GEARING UP

1 Round two of NASCAR’s Chase for the Nextel Cup is Sunday at Delaware’s Dover International Speedway, a one-mile, high-banked oval dubbed “The Monster Mile.”

Martin Truex Jr., the Dale Earnhardt Inc. driver who is currently sixth among the 12 competitors in the Chase, won the spring race at Dover in June.

2 Two Indianapolis 500 winners, Jacques Villeneuve (1995) and Buddy Lazier (1996), make their NASCAR debut Saturday in the sport’s Craftsman Truck Series race.

Villeneuve, who plans to compete in the Cup stock-car racing series, will drive a Toyota truck for Bill Davis Racing in the Smith’s Las Vegas 350 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Lazier will drive a Chevrolet owned by Bill Ballew.

The IndyCar Series, meanwhile, said it would again have 16 races on its 2008 schedule, starting with a night race at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway on March 29.

3 Scott Speed, who lost his ride as a Formula One driver this summer, is another open-wheel driver making the switch to stock-car racing.

The Manteca, Calif., native plans to drive a Toyota in the ARCA Re/Max Series race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway on Oct. 5 for Team Red Bull and Eddie Sharp Racing.

Speed, 24, drove for Red Bull’s Scuderia Toro Rosso team in Formula One and was the series’ lone American driver. But he met little success and, after 18 months, was released.

4 Irvine’s Alex Gurney and co-driver Jon Fogarty won the championship in the Daytona Prototype class of the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series last weekend.

Gurney, son of legendary driver Dan Gurney, and Fogarty won the title for their Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing team by finishing eighth in the season finale at Miller Motorsports Park course near Salt Lake City.

5 In local racing Saturday night, late-model stock cars head the program at Perris Auto Speedway and Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino, and Irwindale Speedway’s six-race program includes a figure-eight race.