IndyCar drivers lose a lot more than they win, making it difficult to find “success.”

But like golf, coming in second place every weekend doesn’t exactly make you a loser like it does in individual sports – in fact, it would be the most successful season ever.

“It’s tough, because obviously, there can only be one winner in racing every time we go racing. So it’s not easy,” 2022 Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson said in a recent interview with Fox News Digital.

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And because of that, Ericsson has his own personal “mental coach” who gives him daily exercises and prompts with different focuses.

In the morning, Ericsson will write down what he’s improved on, where his focus lies, and where he’s had success. At night, he reflects on the positives he had throughout the day.

“It’s a lot of reflection. What’s interesting with mental training and coaching yourself is the reflection part. It’s not only that the questions can be quite simple, but it’s about taking the time and being present and thinking about things. That’s what is really powerful,” Ericsson said.

“A lot of people are so caught up in life, there’s always something going on, the next thing, and you just keep going. If you stop every morning and every evening, sit down for 10 minutes and reflect on your day or how you feel, what’s going on in your mind, I think that’s very powerful. Putting pen to paper and writing it down is also something that’s very powerful.”

Driving around at speeds of 200 mph is a mental challenge in itself. Given the fact that Ericsson does it for hours on end, he needs to be extra locked in, and that’s where his partnership with Allegra comes in.

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“It’s just super important in what I do. Got to stay sharp, you can’t have any brain fog or anything like that. That’s where Allegra really helps,” Ericsson said, noting the height of allergy season. “Helps me stay sharp, helps me stay locked in. So it’s been super important for me.”

In practicing his mental game, Ericsson has had to train himself that success does not equal winning. In fact, sometimes, not even finishing in the top 10 might have to be considered a positive.

“Something I work a lot with my coach on as well, the biggest thing I’ve learned throughout my career is that success comes from performing at your highest level and feeling like you are maximizing yourself in the present,” Ericsson said. “Sometimes that might be 12th place, fifth place, because there are things out of your control with the car and other factors.

“If I sit here and say I need to win every race, you’re going to be frustrated and disappointed a lot of the time because you can’t win every race. So it’s about focusing on trying to perform at your highest level every time and striving to be at your highest level, understanding how to get yourself there and not make mistakes.”

Obviously, Ericsson goes into every race wanting to win. “That’s always there,” he said.

“But I think it’s easier to focus on performing at your highest level on a consistent basis,” he continued. “If I can do that, I know I’m going to win races. I know I’m going to have good results. So it’s more about that — that’s what I try to focus on.”

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A.J. Styles’ in-ring career came to a close with a loss against Gunther at the Royal Rumble earlier year, marking the end of a “phenomenal” run.

Styles was one of the first pro wrestlers among this generation of stars who created an enormous fan base before he made the jump to WWE. Styles was the main event at Total Nonstop Action (TNA) for a long time ahead of his 2016 debut at the Royal Rumble.

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He was a six-time TNA X-Division champion, three-time National Wrestling Alliance world heavyweight champion and two-time TNA world heavyweight champion as well as the company’s first-ever grand slam and triple crown champion. In WWE, Styles was a two-time WWE champion, three-time United States champion, one-time intercontinental champion and two-time world tag team champion.

Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin, collectively known as the Motor City Machine Guns, got to watch Styles’ career firsthand in TNA. Now with WWE, the duo told Fox News Digital that Styles’ ascent in WWE paved the way for them to eventually jump to the company.

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“To be totally honest with you, to me, it’s the reason I want to go to the Hall of Fame. I’m interested anyway,” Shelley said. “There’s some great inductees – Sid Vicious, Bad News Brown. But AJ is the one that tugs on my heartstrings the most. It’s bittersweet, I think, for me, at least, because he’s been such a big brother to me.

“To see that door close, does let me know the passage of time is real. But AJ deserves it. He really did blaze that trail of wrestlers to come and join WWE in 2016. We showed up almost 10 years later. I don’t know if we would have if he hadn’t killed it.”

Sabin agreed with Shelley.

“He absolutely blazed the path for guys like us to make it here. I mean, he’s amazing, right? AJ Styles has done things no one else has done. He’s been a leader and a role model and it’s awesome to see him get inducted into the Hall of Fame,” he said.

Styles, Stephanie McMahon, Sycho Sid, Bad News Brown, Dennis Rodman, the tag team duo known as Demolition and Hulk Hogan’s match with Andre the Giant from WrestleMania 3 are included this year.

The WWE Hall of Fame ceremony will take place at Dolby Live at Park MGM on Friday night at midnight ET.

During my time serving in the Middle East, I witnessed firsthand Iran’s role in the systematic targeting and murder of Americans. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has deliberately and systematically killed thousands of American servicemembers and civilians, including good friends of mine, by funding and directing a network of proxy terrorist organizations that have directly benefited adversary states like China and Russia with cheap oil, rocket and drone technology and regional instability.

This proxy warfare against America isn’t cheap. Iran spends billions of dollars every year in support of foreign terrorism around the world. It is therefore critical that the United States maintain the integrity of its sanctions and military pressure against this rogue regime, especially in light of Iran’s attacks on civilian shipping and energy infrastructure in the Gulf. 

Our sanctions starve the Iranian regime of the funds it needs to carry out violence and are a crucial financial tool to combating terrorism worldwide. That is why I was glad to see President Donald Trump’s signing in February 2025 of a National Security Presidential Memorandum directing the Secretary of the Treasury to impose maximum economic pressure on Iran.

Congress has also acted in its authority to enlist the power of U.S. courts to contain Iran’s influence. Specifically, these laws empower U.S. courts to order the turnover of illicit Iranian assets to the countless victims of Iranian terrorism. Under these laws, U.S. terrorism victims have scoured the globe for hidden Iranian assets, degrading Iran’s commercial cover activities and money laundering networks.

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In creating this program, Congress not only provided a pathway to justice for American families but also deprived Iran of billions of dollars that could otherwise be spent on more terror against innocent Americans and our brave servicemembers.

Right now, a group of victims of Iranian terrorism, led by the mother of 1st Lt. Jacob Fritz — who was abducted in 2007 from a U.S. compound in Iraq by an Iranian hit squad and summarily handcuffed, beaten and executed — are fighting to seize billions of dollars of Iranian cryptocurrency in federal court.

These Gold Star families submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York hundreds of pages of expert reports and exhibits demonstrating how approximately $15 billion in Bitcoin were allegedly mined and held by the Iran and China Investment Development Group to help Iran evade sanctions. They have asked the court to turn over the funds to thousands of victims of Iranian terrorism with outstanding court judgments against Iran.

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Given Congress’ and Trump’s clear directive to bend all elements of national power to the containment of Iran, I was appalled to see the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Nocella Jr., decide to stand against these Gold Star families.

In public filings, Nocella argues – without any evidence that contradicts the Gold Star families’ expert reports and despite admitting in his own filings that some of the Bitcoin were mined in Iran – that the Bitcoin in question are not Iran-owned but are actually the proceeds of Southeast Asian scam centers run by Chen Zhi, a Cambodian citizen.

He is seeking for the court to turn over the Bitcoin to the United States government, pursuant to a civil forfeiture proceeding related to Chen’s alleged crimes, rather than to the victims of Iranian terrorism.

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After decades of brutal Iranian terror targeting, torturing and killing our warfighters and innocent civilians, there is no question these funds would be better used to provide justice to families who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country instead of padding the federal budget.

But the biggest problem with Nocella’s aggressive denial of Iranian involvement is that it risks the return of billions of dollars to Iran and its terrorist allies. If Nocella succeeds in convincing the court that the Bitcoin are not Iranian, it would mean they are not subject to U.S. sanctions against Iran. If he then proceeds to lose his forfeiture case, the return of the Bitcoin to Iran would be seemingly inevitable. This isn’t abstract; Nocella’s case is quite frankly an embarrassment to the justice system and a slap in the face to the families of those who put their lives on the line for this country.  

By the terms of Nocella’s own forfeiture complaint, the Bitcoin were already outside of Chen’s control at the time of his alleged criminal fraud activity, and the complaint contains no evidence linking Chen’s alleged conduct in the United States to the Bitcoin.

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The criminal indictment against Chen contains photos allegedly depicting victims tortured by Chen’s criminal organization. As independent journalists have noted, rather than providing evidence of Chen’s bad acts, these photos appear to actually be, among other things, a viral social media photo of a man who had a serious accident six years ago and a man who got in an unrelated bar fight in 2015. You can’t make this up.

As was recently announced by the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York worked cooperatively for years with victims of Iranian terrorism to dismantle an Iranian money laundering facility in Manhattan.

But in the Eastern District, what should be a straightforward process to obtain justice for our warfighters is careening toward becoming a national embarrassment. Nocella should stop fighting the Gold Star families and let them continue with their better researched and written case against Iran.

At a time when the U.S. is the closest it has been to eliminating this evil regime and negotiations are ongoing to establish peace in the region, we should do everything we can to keep this money out of the hands of terrorists instead of looking for ways to pad the government’s pockets. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM SEN. TIM SHEEHY