Tommy Baldwin Racing hired Ryan Pemberton to lead the No. 36 team as crew chief for Dave Blaney. Pemberton will join the team as it attempts to make the 54th annual Daytona 500 on Feb. 26. The No. 36 team's 2012 Sprint Cup Series schedule is still being finalized as the team seeks funding for all 36 events.

CAMBRIDGE, Wis. -- The mother of driver Matt Kenseth has died.

A.J. Foyt has been released from a hospital in Houston, where he was being treated for complications from knee surgery.

Regan Smith has taken to life in the Colorado high country like a mountain goat. Last summer, he and his wife moved into a new home deep enough in the wilderness that wild animals occasionally wander onto their back porch. He took part in a Warren Miller ski film in which his No. 78 Chevrolet, outfitted with studded snow tires and a ski rack on its roof, skidded along the snowy mountain passes near Telluride, with U.S. freestyle skier Jess McMillan in the passenger seat. He even got caught up in the Denver Broncos' playoff run, no small feat for a driver typically interested only in auto racing and ice hockey.

Sometimes, even in racing, you have to go backward so you can eventually move forward.

So what does 2011 Nationwide Series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. do for an encore? How about a repeat performance that includes double-digit wins in 2012?

The phone call came, of all times, when Cole Whitt was home in Southern California visiting his parents for Christmas. It was from his manager, and the request was urgent -- could he get back to North Carolina the next day to meet with JR Motorsports? And suddenly Whitt was on a red-eye, and suddenly he was in a conference room with Dale Earnhardt Jr., and suddenly he was the driver of a car capable of winning the Nationwide Series championship.

Nationwide Series rookie of the year Timmy Hill didn't wreck any cars in 2011, mainly because he knew Rick Ware Racing didn't have any cars to wreck.

Richard Petty Motorsports announced on Thursday the formation of a Nationwide Series team with driver Michael Annett and his long-time partner Pilot Flying J. The team will be run out of RPM's Concord, N.C. race shop and will vie for the Nationwide Series championship.

CONCORD, N.C. -- The secret can now be revealed: The main reason why Kevin Harvick decided to shut down his race team at the end of the season? Because wife, DeLana, is 14 weeks pregnant.