"My fans have never really lashed out or shown displeasure at me. They’ve always been supportive even when they should’ve been lashing out at me and hard on me, but they’ve always had my back," Earnhardt said Friday from Martinsville Speedway. "That definitely makes all this a lot easier, knowing that you’ve got a lot of people still believing in you, happy with what we did this year and can think positively like that, because that’s how you’ve got to be. I spent a lot of years just taking a bad run and letting it fester in the back of your mind for days and days, and it leads on into the next weekend.

"I’ll say this: Being on Twitter is a lot of things, but I get a real good understanding of where the fan base is through that interaction," said the Hendrick Motorsports driver. "One thing that surprised me about it is it helps me, the support that I get through that single application single-handedly helps me rebound emotionally, and that’s so important to be able to put something behind you and move on to the next goal or next target. I was never good at really getting through something like that emotionally and getting onto the next thing and being focused, sharp and ready to go.

"If I’m out there racing, the fan reaction is the end result. It’s the win or the loss."

Earnhardt’s year of promise met its match in the new-look Chase’s Contender Round, where his three races were fraught with pitfalls — a tire-related crash at Kansas, a broken shifter and deficit at Charlotte and a late-race wreck at Talladega. In seemingly a blink, the three-win season was without its ultimate crowning goal.

Still, Earnhardt was matter-of-fact in addressing his Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 crew on the cool-down lap at Talladega, saying he had four trophies left to attain down the season’s home stretch. Combined with the fan support, the new objective has helped to soothe any heartache and stoke hopes of carrying momentum into 2015.

"I had heard all season long that they believed that this was the year, this was it, we’re going to be in it all the way to the end, and to have fallen so short of our goal, I anticipated everyone to be very disappointed," said Earnhardt, who gave his fans a midweek pep talk in his Dirty Mo Radio podcast this week. "Obviously there was some disappointment, but we’ve got some things to look forward to, still some racing left that they can cheer for and enjoy. We have some changes getting made in the offseason that they can get excited about and anticipate."

Being relegated to the outside of the Chase picture, Earnhardt now has a new perspective on which drivers might make up the final four for the Sprint Cup Championship on Nov. 16 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. His rooting interests stay close to home, as he has thrown his support behind Hendrick teammate Jeff Gordon‘s quest for a fifth title in NASCAR’s top series.

Still, he’s not ruling out any underdog candidates, which could prompt more interest in what’s been a compelling revamped Chase format thus far.

"I think there’s a couple of guys that will sneak in. I think there will be a couple of usual suspects that you would expect," Earnhardt said. "I believe the Penske cars will be there at Homestead. I hope that Jeff’s there; I want Jeff to win the championship for Hendrick. I want to win all the races but definitely want to do all we can to help Jeff, but I also believe that someone will sneak in there and that will be a positive for the sport because this Chase provides that ability.

"Among a lot of things, it’s working as designed to bring a lot of attention and awareness to each of these races. It’s really brought a lot of storylines and great publicity, but also, when it comes down to who those four are, it’ll say a lot about how important this Chase has been and will become throughout the next several years."

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"We’re just basically looking to try to get both teams to be a little more consistent," Zipadelli said at Martinsville Speedway, just before opening Sprint Cup practice. "They’ve had speed throughout the year, but haven’t necessarily put the whole season together in all the races to the level that we expect from them."

Stewart-Haas announced earlier in the week that Daniel Knost would shift from the No. 41 team with Busch over to work with Patrick and the No. 10 Chevrolet operation. Tony Gibson, who revealed last weekend that he had re-signed with SHR for the "extended future," will work with Busch. The changes go into effect next weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, after this Sunday’s Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 (1:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).

In terms of making the personalities work, Zipadelli lauded Knost’s analytical engineering side as a solid fit with Patrick while playing up Gibson’s old-school sensibilities as a match for Busch.

"I think long-term it’s the right thing," Zipadelli said of the new pairing for the No. 10 team. "There might be a step back while they learn each other and they grow, but long-term — a full year, two years from now — I think their personalities between Daniel and Danica will work together much better, and I think at the same time, the same thing will happen on the 41 car. That’s a team that we have to get going immediately. There isn’t a whole lot of time for growth.

"We know Kurt is in the prime of his career and he can win races at every race track we go to, so we’ve got to give him that and we’ve got to give Danica the ability to continue to grow and continue to build a relationship with somebody because she plans on being here a while."

Knost, in his first year as a crew chief at the NASCAR national series level, and Busch enjoyed some success, winning in the series’ most recent trip to Martinsville to lock up a spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup postseason. But consistency has been difficult to come by for the No. 41 bunch, which languished in 20th place or worse in the standings for the bulk of the season.

Knost has experience working with Patrick, but in the role of an engineer instead of crew chief during her first 10-race foray into the sport’s big leagues in 2012. He said he’ll take the lessons from his first 33 races with Busch onto the next phase of his career.

"The biggest things we’ve learning is just dealing with people, dealing with pressure and having to make decisions when you’re not fully informed," Knost said Friday after Coors Light Pole Qualifying. "Certainly, Kurt’s really talented and he’s got maybe a different feel in the car than maybe some of the other drivers I’ve worked with, so I’ve kind of learned some tricks from that and I’ve also learned that each driver’s got their own individual keys and you have to figure out how to make those keys work for them to be successful."

Though Patrick had built a firm relationship with Gibson over the last two years, she seemed open to a change, saying "everybody is looking for some magic" in creating new chemistry.

"Really nice guy, very smart and he is definitely a lot like the kind of engineers — and in fact in IndyCar it was called an engineer instead of a crew chief — that I was used to dealing with," Patrick said. "We have gotten along anyway regardless of whether he has been on my car or not. I’m definitely open-minded and looking forward to the opportunity to see how it will go with him."

For the end of this season and starting anew in 2015, Busch will have the veteran Gibson calling the shots. Gibson’s easy-going nature and occasional "tough love" worked well for Patrick. With the often irascible Busch behind the wheel, Gibson’s deft touch could be tested when radio communications become heated.

"I mean that’s just one of those things that comes along with Kurt," Zipadelli said. "I mean, (Gibson)’s dealt with Mark Martin, Dale Earnhardt Jr. back in the day, Michael Waltrip, so I think he’s heard it all. You let it go in one ear and out the other. I think because of his experience and the time he’s been in the sport, he’ll be able to handle that a little bit better."

The 49-year-old Gibson was his trademark self after qualifying at Martinsville, describing the outlook for the new driver-owner combination as, "We’re looking forward to it, dude." But even as he enters his next chapter with Stewart-Haas, he said he was proud of the progress he’d made with Patrick, who entered stock-car racing as a virtual newbie with her primary background in open-wheel competition.

"Anything you do, no matter who’s driving it, anytime you make progress, you sit back and look at what got you there, what did you do better that got her there, because when you can take a driver with no experience and come in and take them from running 35th every week and make them where they can run in the top 20, top 15, something got you there," Gibson said. "We’re going to go back and look, and the things we did to help her, maybe we can pick four or five of those things out and apply them to Kurt’s driving style and make it better.

"At least we know as a team, we have good race cars and solid pit stops, so we combine that with a really good championship driver, we should be in good shape."

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