in meeting potential readers where they are, letting readers know that, even if they not sure about crossing the threshold, the door is always open.ddddddddddddThis means finding different ways to engage.Theres a different energy Lisa brings with her, director of programs Benjamin Samuels says, her presence alone gets people excited.By this time, weve moved to the room next door to her office where she and the foundations staff are preparing the invites for this years National Book Awards. Besides the awards being the organizations biggest event, its also one, if not the, most premier event in literature -- and Lucas has treated it as such.To build buzz for the awards, Lucas partnered up with The New Yorker to announce the finalist for each of the awards four categories -- young peoples literature, poetry, non-fiction and fiction -- on Facebook Live. Nearly 60,000 people watched the live broadcast, which is by no means a small number, but to see the moon, like Lucas wants to do, you have to be willing to look beyond the stars. Her unconventional approach is what landed actor and comedian Larry Wilmore as the host for this years award ceremony and dinner.There are plenty people with big voices, talking about books all the time, Lucas says while sorting and signing award invitations, and we want them at the table.I think about Lucass comment about bringing more people to the table in context to a few things: who her favorite athletes are (LeBron James, Serena and Venus Williams -- any athlete thats using their platform to bring awareness to social and political issues), her position as the executive director of National Book Foundation and what it may represent to people beyond the literary world.And the album thats playing in the background, Solanges A Seat at the Table, a record documenting what it means to grapple with your own inner glory even as the world fights you. What Lucas shares with her favorite athletes is the willingness to use her position to fight for a bigger table with more seats, one where everyone can sit.As Solanges album continues to play beneath our conversation, Lucas exclaims that in addition to LeBron, and the Williams sisters, shes also a huge fan of the entire WNBA.When I ask her why, Because were [the foundation] are a lot like them, she says. I remember when the WNBA first started, everyone said they wouldnt last longer than two years. But just like great literature, look: Theyre still here.?Yahdon Israel writes about race, class, gender and culture in American society. He has written for Avidly, The New Inquiry, Guernica and LitHub. He runs a popular Instagram page, which promotes literary culture as style with the hashtag #literaryswag. ' ' '