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."

Blaney agreed.

"It feels good for today," he said. "We just hope we can stay here and keep climbing. But the biggest thing we're happy about is the performance is improving and we've been getting some good results since Tommy came on as crew chief."

Baldwin, who had a long stretch at BDR working with Ward Burton on the same No. 22 car while Blaney made his stock car entree in Busch Series cars run by Davis, said he sees the same fiery level of competitor in Blaney now as then.

"I think we've gotten the equipment a lot better and I'm having a lot of fun working with him," Baldwin said. "It's been a pleasure working with him and I can't remember the last time I had this much fun -- I mean, doing the things we've been doing."

While it eased the stress level coming into this weekend and enabled the team to concentrate more on its race program rather than focusing all its energy on qualifying, they know maintaining the position will require weekly achievement.

"We got a break, we've just got to take advantage of it," Baldwin said. "Being locked into the field allowed us to prepare for Pocono a little bit differently than we normally would. It was a little bit of a relief week, but we know we're not out of the woods by no means, yet."

Through the first 21 races, Blaney has been Toyota's best qualifier with 12 top-20 starts in the 19 races he's made, including the manufacturer's first Cup pole, at New Hampshire International Speedway.

But the team's race luck was horrendous, to say the least. An engine failure at California and an accident at Las Vegas knocked Blaney to his lowest spot in the driver standings, 40th. And it's been a pressure-packed march to get back to the position they're now in.

"We just had so many DNFs in the beginning of the year that it kills you," Blaney said. "And then, we had some other times where we finished but we had trouble, so it's been hard. But we feel fairly confident we can run well enough to easily be in there. We just need to start finishing all of the races."

The team is only 37 points ahead of the Wood Brothers/JTG Racing's No. 21 Ford, but both Baldwin and Blaney feel they're coming into a stretch of races in which they can excel.

"If we can just keep improving like we've been and keep getting to the finish, without trouble every week I'm confident we'll move forward," Blaney said.

"I think we've got some upcoming races in which we can capitalize and gain some points and move further up, and get closer to the field, so to speak," Baldwin said. "We've been running well the past six, seven weeks and we just had nothing to show for it, until Indy. We had top-20 racecars easily in a lot of those races and something's happened, usually out of our control. Hopefully we've got rid of all that and we can continue moving forward."

While that occurs, in his overall role at BDR Baldwin is concerned about Blaney's teammate Jeremy Mayfield's circumstance. While Blaney fell out of the top 35 after five races, then missed two shows before he was able to fight his way back in, Mayfield's No. 36 Toyota started the season needing to qualify and was crushed when it missed the first four races.

Since then, Mayfield has worked with no less than three different crew chiefs, including Baldwin as an interim leader, and has made only eight of 21 races. Baldwin said the fix isn't simple.

"It's kind of tough because we know we have good racecars and we know we've got good people surrounding both efforts," Baldwin said. "I don't know if we haven't had the chemistry for Jeremy yet, but we've had some good runs.

"It's pretty hard to put a finger on anything, but we've got to keep working, like we're working with the 22 car and try to get the 36 into more races, so we can learn how to race. We've only raced seven times with that car and probably five of them don't count because he was so bad, because we had to work so hard on getting the car qualified. But Jeremy's a good racecar driver. We know that -- he's won races and he's been in the Chase twice. We know what he's capable of doing; we just haven't found the combination he needs, yet."

Blaney said under Baldwin's leadership, the hard work by the organization will pay off, eventually.

"I wish I could help Jeremy more," Blaney said. "I think everybody in the company's concerned with that and wondering how we can fix it. It's not for lack of effort, because I know everybody here is trying hard to make that 36 get in the show every week and run well, and I'm sure we'll get it done."