FONTANA, Calif. -- You can blame his penchant for fading late in races, blame his struggles with cars and crew chiefs, blame his outside interests or his physical conditioning or his work ethic. But the simple fact of the matter is, the last two times Dale Earnhardt Jr. has missed NASCAR's Chase playoff, he's fallen into an early season hole so deep it could have been excavated by a backhoe.

With so much focus on the end of the year, the drama over who makes the Chase and the 10 races that comprise it, the beginning of the season almost gets lost. And yet, a slow start can absolutely bury a team. It can lead to cracks in driver confidence and fissures in team morale. There are few worse feelings in NASCAR racing than to post one poor finish after another out of the gate, plummet in the standings, and stare down the barrel of a long season to come with no real idea of what you're doing wrong.

"When you're not running good, that's the worst for a race car driver or a crew chief," said Mark Martin, who rebounded from a slow start last year to finish as series runner-up. "That's a lot worse than having bad luck, because you don't know how to fix it. So that one is the toughest one of all, when you're not able to perform at the level that you should be able to, and you can't get it and you don't know why. It will come if you keep digging, but sometimes it's pretty brutal."

Few know that better than Earnhardt, who in recent years has really struggled to build positive momentum out of the gate. In 2007, his final season with Dale Earnhardt Inc., Earnhardt crashed at Daytona, suffered an engine failure at Auto Club Speedway, and never really recovered. Last season followed a similar path -- the pit-road mistakes and fender-bender with Brian Vickers at Daytona, another engine failure at California, only one single-digit finish in the first eight weeks. No question, Daytona can be an anomaly, as evidenced by the fact that the two 500 winners before Jamie McMurray each failed to make the Chase. No question, even early-season successes can mask serious issues, as was the case with the Richard Childress Racing cars last year.

But for Earnhardt, who made a charge late in last Sunday's Daytona 500 to finish second, good starts are pivotal. The last two times he's made the Chase, he's started the season well enough to build a cushion against problems later in the year. While it's certainly too early to make any predictions -- Sunday's event at Auto Club and next weekend's race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, both contested on the kind of intermediate tracks that dominate the circuit, traditionally offer a more accurate snapshot of the season to come -- Earnhardt's current position certainly beats the alternative. (Continued)