The game of crew-chief musical chairs continues as Richard Childress Racing announced Wednesday that Shane Wilson will replace Gil Martin as crew chief for Kevin Harvick next season.

"Kevin came to me after the Phoenix race a couple weeks ago and asked for a change in the leadership of his team for the 2012 season," said team owner Richard Childress. "The expectations at RCR are to win championships, so the decision was made to move Shane Wilson to the No. 29 Budweiser/Rheem/Jimmy John’s program."

The move doesn't come as a surprise, as Harvick said prior to last week's finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway that changes were likely on the way. Though Harvick did win four races and finished third in the standings for a second straight season, his team's performance had been off since July.

"I think if we had gone out and won a championship, you’d say you probably don't need to do anything," Harvick said last week. "But if we sit on our hands and don't evaluate everybody's position at this

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Carl Edwards ended what for many would be the most disappointing day of their professional career by quoting Rudyard Kipling:

"He said, 'You have to meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same,' " Edwards said. "That's the truth."

He'd just finished the 2011 Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship having posted the best average finish of any driver in the eight-year history of NASCAR's Chase, just scored the exact same amount of points as the champion, just forced Tony Stewart to pull off something that's never been done since NASCAR implemented its current scoring system in 1975 … and still he lost.

[ Photos: Check out all the best images from Homestead ]

Yet, as Stewart celebrated in victory lane – both his win in the Ford 400 and his third Sprint Cup championship – Edwards pulled out his Sharpie to sign a few autographs as he walked through a throng of fans on his way to talk about losing the closest championship battle in the history

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Three months after declaring himself out of title contention, Tony Stewart is the 2011 Sprint Cup champion.

Trailing Carl Edwards by three points going into Sunday's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Stewart is believed to be the first driver in NASCAR's six-decade history to claim the championship in come-from-behind fashion by winning the final race of the season.

In truly one of the great championship battles of all time – and the closest in NASCAR history – Stewart and Edwards ran 1-2 over the final 30 laps of the 2011 season. It was a match race in the truest sense: whoever finished in front would be the champ.

Though Edwards led the most laps in the race, he could not catch Stewart, who completed a miraculous championship run by winning five of the 10 Chase races. Those wins proved to be the difference. The two actually earned the exact same amount of championship points, but Stewart earned the tie-breaker based on his five wins to Edwards' one.

It's

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. supports the return of his father's iconic No. 3 to the Sprint Cup Series.

The number, painted on the side of Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s black Chevrolet for six of his seven Cup championships under team owner Richard Childress, hasn't been run in a Cup race since Earnhardt's death in the 2001 Daytona 500.

For the past two seasons, Austin Dillon, grandson of Childress, has raced the No. 3 in the Camping World Truck Series. Next year, Dillon will take the No. 3 to the Nationwide Series, with expectations that he will move to the Cup Series within the next couple of seasons.

Asked for his thoughts on Dillon potentially driving the No. 3 in the Cup Series, Earnhardt Jr. said he's all for it.

"The number is sort of like a bank you just kind of deposit history into," Junior said Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. "It don't really belong to any individual.

"[Dillon] kind of had to know that, when he first started to run that number, if he got this far in the

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – If Tony Stewart wins the 2011 Sprint Cup title by one point over Carl Edwards, he'll have Jeff Burton to thank.

On the final lap of last Sunday's penultimate race in the 2011 Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship, Edwards was running second, Stewart fourth. Between them was Burton. Though Stewart and Burton aren't teammates, they do share a common bond: Both drive Chevrolets. So when Stewart came up on Burton's bumper, Burton moved over, allowing Stewart to take third without a fight and gain one more point in the standings.

Though it might not sound like much, one point could prove the difference in the championship, and it was gained all because of loyalty.

With the championship race down to two drivers separated by just three points heading into Sunday's season-ending Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, battle lines are being drawn in the South Florida sand. On one side is Team Ford supporting Edwards; on the other is Team Chevy pulling for Stewart.

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HOMESTEAD, Fla. – In the wake of NASCAR keeping quiet a $25,000 fine leveled against Brad Keselowski for comments he made about the impending switch to fuel injection, chairman Brian France said the sport has "never been more transparent."

"In the last couple of years we've taken a position that drivers are going to be able to speak their mind and criticize the sport way more than any other sport will allow," France said. "However, there has to be some limits, and we thought those limits were being exceeded in the last couple of years because you can't denigrate the sport. You just can't do that. We're not going to accept it."

Keselowski was reportedly fined for calling into question next season's switch from carburetors to fuel injection, saying NASCAR is only doing it to placate "green initiatives."

"They've been pressured into switching it through the green initiatives," Keselowski told reporters after a Q&A session at the NASCAR Hall of Fame last week. "In reality, it's no more

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – It's finally over. Jimmie Johnson has officially been eliminated from title contention, which will invariably lead to those bored with his five-year domination of NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series to break out in song. That's understandable. Seeing the same movie over and over and over again can get a bit tedious, especially if you gave it a thumbs-down in the first place.

Throughout his reign, Johnson has been asked to speculate why he didn't garner more support from the masses. It's a silly question, really, because to find the answer all one needs to do is give it a moment's thought. In sports, has there ever been an era of domination that's received universal adoration?

Yankees, Bulls, Niners? Ali, Armstrong, Tiger? Each revered and reviled.

No, it's not Johnson the person some fans came to loath over the past half decade, but rather the dominance itself. He hogged the spotlight they wanted their driver to occupy and, somehow, that made Johnson the bad guy.

But it's

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – The Mouth brought his talents to South Beach on Thursday afternoon, offering up one-liners and battle cries meant to knock out his opponent before the fight even begins.

"I'd wreck my mom to win a championship," Tony Stewart told the media assembled inside a tent situated on the sands of Lummus Park. "This is a war. This is a battle. This is for a national championship. It's no holds barred this weekend. I didn't come this far to be one step away from it and let it slip away, so we're going to go for it."

An arm's length away sat his opponent, Carl Edwards, who holds a miniscule three-point lead going into Sunday's winner-take-all showdown at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

"Did you say something?" Edwards asked.

And so it began.

"Yeah, you can come visit my trophy in the room at Vegas when you come out there," Stewart responded.

"He's got the talking part figured out," Edwards shot back. "Problem is, you haven't led the points yet this year, have you?"

(Actually he has,