CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. will announce on Wednesday that he will join Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Casey Mears to drive for Hendrick Motorsports for 2008 and beyond, Charlotte Observer sources confirmed on Tuesday.

Earnhardt has scheduled a news conference for 11 a.m. at his JR Motorsports headquarters in Mooresville, N.C.

Earnhardt will supplant Kyle Busch, currently the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet, on the Hendrick team’s Nextel Cup roster. Busch, who at age 22 has four victories, including one this year at Bristol, apparently will be released from his contract at season’s end, making him free to sign with another team.

Earnhardt announced on May 10 that he would leave Dale Earnhardt Inc. at the end of this season, setting off rounds of speculation about the future of the sport’s most popular driver.

“At 32 years of age . . . it is time for me to compete on a consistent basis and contend for championships now,” Earnhardt said that day. “We’ll see what opportunities I have, we’ll see who wants to hire me, who is interested for me to drive their race cars, and we’ll decide from there.”

Earnhardt has driven the No. 8 Chevrolet owned by DEI in all 269 of his career starts and said he wanted to remain with Chevrolet, which he will do with the Hendrick team.

All four of the Cup cars owned by Rick Hendrick have won races this year.

Gordon, a four-time champion, and Johnson, the defending champion, have won four times each. Busch and Mears have won one race each, giving the four-team operation 10 wins in 14 races this year. Terry Labonte also won the 1996 title while driving for Hendrick.

Tom Busch, Kyle Busch’s father, said he talked to his son by phone Monday night from Milwaukee, where Kyle was testing Tuesday and Wednesday but that they did not talk about with might be happening in regard to Kyle’s job at Hendrick Motorsports.

But when asked whether he thought about his son’s prospects for finding another team, Tom Busch said he thought Kyle could find one that equates to “a lateral move” from Hendrick Motorsports.

“There is no step up from there right now,” the elder Busch said.

When asked whether Busch had either asked for or received a release from his contract, Hendrick Motorsports spokesman Jesse Essex replied, “As a matter of practice, we don’t comment on contractual issues.”

Signing Earnhardt to join Gordon and Johnson gives Hendrick Motorsports a formidable lineup of driving talent and popularity.

Gordon and Johnson have combined for 106 victories – 79 for Gordon, fifth best all-time, and 27 for Johnson. Mears got his first career Cup victory last month in the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Earnhardt has won 17 races. Since he joined the Nextel Cup circuit full-time in 2000, only Gordon (30), Johnson (27) and Tony Stewart (26) have won more races.

Earnhardt Jr. also has won the circuit’s most popular driver award the past four years, each time by landslide margins in voting by fans.

Rick Hendrick has had 2,299 entries in Nextel Cup races. His first race as a car owner came in 1984 with Geoffrey Bodine driving a No. 5 Chevrolet.

Bodine got the team its first win in that car that year on April 29 at Martinsville.

There are family ties between Earnhardt Jr. and Hendrick, dating to the car owner’s first forays into stock-car racing.

In 1983, the late Dale Earnhardt won the Mello Yello 300 Busch Series race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in a No. 15 car co-owned by Hendrick and Robert Gee. Gee is Earnhardt Jr.’s grandfather.