Top teams need to heed early season warning signs

Danger!

Two races into the Sprint Cup season, and already there are teams in trouble. Top teams. Teams that have staked out an annual presence -- or close to it -- in the Chase.

Yes, the season is only two races old, and there's plenty of time for struggling teams to rebound. That doesn't mean, however, that teams with alarming starts to their 2009 campaigns should ignore much-needed wakeup calls.

A closer look after Fontana reveals plenty of danger signs.

• Jeff Gordon is second in the point standings, but none of his three Hendrick Motorsports teammates stands better than 19th. That's the position three-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson occupies.

Now, no one ought to suggest that Johnson will fail to qualify for the Chase this year, since he has never missed NASCAR's version of the playoffs, but his ship is in need of righting after a 31st-place result at Daytona and a ninth at Fontana, where the No. 48 Chevy dominated early and faded late.

The problem for Johnson is that the series heads next to Las Vegas, unquestionably his worst track in 2008. Johnson fought his car all day and finished 29th without wrecking or blowing up. The 48 team needs to find a solution to the 1.5-mile speedway in order to begin moving in the right direction.

The other two Hendrick teams -- the No. 5 of Mark Martin and the No. 88 of Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- simply haven't gotten the results to match the quality of their equipment. This year was to be Martin's resurrection, with the 50-year-old contending for the championship with Hendrick in his first full season since 2006. He's 27th in points after an engine failure at Fontana.

"We had a great race car [Sunday night]," Martin said after exiting the race. "It was fast, faster than the leaders most of the time. We were really trying to be careful and get up there when it counts. Then, after that caution, about two laps after [on Lap 179], we had a valve break."

The same happened to Earnhardt, who finished 39th, one position ahead of Martin (watch video). After two bad weeks, Earnhardt is 35th in the standings, 252 behind Matt Kenseth, the winner of the first two races. Even more important is that Earnhardt's car is 35th in owners' points just three races before 2009 owners' points begin governing who has guaranteed spots and who doesn't. The top 35 are locked into Sprint Cup fields.

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• The No. 39 Stewart-Haas Chevy driven by Ryan Newman is barely ahead of Earnhardt in owners' points. Misfortune has been Newman's problem. At Daytona, he blew an engine and wrecked two of his cars through no fault of his own. At Fontana, a side piece fell off his rear wing, forced an extra pit stop and ruined what otherwise could have been an excellent run (watch video).

• Joey Logano's No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota is 37th in owners' points. If the heralded rookie doesn't improve by the time the sixth race of the season (Martinsville) rolls around, he'll have to start qualifying on speed.

"I learned a lot," Logano said after Sunday's 26th-place finish. "Just working around the race track, different lines, different grooves make your car do different things. Working the bottom, working the top, coming in the pits, it's things like that that you go by race track to race track to keep learning and it takes time."

With three races left before 2009 owners' points kick in, time is in short supply.

• Kenseth is the only driver to post top-five finishes at Daytona and Fontana. Kenseth, Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart are the only drivers to post top-10s in each of the first two races.

Currently, there are six drivers in the top 12 who didn't qualify for last year's Chase. And there are six drivers who did make the Chase last year currently in positions ranging from 15th to 35th.

Before the season began, Juan Montoya predicted this year's Chase would be the most competitive ever. Chances are he's right.

Yes, it's early, but those who have struggled in the first two races can't ignore the danger signs -- getting back to the top of the standings will be more difficult than it has ever been.