In the past five races, JGR has four wins (all by Busch) and nine top fives. During that same stretch, Hendrick has just one win and three top fives (Earnhardt won at Daytona and has another top-five finish).

And since that win at Daytona, Hendrick Motorsports as an organization has led just two laps in the past three races, while JGR has led 330.

"It’s business as usual as far as I can see," Earnhardt said. "We definitely understand when we don’t perform well. Last week was frustrating. I don’t think we’ve been too thrilled over the last month about how things have gone for us. From Rick (Hendrick) on down, you get the impression that things need to be better and everyone needs to work harder.

"We have meetings every Tuesday. We had that meeting with the team and then we have a meeting that all the drivers and the crew chiefs are together, Rick’s there. We have that meeting every Tuesday and everybody, whether we are all running great, we talk about how to get better. And if we aren’t running well at all, we talk about how to get better. Even when things are going good, you see areas where you need to keep working. Because you know it cycles in this sport."

Things do indeed cycle around. Last season, Hendrick won 13 races to JGR’s two. And this season both organizations have six wins. As things stand now, if Busch can get into the top 30 in points by the regular-season finale at Richmond, JGR will likely send all four of its drivers into the Chase. And while Jimmie Johnson and Earnhardt have clinched spots in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne are still looking for that elusive win, although each hold spots in the provisional Chase Grid based on their point positions.

"It’s a never-ending pursuit to build the fastest race car week in, week out," Earnhardt said. "And it looks like right now it’s a mad scramble to get ready for the Chase. I’d love to be sitting here three-tenths faster than everybody and fighting only my teammates for the win. We need to work a little harder to get a little more and be ready for the Chase to be able to get out there and compete.

"It definitely looks like our competition has improved and so I think we can be honest with ourselves. We definitely aren’t where we want to be. But I’ve seen it before. These guys are working on it every single day trying to find that speed and make that difference back up and put ourselves back to have the advantage on the straightaways and in the corners. I’m not too worried about it. We got the best resources. We got the best bossman, and he doesn’t quit and he doesn’t settle for second. He’s in there pushing everybody everyday."

The sport’s most popular driver will look to turn the recent fortunes of the organization around on Sunday in the Windows 10 400 (1:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM) at Pocono Raceway where he qualified 15th.

Junior has a favorable history in recent years at Pocono, completing the season sweep of both NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events last year, and has four top fives in his past five races here. In June, he finished 11th in a race won by Martin Truex Jr, which snapped a five-race win streak at Pocono for Hendrick.

After finishing the opening practice session in 14th place, Earnhardt was a bit disappointed but said the team learned what was needed for race trim.

"We will see what we have (Saturday)," said Earnhardt. "I’m really anxious to get ourselves back into race trim for those practices (Saturday) and see how we can sort our stuff out and see where we really are. We’ve always run good here, there shouldn’t be any issues. We showed up with some issues. I’m anxious to get to work on the car and see where we can figure out where we are going to be and be competitive."

There are still some select haulers, most notably for Team Penske and Brad Keselowski merchandise.


"This NASCAR superstore is like nothing I’ve ever seen," Igdalsky told the crowd. "I’m so excited that we were able to launch this year at Pocono. NASCAR has done a great job of enhancing the fan experience, and this is just the next level."


The ease of the shopper experience at the "Trackside Superstore" was something that immediately struck Truex.

"I’m super excited about this," Truex said. "I can’t tell you how many questions I’ve had this year on Twitter just about, ‘Hey, where do I get that hat? Where do I get that shirt?’ This makes it easy. Everybody goes in there, finds their favorite driver, finds what they’re looking for very easily."



He later jokingly added that, "I feel like it’s welcome to 2015 everybody."

Harvick echoed Truex’s thoughts, while also adding his own perspective from when Kevin Harvick Incorporated handled his merchandise.



"You come in and walk through your section and you realize how simple the process is to go about finding your driver and checkout," Harvick said. "The thing I noticed the most was just how easily you can see everything and how there might have been a whole bunch of products before that you didn’t know where on the trailers. It’s definitely like Martin said, it’s welcome to 2015. … It’s a huge step for everybody.



"Having the experience that we had running our own merchandise stuff for several years at KHI and now seeing this, it’s really something that’s really neat. You understand the undertaking it takes to get to this point."



Davidson indicated this has been a year-long project, from seeking proposals to revealing Fanatics as the selection to running the business in January to today’s opening.



"We’ve been working on this a long time," Davidson said. "And we walked in and saw what they put together. Fanatics has done a tremendous job. It’s really blown us away, the breadth of product. The ability of the fans to touch and feel the product, which we knew they would be able to do. There’s so much here, there’s so much new product here that we’ve never had a track before. I think people are really going to be excited when they get here."



Cayce and Mark Votek have been coming to Pocono for the past 10 years. Cayce, a fan of Denny Hamlin, liked that even with the new setup there was still a feel of familiarity.



"I was a little skeptical at first," Cayce said. "I do like that I can touch the stuff first. That’s actually really cool, probably dangerous for me because now I just grab it all. I know all of the people from Denny’s hauler because I go there all the time and I actually ran into one, so I like that they’re still here. There’s still some familiarity. So far, so good."


In addition to being able to touch and feel the products, Tannenbaum touted the reduced wait times fans will have to buy merchandise. The Fanatics executive estimated that in peak times the wait at a hauler was between 45 minutes and an hour.

However, he acknowledged that this new model wasn’t without his challenges when compared to running merchandise at other events like the NHL Winter Classic or the SEC Championship Game.



"From a process, this is absolutely the most challenging one we’ve had and I think will ever have," Tannenbaum said.

 "When you think about it, go set up the Super Bowl and then break it down 38 times and set up again the next week. That’s what makes it the most challenging. At Fanatics, it was an exciting challenge. It was ‘go for a solution to this and make this work.’ And what we presented to NASCAR and where we ended up today is very different because we learned so much."
 


Tannenbaum added that Fanatics has three different tent structures, two different sets of fixtures to hold merchandise and one set of inventory for the trackside superstore. Next weekend’s race at Watkins Glen will have a slightly different setup and a team is already up there to set it up. A team from Pocono will drive to Watkins Glen when the Tricky Triangle race weekend ends to build the setup out with the inventory.



"What you are seeing here is going to be the standard superstore for all tracks," Tannenbaum said. "What is going to happen is there will be more locations and satellite locations at tracks that do either more revenue or less revenue, wider tracks. I use Richmond as the example. This store at Richmond, everybody walks into that front, it’s pretty straightforward. At Daytona or the really big tracks, you are going to have to have multiple locations to meet the consumers’ demand. We are going to look at what revenues are at the track, what the flow of traffic is and make sure that we can manage all of that. But this will be the central point for all of the stores."



And while the new setup may take some time for fans to get used to, Truex said this was a good change for the long run.


"I know a lot of NASCAR fans are worried about things changing, but I assure them this is a change for the better and I think it looks great."

The Team Penske driver put up his best time on Lap 7 out of nine total with a speed of 176.606 mph. Keselowski has one win at the Pennsylvania track that came in 2011. His best finish since then was second in 2014’s June event.

Coming up short to Keselowski was Matt Kenseth at 176.339 mph.

Denny Hamlin (176.267 mph), Austin Dillon (176.170 mph) and Kevin Harvick (175.987 mph) completed the top five on the leaderboard.

Martin Truex Jr., the winner of June’s Pocono race, put up a speed of 175.298 mph and came in as 12th-fastest.

Defending race-winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. completed his quickest lap at 175.196 mph, making the Hendrick Motorsports driver 14th-fastest in Friday’s practice.

The Sprint Cup Series returns to the track for Coors Light Pole Qualifying at 4:45 p.m. ET with coverage on NBCSN/Live Extra.

In his final full-time season, Gordon wants to do more than just make the Chase; he wants to compete for his fifth championship.

"Obviously having a bad finish like that, it can shake things up in a hurry," Gordon said. "I think our team is very capable of getting ourselves in the Chase, but we want more than that. We want to be battling for wins, and we’re fighting extremely hard to do that. We know what a win can do in securing that spot, but we’re also a strong team that has overcome adversity in the past. We’re going to fight all the way through Richmond to make sure no matter what, whether it’s by points or with a win, that we get ourselves in there."

The six-time winner at Pocono stands atop the all-time leaderboard at the track, and Hendrick Motorsports‘ 17 victories are nearly twice as many as the next closest teams on the list. Joe Gibbs Racing and Roger Penske have nine apiece. Gordon also enjoys racing on the unique three-sided surface.

"I love the challenge that this race track presents on track," Gordon said. "I’ve been driving for a team that has great performance on tracks like this as well. We’ve been known to get down the straightaways pretty good. This place has a lot of straightaway, but I also like the shifting and the unique corners that are here as well."

Gordon acknowledged how the negative side of the fast straightaways figured into the single moment that stands out from his 23 years of racing at the facility.

"I wrecked really bad in Turn 1, that stands out," Gordon said, referring to a 2006 crash. "It’s funny those types of incidents stand out to you as much as some of the good moments that you have. You never forget moments like that. Let’s put it that way.

"I can remember coming here early, early on and maybe even watching a race here or an IndyCar race here on TV prior to me ever racing here and just in awe of how long the front straightaway was, how fast the cars are going into Turn 1. And I always said, ‘You don’t ever want to have a brake problem going into Turn 1 at Pocono,’ and I had one and experienced it so that stands out to me."

But the people of Pocono Raceway have left a lasting impression as well. On Friday, track president Brandon Igdalsky presented Gordon with a $24,000 check for the Jeff Gordon Foundation to go with nearly $58,000 raised Thursday night for Gordon’s foundation and The NASCAR Foundation at a charity poker tournament. In addition to the funds, Igdalsky’s team painted "Gordon" on the track, which didn’t go unnoticed by the driver of the No. 24 car.

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"This track has been really special to me over the years," Gordon said. "I thought it was enough that you put my name at the start/finish line but what we did last night at the event and this (check) is above and beyond."

The fans of the area welcomed Gordon as a young racer, even before he joined NASCAR’s premier series, and he’s continued to benefit from their support throughout his racing career.

"I go back to when I raced dirt around Pennsylvania and Ohio and Indiana in sprint car racing and how big racing is in this state," Gordon said. "And I think that was very evident to me immediately when I got in the Cup Series and started flying into the airports here, and it was always the biggest crowds of fans that we had, anywhere we went, standing there waiting for the teams and the drivers to arrive, wanting to get a glimpse, a picture, an autograph.

"That’s been maintained throughout all the years, and when I put a fan club together, our largest number of members were from Pennsylvania, if you took it by state. This is a big racing part of the country, and I think that’s why the track has continued to do so well through the years because they have people that love racing, that love NASCAR racing."

The four-time champion’s love for Pocono would grow with a win this weekend that would keep alive his drive for five titles.