GEARING UP

1 Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s move to Hendrick Motorsports next year came after an odd occurrence in April when he briefly drove Kyle Busch’s Hendrick Chevrolet at the NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway. The car had been in a crash, and Busch had left thinking it couldn’t be repaired, so Earnhardt -- whose car also had been knocked out -- was asked to drive Busch’s car the final few laps.

“Even though it had wrecked,” Earnhardt said, “I could tell a big difference” from his own car. Busch, meanwhile, will be leaving Hendrick’s team after this year.

2 Spears Motorsports, owned by Wayne and Connie Spears of Agua Dulce, Calif., will make its 300th start Saturday in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Michigan International Speedway. They are the first owners to reach that mark in the series.

Dennis Setzer drives Spears’ Chevrolet Silverado. Also in the field is Palmdale native Ron Hornaday Jr., who drives another Chevy truck for the team owned by Nextel Cup driver Kevin Harvick of Bakersfield, who once drove for Spears himself.

3 NASCAR’s Busch Series on Saturday night returns to the Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Ky., where David Gilliland of Riverside won a year ago. The victory catapulted Gilliland into the Nextel Cup Series this year with Robert Yates Racing.

4 The 24 Hours of Le Mans sports-car endurance race begins Saturday at Le Mans, France. Among the drivers is Sebastien Bourdais, the reigning Champ Car World Series champion, who was born in Le Mans. Also in attendance is Times auto critic Dan Neil, and his blog of the famed race can be read at latimes.com/sleepless.

5 In local racing Saturday night, Irwindale Speedway’s multi-race program includes a figure-eight event, sprint cars return to Ventura Raceway and late-model stock cars head the lineups at Perris Auto Speedway and Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino.