The plan seems to be to run Dillon in six to eight, possibly more, Cup races this season to prepare him for 2014.

Dillon will drive for Circle Sport, a satellite team of Richard Childress Racing, the team owned by his grandfather. Dillon will also drive one race for Phoenix Racing and owner James Finch.

Dillon made one start for Circle Sport in the Sprint Cup Series last season, finishing 24th in the No. 33 Chevy in the Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway. Stephen Leicht, Tony Raines, Elliott Sadler, Hermie Sadler, and Cole Whitt also drove for Circle Sport in 2012, with Leicht winning Rookie Of The Year honors.

Childress indicated that he didn’t know how many Cup races his grandson would run, saying that it depended on sponsorship.

Austin’s younger brother Ty Dillon may also run some Cup races. In 2014, the younger Dillon will move from the Camping World Truck Series to the Nationwide Series full time.

Many speculate that the elder Dillon may drive the No. 3 Chevy, which hasn’t been run in Cup since 2001, when Dale Earnhardt Sr died in a last lap crash in the Daytona 500.

Dillon finished third in the Nationwide Series standings, winning two races last year. He will look to improve upon that in 2013.

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The team made a push to field two full time Nationwide teams in 2013, but it is becoming increasingly likely that the team will only field the No. 5 full time. A second car will be fielded on a limited basis with Dale Earnhardt Jr and other drivers behind the wheel.

That leaves Cole Whitt without a ride.

The No. 5 will feature sponsorship from TaxSlayer.com.

JRM General Manager Kelley Earnhardt Miller said:

Our goal is always to field two full-time teams  and that could still happen next year with other potential opportunities  but what we have right now is a strong team with Regan and Greg that will compete for a championship, and a part-time team with Dale Jr. that will compete for wins. Our focus is to streamline our company and equip those teams with everything they need to compete at a high level.

Smith signed with JRM after filling in for Earnhardt Jr in the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy while Earnhardt Jr recovered from concussions. Smith was told he would not be back with Furniture Row Racing earlier this year. FRR opted to hire Kurt Busch.

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During a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took the race six laps beyond its scheduled distance of 200 laps, Stenhouse surged to the front in the final turn after Kyle Busch ran out of fuel.

Austin Dillon ran second, .288 seconds behind Stenhouse. Polesitter Joey Logano finished third, followed by Elliott Sadler and Cole Whitt.

In winning for the sixth time this season and the eighth time in his career, Stenhouse cut Sadler’s series lead from 13 points to six with three races left in the season.

To get to Victory Lane, Stenhouse had to survive a collision with Logano’s No. 18 Toyota — an incident team owner Jack Roush said was Stenhouse’s fault just past the halfway point.

“The guys did an awesome job getting the car back together, and we never gave up,” Stenhouse said. “Mike made great calls and adjustments to fix how the car drove with the damage, and it was still one of the fastest cars out there.

“I didn’t see the win coming like this, but we will take it.”

Saturday’s event was the first NASCAR race on a track that was newly repaved and reconfigured with graduated banking, and there were some growing pains. The race produced a record 12 cautions for a total of 50 laps.

The championship battle took an ominous turn for Stenhouse, the defending series champion, just after the midpoint of the race. Stenhouse and polesitter Logano collided off Turn 2, damaging both cars, but both were able to continue.

Stenhouse was following Logano closely just before the contact.

“We had a lot of debris on the grille, and we were 300 (degrees) on water and oil, and I thought we would have to pit to come get that off before we blew up,” Stenhouse said. “I was trying to get behind him to get the debris off and he checked up at the last second and I turned and just drove right into the side of him. There wasn’t much he could do about it, and I thought it ruined our day, but we were able to bounce back from it.”

Stenhouse lost two laps during a green-flag pit stop but got them back on a wave-around before a Lap 142 restart and a free pass as the highest-scored lapped car under the 10th caution of the afternoon.

Back on the lead lap for a restart on Lap 167, Stenhouse had charged to 13th by the time Mike Bliss’ slide through the tri-oval caused the track-record-tying 11th caution. Stenhouse was two spots behind Sadler in fifth when first-time Nationwide starter Hal Martin and Scott Lagasse Jr. wrecked off Turn 2 on Lap 198.

Fearing they would run out of fuel in overtime, Sadler and Dillon both pitted for a splash of fuel under the 12th caution. Stenhouse restarted fourth and took the checkered flag when Kyle Busch ran out of fuel on the final lap.

So ended another disappointing day for Busch, still trying to win for the first time behind the wheel of the No. 54 Toyota he owns.

“That’s our year, man — nothing else to it than that,” said Busch, who rolled across the finish line in sixth place. “…What a frustrating defeat.”

Notes: The race marked the first appearance for a Pakastani driver in a NASCAR event. Nur Ali finished 33rd in his NASCAR debut after slamming the Turn 3 wall on Lap 69… Derek White, who wrecked in Turn 4 on Lap 138 to cause the ninth yellow, was transported to a local hospital for further evaluation… Danica Patrick (10th) posted her third top-10 finish of the season, but she’ll remember this race for a spectacular three-wide pass of Sadler and Ryan Blaney for the sixth spot on Lap 171.

Eury Sr has served as the team’s competition director for the last five years, winning nine races in that span, with the last coming in 2010 with Jamie McMurray driving.

Team general manager Kelley Earnhardt Miller said:

The conversation Tony Sr. and I had was one of the most difficult I’ve ever been a part of. I believe Tony Sr.’s passion for the sport is exceeded only by his yearning to excel in it, and that itself became the issue that both he and I struggled with. At JR Motorsports we do this to win races and compete for championships, and lately we have not met that standard. Being the competitor that Tony Sr. is, I know that bothers him more than anyone.

JRM has gone two years without a win, and the team has been looking for ways to improve performance. Earlier this year, crew chiefs Bruce Cook and Eury Sr swapped teams, with Cook taking over crew chief duties for the No. 88 team and driver Cole Whitt, while Eury Sr took over crew chief duties for the part time No. 5 team with drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr and Ron Fellows.

Eury Sr’s son, Tony Eury Jr, is crew chief of the No. 7 Chevy driven by Danica Patrick.

Eury Sr said:

I want what’s best for Dale Jr., Kelley, Tony Jr., and all those employees. I really do. We accomplished a lot in a short time, and nobody is prouder of that than I am. I’m not sure what’s next for me, and I’m not sure I’m in a hurry to find out.

After a restart with four laps left, Logano crossed the finish line .208 seconds ahead of runner-up Buescher to claim his fifth victory in 11 Nationwide starts this season and the 14th of his career. The win was the first for Toyota in the Nationwide Series at Michigan.

Kurt Busch came home third, followed by Cole Whitt and pole-sitter Austin Dillon.

Buescher chased Logano for three laps after the final restart and made his move in Turn 1 on the white-flag lap, powering to the inside of Logano’s No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry. But Buescher couldn’t make the pass stick, and Logano pulled away.

“Racing there with James at the end was a lot of fun,” Logano said. “I knew exactly what he was doing the whole time, laying back there and trying to make that run on the last lap. I knew he was going to slide it down into 1, and I felt like, as long as I had position on him, I could pin him down enough to get a big enough lead off the corner.

“He did exactly what I thought he was going to do, and I was able to work my game plan and come out ahead enough to win the race.”

For Logano, the victory was yet another case of capitalizing on a chance to win and extending his remarkable success rate.

“I’ve had a lot of confidence in myself lately, in my abilities, knowing what I can do with the race car,” Logano said. “I feel like I’m feeding my crew chiefs the best information, and they’re doing the best jobs they can do to make the best race cars for me.

“There hasn’t been an opportunity we’ve let slip up yet. We’ve been in position to win races, and we’ve capitalized every time we’ve been in that position.”

NASCAR red-flagged the race on Lap 119 after the cars of Josh Richards and Jamie Dick wrecked in Turn 3. Dick’s car caught fire, but both drivers escaped. So did Richards’ car, which rolled driverless down the banking and came to a stop in the infield grass.

After a stoppage of eight minutes, 46 seconds, the field took the green flag on Lap 122 of 125. Logano and Buescher quickly made it a two-driver race. The win comes six days after Logano picked up his second career Cup victory, at Pocono.

Danica Patrick finished 18th in an up-and-down race that saw her involved in three of the seven cautions. Series leader Elliott Sadler ran 11th, but Ricky Stenhouse Jr., second in the standings entering the race, had a miserable time with handling problems and came home 25th.

Dillon moved into second place, eight points behind Sadler. Stenhouse, the defending Nationwide champion, fell to third in points, 27 behind the series leader.

In a race that saw Eric McClure injured and Danica Patrick using her Chevrolet for payback, Logano beat Busch to the finish line by .034 seconds to win his second NNS race of the season and the 11th of his career.

Defending series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ran third and took over the points lead from Elliott Sadler. Cole Whitt came home fourth, followed by his JR Motorsports teammate and boss Dale Earnhardt Jr.

“Kyle and I have worked together in the past, obviously, being teammates on the Cup side,” Logano said. “We’ve got that chemistry there that we know what we’ve got to do . . .

“I know he’s thinking the same thing as me. He knows I’m going to make to make something happen here, and I got him there at the line. It’s super exciting to win ‘em that way, because you don’t know you’ve got it until you’re at the line.”

Busch knew that, as the leader off Turn 4 being pushed by Logano, his chances of winning the race were minimal.

“When you’re in tandem like that, there’s not much that the front car can do,” Busch said. “I probably could have blocked Joey up the track a little bit more and then turned down to the bottom to try to get him away from me.

“The rear car has so much momentum ready to go. As soon as you pull out of line, it seems like you’re able to move forward on (the leading) car.”

Whitt was pushing Stenhouse after a restart on Lap 121, but that tandem couldn’t pull up beside Logano and Busch as they raced for the finish line. As a consequence, Logano had the time and the room to make the winning move.

“I was staring in the mirror, because I didn’t want to have that other group (Stenhouse and Whitt) beat us to the line,” Logano said. “That was going to be the real kicker. I wanted to make sure I had enough room behind me to do this.

“He (Stenhouse) was about three car-lengths back, maybe four. You know how much you’re going to slow down when you make the move, so you’ve got to do it late enough. I did it and I was like, ‘Oh, my God — too early!’

“And then I looked up in the mirror and (said), ”Oh, maybe I’ll be all right,’ and then we won the race.”

Patrick finished 13th, but after the checkered flag, she exacted revenge on Sam Hornish Jr. for crowding her into the wall as they approached the finish line, knocking Hornish into the outside wall in Turn 1.

Hornish said he was unable to turn his No. 12 Dodge because of a flat tire.

“The 2 (Sadler) was pushing me, which I appreciate, but at that time I didn’t need it,” Hornish said. “I was trying to get out from in front of him, but the car wouldn’t turn anymore.

“Then, after the race was over, we got rear-ended by the 7 car (Patrick). I don’t know what she had in her head, but she decided to right-rear us, wreck the car after the race was over.”

Patrick didn’t elaborate about punting Hornish in Turn 1, but after the race she talked about the incident that was the catalyst for the retaliation.

“I don’t know what happened,” Patrick said. “Sam came up to me after the race and apologized, so I’m not sure what was wrong with his car, but he came across the track at the front of the start/finish line.”

After the incident, there’s little doubt that there’s a difference of opinion between Patrick and Hornish about what constitutes an apology.

The race was red-flagged for a nine-car wreck that interrupted the first attempt at a green-white-checkered-flag finish on Lap 117. McClure got the worst of the collision, taking a jarring hit against the SAFER barrier on the inside of the backstretch approaching Turn 3.

McClure was awake and talking to safety workers after the crash but was airlifted to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital for further evaluation and treatment of unspecified injuries.

After a stoppage of 19 minutes, the race resumed with the second attempt at a green-white-checker finish.

The wild wreck on Lap 117 was emblematic of an action-filled race.

Contact from Kurt Busch’s No. 1 Chevrolet sent Brian Scott’s No. 11 Toyota spinning on Lap 29, triggering a wreck that also involved Josh Richards, Morgan Shepherd and Jason Bowles.

Busch was charging from the back of the field after serving a penalty for dragging a fuel can from his pit stall under caution for Johanna Long’s blown engine on Lap 22.

Under yellow for the Lap 29 wreck, Austin Dillon ran into the back of John Wes Townley’s No. 24 Toyota, which was blocking Dillon’s egress from the pit box.

Dillon’s car, however, sustained only cosmetic damage, and the reigning Camping World Truck Series champion soon worked his way back to the front of the field. But Dillon was a victim of the Lap 117 melee that started when Michael Annett tried to make a run up the middle and collided with Kevin Harvick’s Chevy. Dillon finished 17th and is third in the standings, 30 points behind Stenhouse.

Earnhardt had led 19 laps before a multicar wreck on the frontstretch slowed the action for the third time, moments after the field had completed Lap 62. Brad Sweet spun off the front bumper of Mike Wallace’s Chevrolet and slammed nose-first into the outside wall.

Josh Richards’ spin on Lap 81 caused the fourth caution, providing the opportunity for fuel stops inside the window to the finish.

Buescher, a first-time winner in the series, took advantage of a last-lap wreck involving front-runners Trevor Bayne, Tony Stewart, Elliott Sadler, Joey Logano, Kurt Busch, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Kyle Busch to score the victory, one day after rookie John King won his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race in his first trip to Daytona.

Brad Keselowski dodged the wreck to finish second, with Elliott Sadler coming home third. Rookies Cole Whitt and Austin Dillon ran fourth and fifth, respectively.

Buescher survived damage from a late-race crash to secure the win. It was a case of right place, right time.

“I got caught up in one of those late-race wrecks, but it’s not over — we’re still in it,” Buescher said of his attitude approaching a restart with two laps left in the 120-lap race. “There wasn’t a lot of damage on the car.”

Compounding Buescher’s problem was the loss of his most effective drafting partners — Justin Allgaier and Joe Nemechek — in earlier crashes.

“We lost all of our track position,” Buescher said. “I had to get back through there using everybody else’s draft, but (with) no drafting partner . . .

“It’s incredible. This is top of the list for any racecar driver to win at — and we did it today.”

A race that had been peppered with minor incidents produced a huge one on Lap 104, when the front of the field accordioned in Turn 4, and cars began checking up and wrecking mid-pack. All told, 20 cars were involved in the crash, including the machines of Denny Hamlin, Kenny Wallace and Allgaier.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. ducked to the bottom of the track to avoid the wreck and sustained minor damage to the right side of his Chevrolet. After a four-minute stoppage to pry the splitter from Wallace’s wrecked car from the Turn 4 wall, Earnhardt restarted 14th on Lap 113.

But Earnhardt fell victim to a 14-car pileup one lap later when contact from David Ragan’s Ford turned Sam Hornish’s Dodge to trigger the multicar wreck.

Pole-sitter Danica Patrick exited the race on Lap 49, after a hard tap from Cole Whitt, her teammate at JR Motorsports, knocked Patrick’s No. 7 Chevrolet out of control and into the Turn 3 wall.

Patrick’s team pushed the car to the garage for extensive repairs, losing 48 laps in the process. She returned to the track on Lap 98 and finished 38th, an inauspicious start to a championship campaign.

Ingersoll will appear as primary sponsor in the May Nationwide Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The company will also serve as an associate sponsor for the full N’Wide season.

Whitt replaced Aric Almirola, who left JRM’s No. 88 to join Richard Petty Motorsports in the team’s iconic No. 43 in the Sprint Cup Series.

TOR team owner, former CWTS, Nationwide, and Sprint Cup Series driver Stacy Compton, said:

It has always been our objective to grow the team and this is just the next step in that plan. We have a great group of partners behind us and feel like we are taking all the right steps to build a very competitive Sprint Cup team.

There has been no word from the team on sponsorship or a potential driver, but the team indicated that it has partnered with one of its “long-time supports” for a handful of events this coming season. Last season, the team’s No. 60 truck featured sponsorship from Fuel Doctor and Red Bull, while its No. 66 truck featured sponsorship from GoPro, the National Watermelon Promotion Board, and a few other sponsors. Fuel Doctor seems the most like the sponsor the team referred to in its release.

Cole Whitt and Justin Marks drove for the team last season. Whitt recently signed on to drive the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevy to replace Aric Almirola, who left to join Richard Petty Motorsports after AJ Allmendinger left to take over driving duties of the No. 22 Penske Racing Dodge vacated by Kurt Busch. Whitt could be the top candidate to drive TOR’s entry.

Other drivers without rides for next season are Brian Vickers, Landon Cassill, Travis Kvapil and JJ Yeley.

Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 88 last season, left the team to drive Richard Petty Motorsports’ legendary No. 43 Ford in the Sprint Cup Series.

Team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr said:

Cole is the guy we wanted, and we’re lucky to get him. He’s got raw, untapped talent, but we are most impressed with his ambition. I sought advice and input from people I respect in the industry, and the overwhelming consensus was that Cole has the potential to do great things in this sport.

The signing of Whitt completes JRM’s driver lineup for 2012, with Danica Patrick driving the No. 7 and Dale Earnhardt Jr driving select races in the No. 5.

Whitt said:

This is a big opportunity for me, and I’m happy to be a part of the JR Motorsports team. I’m grateful to Dale, Kelley and everyone at JR Motorsports for giving me this chance. It’s an honor to work with the Eurys, and I will do everything in my power to put this No. 88 team where it belongs in Victory Lane.

In other JRM news, the team signed crew chief Bruce Cook to serve in the same role for the No. 5 Chevy. Cook joins JRM after serving as crew chief for Kevin Harvick Inc.’s No. 2 CWTS Chevy in 2011. That team won the owner’s championship in the CWTS. Cook helped the team win six races this season. He also was the winning crew chief for the N’wide season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway, with driver Tony Stewart.