LONG POND, Pa. -- Tommy Baldwin Jr. and Dave Blaney, Bill Davis Racing's competition director and lead driver, respectively, each grew up in brutal racing divisions where performance was rewarded -- immediately -- and there were no gimmes.

Baldwin worked with his late father, noted Northeast Modified stock car driver Tom Baldwin, at various short tracks and on the touring Whelen Modified Series. Blaney, a former World of Outlaws Sprint Car champion, had to qualify on merit, each time out.

But nothing prepared them for the immense, agonizing pressure of falling out of the Nextel Cup Series' coveted top-35 positions in the owner standings after five races, then having to go 15 races in which Blaney had to qualify on his No. 22 Toyota's speed before they earned their way back into the top 35.

"It's terrible when you have to qualify on Friday -- everybody that has to do it -- for the sponsors, the owners and us," Blaney said. "Everybody's got a huge amount on the line, so you hate to not be a part of it on Sunday.

"Everything is just magnified here, and there's more on the line for everyone, like I said. The race teams have so many people and so many people back at the shop -- and they're relying on you to make that qualifying lap when you're in that position. And that was really tough, because when you're running a Sprint Car, there are three or four people involved when you have a bad night, and it's not hard to move on. But when you have hundreds involved it's harder to keep everybody motivated."

The reason: time management.

"You spend way too much time on qualifying during the week," Blaney said. "And then on Friday when you get to the racetrack and everybody's worrying about it coming into the track -- about Friday more than Sunday -- so that's got to take away from [the race]. So hopefully being locked in now will help us there, too."

Of course, there are other things the team deals with added onto the pressure of qualifying.

"I tell you, it's been tough, and we've had a lot of things to deal with, trying to get all our sponsors re-signed for the future and trying to keep everybody's heads up at the shop," Baldwin said. "The thing that's been keeping us going is the 22 car has been running good all year long."

A ninth-place finish in last weekend's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard moved Blaney into 35th in the owner standings, meaning he was locked into the field for Sunday's Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway.

"Everybody hoped we could turn it around," Baldwin said. "And we hope Indy was the starting point." (Continued)