Hendrick team crews shuffled

Hendrick Motorsports made sweeping changes to its organization yesterday, shuffling the lineup for every team except five-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson.

A crew chief change for slumping Dale Earnhardt Jr. was not unexpected, but nobody predicted the stunning swap team owner Rick Hendrick ordered just 2 days after celebrating the organization's record 10th Cup championship.

Earnhardt, who has just one win through three seasons with HMS, now will be paired with crew chief Steve Letarte. He will move into the building that Letarte shares with Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus.

Four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon will move out of that shop to work with crew chief Alan Gustafson. That team will be partnered with crew chief Lance McGrew and Mark Martin.

The previous pairings had Gordon with Letarte, Gustafson with Martin and McGrew with Earnhardt. Nobody believed McGrew would make it through the offseason with Earnhardt, who has struggled since joining HMS in 2008. Hendrick has stopped at nothing to turn around Earnhardt's performance, but insisted the last several months he would wait until after the season to make any personnel changes.

When Hendrick finally did, just 2 days after Johnson and Knaus won their record fifth consecutive title, the changes were huge.

Johnson won six races this season, Hendrick's other three drivers went winless, and only Gordon made the Chase, finishing ninth in the final standings.

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* The Scottish Football Association is considering using Irish or Scandinavian referees to run this weekend's matches because of a strike by their own officials. Scotland's referees voted to boycott all four domestic leagues in protest at clubs' criticism of their recent performances.

* Manny Pacquiao's destruction of Antonio Margarito for a vacant junior middleweight boxing title on Nov. 13 at Cowboys Stadium generated at least 1.15 million buys and $64 million domestic revenue, according to figures announced by HBO Sports.

* Senior Italian IOC member Franco Carraro questioned whether the country is in a strong enough economic position to proceed with a bid for the 2020 Olympics.

* Olympic speedskating champion Sven Kramer, of the Netherlands, says a thigh injury has ruled him out of competition for the entire season. Kramer, 24, won the 5,000 meters at the Vancouver Olympics.

* Roger Federer beat Andy Murray, 6-4, 6-2, at the ATP World Tour Finals in London. He is 2-0 at the season-ending tournament for the top eight players in the world. Robin Soderling beat David Ferrer, 7-5, 7-5, in the other Group B match. On Monday, Rafael Nadal rallied to beat Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic defeated Tomas Berdych.