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Jimmie Johnson scuffled in his first 2 years as NASCAR team owner. Can he make Legacy a winner?

The pull of driver vs. owner responsibility Johnson wrestled with for two years at last had a decisive winner. “I still want to be behind the wheel,” Johnson said, “but it’s really ... I need to come here with a different agenda.” Johnson stayed true to tightening his commitment at Legacy Motor Club, and is now the majority owner under an offseason restructuring in which a private equity firm bought into the Cup Series team. He’s Legacy’s final boss, and yeah, the 49-year-old seven-time NASCAR champion still knows how to turn a fast lap, locking himself this week into Sunday’s Daytona 500 in the first round of qualifying.

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Marcus Smith can become England’s pinch hitter with a licence to thrill

Fin Smith’s control at fly-half looks the better option but that need not mean the end of the Harlequin’s Test career

All too often, both in life and rugby, people prefer to stick to a certain template rather than try something different. Many, for example, still envisage the perfect No 10 to be an impish genius and, ideally, Welsh. Those who do not quite fit the mould – particularly those taking over from a recently departed legend – have to work doubly hard to shift entrenched perceptions.

Dan Biggar, Wales’s most-capped fly-half, was instructive on the subject in his thought-provoking autobiography, The Biggar Picture. “Throughout my career I’d constantly had to silence the critics. I was too slow. I stood too deep. I was petulant, aggressive and one-dimensional. I kicked too much and ran too little. I was, in short, not your typical Welsh fly-half. Where Barry John would paint you a picture, I’d draw you a diagram.”

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