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SONOMA, Calif. -- Car owner Rick Hendrick's NASCAR Sprint Cup empire could grow significantly next season.

A report states that Red Bull will switch from Toyota to Chevrolet. The team likely would get its engines and technical support from Hendrick if that occurs.

Stewart-Haas Racing, which uses Hendrick equipment, could increase its order. Team owner Tony Stewart said "it's a possibility" he'll add a third car next season.

Another option is that JR Motorsports, Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Nationwide team that Hendrick also partly owns could move to Cup next season. Hendrick said Sunday at Infineon Raceway that Earnhardt and his sister Kelley, are looking into moving the team to Cup. If so, that team would have Hendrick support.

EXAMINING PLANS: The president for Roush Fenway Racing says that the team continues to look at options with moving one of its Cup teams to Yates Racing for next year.

Roush Fenway Racing must cut back from five to four fulltime teams by next season to meet a NASCAR rule that car owners can have no more than four Cup teams in their organization.

"We're still messing with the sponsorship pieces," Geoff Smith said. "We're still not sure how it's going to lay out. We thought we'd be done by now but we're not."

SORRY: Jimmie Johnson apologized to Kurt Busch in the garage after Sunday's race for wrecking Busch. A tap from Johnson sent Busch into spinning into the tire barrier late in the race.

"He just took advantage of one little bit of a hiccup," Busch said. "I was really upset when it happened. To come back 15th, I don't know how we did it. Overall, we didn't lose a lot of points.''

PIT STOPS: Jeff Gordon gained nine spots in the last 18 laps to finish ninth and score his fifth top-10 in the last seven races. &ellipses; Pole-sitter Brian Vickers finished 16th. &ellipses; Last year's race winner, Kyle Busch, triggered an incident with Sam Hornish Jr., lost a lap and got it back before finishing 22nd. He has not had a top-10 in the last four races.

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long@news-record.com