Return to Michigan has Earnhardt feeling positive (cont'd)

Earnhardt's results thus far with McGrew have been mixed, with a 12th-place finish in their debut at Dover followed by a 27th-pace run last weekend at Pocono. But Earnhardt takes comfort in knowing that his Pocono car was good in practice, and that the loose condition he fought during the race was the result of a broken front suspension part the team identified only after the vehicle was brought back to the Hendrick shop.

"It totally made sense," Earnhardt said. "Actually, in the middle part of the race, I commented over to my engineer that I thought that part had failed. It was pretty good to be able to point at something and go, 'Well, here's the problem.' At least you can start forming better solutions when you know what your problem is."

Team owner Rick Hendrick has commissioned a small army to help turn the No. 88 team around, complementing McGrew with a dedicated team manager and chassis engineer. And then there's the driver himself, who has committed to becoming more professional and being more adaptable to change. Although this revamped team has yet to crack the top 10, Earnhardt can already feel the difference.

"The guys have got a better attitude. The team was really beat down over the last several months, and that's gotten better. That affects me and affects everybody. We just really want to see some results and things like that in the next couple of weeks to give us an assertion we need to move forward and keep improving. I think we will," he said.

"We'll just see how it goes. I feel pretty good about it. I think Rick has gone far beyond what I anticipated in trying to get us assistance and trying help me. More so I'm surprised by how much the crew chiefs and drivers are participating and trying to help us. Everybody is just really trying to help, and it feels great. That kind of thing has got to give you some confidence going in, because I see that they want it to work just like I do."

Now Earnhardt is back at Michigan, the site of his first Hendrick breakthrough last year. Is it too soon in the rebuilding project for him to hope for a repeat performance?

"You show up every week thinking you can win and hoping you can win," he said. "So it's not too soon to think about that and try to realize that is your ultimate goal. We seem to have good communication. We had a pretty good practice [Friday], but a bad set of tires so we didn't get to make a real hard mock run. I was pretty happy with how things worked out. The communication seems to be going good, and I hope to be realizing some success from it soon."