No question, there are new pieces in place to aid that effort. Patrick herself now has a full year of Sprint Cup experience behind her — to this point, she’s still started only 46 premier-series events total — and with a pair of new drivers and new crew chiefs in house, the potential for shared new ideas is evident. The hope is that all the accumulated experience and expertise can buoy the No. 10 program along with everything else.

"I think that this is going to be a year for opportunity, really," Patrick said. "I think that for me I’m able to feed off of their experience and making the car better. So I’ve always felt like, whether it was IndyCar or now, I learn a lot more when we make good changes and make the car right, or better, because I start to learn the potential of the car as opposed to not knowing what the potential is and not knowing what I have to deal with and settle for. So good changes help me learn what’s really possible with the car, and I think that’s what comes from guys with a lot of experience is they know what to do with the car."

Patrick’s rookie season was highlighted by an eighth-place finish in a Daytona 500 where she won the pole, and a 12th-place run later in the spring at Martinsville. Crew chief Tony Gibson returns to oversee a program that recorded nine finishes of 20th or better in 2013.

"It’s still a work in progress," Stewart said. "She’s still learning. This year, I think, will be a big year for her. I think having that first full season under her belt now and being able to go to every place twice, and get the feeling of what a Cup weekend is like — I think all the newness wore off of that (last) year. And I think she knows more what to expect, and it’s more a matter of focusing on the things that she can be better at."

A primary focus at SHR is on bringing better- and more similarly prepared cars to the race track, and reaping more improved performances as a result. As far as Patrick’s program specifically is concerned, although she became the first woman ever to win a pole in NASCAR’s top series last year at Daytona, one of her problem areas in 2013 was qualifying, which she feels her team worked on over the latter part of this past season. When it comes to adjustments over the course of a race weekend, her team hopes to narrow the focus from bigger swings in setup to more fine-tuning.

"That’s the things that you learn over time," Patrick said. "We were all doing everything we could earlier in the year to throw different things at it to see if it was better. But working more methodically at the end of the year seemed to help that. Between that, and … what shows itself in getting more comfortable in those first laps qualifying, first start of the race, restarts, all those things, they all kind of go hand in hand, and those are the areas that I have to work on."

Patrick’s comfort on restrictor-plate tracks was evident again in Friday’s rain-shortened Preseason Thunder test session. Then again, going fast at a place like Daytona was never a problem, as last season’s pole speed might suggest. Her biggest hurdle in the Daytona 500 came at the end, where she found herself third in the waning laps but wound up eighth after being unable to make a move for the victory.

Might another year of experience, and three more plate events, help her if she finds herself in a similar situation next month? "Possibly. I mean, I think that I definitely learned how to make the run and do it. I also learned that you have to practice it a little bit. You can’t just go and bomb it on the last lap of the Daytona 500," she said.

"I’m very fortunate to be in the (Sprint Unlimited) the weekend before the race so that I can practice those kinds of things and have more track time and especially more racing time. I think that there is an element of having an idea of what to do, and there’s also the element of being around for a while that people trust you and are willing to work with you a little bit. So I think it’s a little bit of both, but you’re not going to get their respect if you don’t try. So I think it’s sort of a parallel progression."

As is her development as a NASCAR driver as a whole. She’ll certainly have help at Daytona, where her fellow SHR drivers are all restrictor-plate aces. "She’s got three teammates that are going to be behind her 100 percent," Stewart said. He was speaking about the season and not specifically the Daytona 500, but in Patrick’s case, he could have been referring to both.

MORE:

"Really when it comes down to it, probably the No. 1 thing is, I have an 8- and a 10-year-old child, and I know the commitment it takes to be a top-level crew chief. I don’t know firsthand the commitment it takes to be great on television … but in my conversations with Sam, I don’t think it’s quite the same time commitment and travel commitment," Letarte, wearing a new NBC polo shirt, said at Daytona International Speedway.

"When it comes down to it, the list is very, very long, but that would have to go to the top of the list. I’ve always said, and I don’t think I’ve ever hid it from anyone, that my family has always been my No. 1 priority. It comes down to, if I’m going to be unsuccessful at anything I do, being a father shouldn’t be on the list. So I’m going to put that one first. This allows me to put that one first."

Letarte is no stranger to a microphone, having done occasional radio and television work in addition to his crew chief’s duties. Flood said the idea of hiring Letarte as an analyst came from listening to the crew chief’s guest spots on SiriusXM satellite radio, which "made me aware how important it was to try and add him to this group," he said. NBC and NBC Sports Network will air the final 20 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events of the season beginning in 2015, a schedule that clearly appealed to a 34-year-old crew chief with two kids at home.

"It was hard because we are such good friends, and I really do enjoy working with him a lot," Earnhardt said. "But at the same time, I’m happy for him because it gives him the opportunity to spend time with his family. It’s something that’s really important to him, and the way these races are broadcast and how they’re presented to the fans is a big part of how the sport remains healthy, and I think that he’s going to be incredible in that role."

First, though, comes the matter of the 2014 season, and Letarte’s final run at the helm of the No. 88 team. Although he and Earnhardt have won just one race together — at Michigan, in the summer of 2012 — the program has shown steady growth since Hendrick paired the duo in a personnel shuffle before the 2011 campaign. Earnhardt was coming off consecutive 25th- and 21st-place finishes in Sprint Cup points, but Letarte’s positivity lifted him to a seventh-place result the next year. Last season’s fifth-place finish was the driver’s best since 2006, and his heyday at Dale Earnhardt Inc.

Letarte knows any misstep this season will lead to howls from Junior Nation that he’s distracted, that his head is already in the broadcast booth. But the crew chief and driver are close — Earnhardt was the second person Letarte said he told of his pending move, after his wife Tricia — and it’s clear there’s a mission to make this final campaign together a memorable one.

"I think what makes this situation unique compared to any driver situation I can remember is, I’m not going to crew chief for another organization, so when I go to Charlotte with Dale Jr., it’s going to be our last trip together to Charlotte. … I’m not working on being a broadcaster in 2014, I’m working on filling a trophy case, and to do that we have to win our first race," Letarte said.

"Dale and I have had that conversation, and he said it the best, that this will give us an opportunity to really cherish those races and those opportunities, and I think if anything, it might allow us to be better at our jobs, because frustration sets in for everyone in the garage area. It’s a tough sport. If it doesn’t set in, you don’t care enough about your job. And I think this is one more thing that could maybe drag us out of frustration, because you know there’s a time stamp on the end of it. So do you really want to throw away your last trip to Sonoma together? Do you want to put personal feelings in the way of trying to win the Brickyard?"

The television job will present a different kind of opportunity, and NBC’s booth will clearly have a contemporary take on issues given that its analysts come straight from the garage area. Flood said Letarte and Burton will meet with NBC’s veteran NFL analyst Cris Collinsworth about broadcast preparation, something he doesn’t believe either of his new hires will have trouble with.

"We aren’t retiring," added Burton, who is running a partial slate this year for Michael Waltrip Racing. "We’re taking another position in the sport. I think that needs to be noted. We’re not walking away from work. We’re accepting a new challenge. Steve and I have talked a lot about this. We want to outwork everybody. This isn’t a right to do this. We’ve earned it, now we’ve got to go earn it every single day, and that’s what he’s done as a crew chief. That’s what I feel like I’ve done as a driver. We hope to bring that to the broadcast, as well."

It will clearly be a transition for Letarte, who’s worked only at Hendrick since he started part-time sweeping the floors when he was in high school. After winning 11 races — 10 of them in a successful six-year stint with Jeff Gordon — as a Sprint Cup crew chief, he sees the move to television as the next step in his career. But he’ll still be around the garage area, still be able to maintain the relationships he made over nearly two decades at Hendrick, and still have one more season to chase race victories with Earnhardt.

"We’re very involved in each other’s lives, and I hope for that to continue past the end of 2014," Letarte said. "But we still have a year to go, and this opportunity will really let me cherish that year like I would hope where when I come down here in a few weeks, this will be my last shot as a crew chief for a Daytona 500 pole, for a 150s win. I’ve never won a Daytona 500 as a crew chief. Those opportunities, I think, will make me really enjoy and cherish and put the right foot forward for the next season."

MORE:

"Steve had an opportunity, he’s going to be off half of the season and be able to spend that time with his kids. That’s something that’s really important to him, probably the most important thing to him was being able to spend time with his kids and be around them and be with them. … There was no point in trying to talk him out of it, because I knew a long time ago that he had his mind made up. But I feel good about this year and I’m still confident about him and us working together. Because even though he’s got plans in 2015, I know he’ll stay focused on this team and this car."

NBC Sports announced Thursday that Letarte would step down from the crew chief’s role after this year and become an analyst for the network, which returns as a NASCAR broadcast partner beginning in 2015. He will join race announcer Rick Allen and 21-time race-winning driver Jeff Burton in the booth. Letarte will continue to work with Earnhardt through the end of this season, and Hendrick Motorsports has not yet begun the search for a replacement.

Letarte said Friday morning that even though his role in the sport will change dramatically after the season, he views 2014 as an opportunity even though the last hurrah with NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver will be bittersweet.

"I think that this is a very different situation because I’m not working on being a broadcaster in 2014, I’m working on filling a trophy case, and to do that we have to win our first race," Letarte said. "Dale and I have had that conversation, and he said it the best, that this will give us an opportunity to really cherish those races and those opportunities, and I think if anything, it might allow us to be better at our jobs because frustration sets in for everyone in the garage area. It’s a tough sport. If it doesn’t set in you don’t care enough about your job."

Friday morning at the track, Earnhardt said Letarte had discussed the move with him before the end of the season, and that the decision was all but definite after the final race.

"So I’ve had time to really wrap my brain around it," Earnhardt said. "It was hard because we are such good friends, and I really do enjoy working with him a lot.  But at the same time I’m happy for him because it gives him the opportunity to spend time with his family. It’s something that’s really important to him, and the way these races are broadcast and how they’re presented to the fans is a big part of how the sport remains healthy, and I think that he’s going to be incredible in that role. I think that he’ll ‑‑ I think that he’ll be really good."

Under Letarte, Earnhardt has shown gradual improvement at Hendrick, and in 2013, recorded a fifth-place finish in final Sprint Cup Series points that was his best in almost a decade. Earnhardt said he and Letarte had discussed the crew chief’s future for the past several months.

"It’s really a tough deal to go through," Earnhardt added. "Steve’s really put the team in a difficult situation, because we all enjoy working with him so much. But it has been rewarding for me personally to work with him, and it’s something you’d love to continue to do. But he has an opportunity. He’s a family man, and he has an opportunity to be with his family more with this position that he’s been offered at NBC. So I’m happy for him as a person and as a friend."

Earnhardt said he believes the No. 88 team can continue to perform at a high level in Letarte’s final season, and even after the current crew chief has moved on to television.

"I feel really, really confident that the team can run well all season," Earnhardt told SiriusXM. "And Steve will stay dedicated, he’s that type of a guy. He’s going to be professional, and we’re going to have an opportunity to improve on what we’ve been doing, and we’ll cross the bridge on who the next crew chief is when we need to. We haven’t even had those discussions yet. It’s just good to get this out there and get people talking about it and see what kind of bubbles to the surface and what our opportunities are as far as potential crew chiefs go for 2015. But I’m not very concerned about that. I’ve learned a lot from Steve, and he’s instilled a lot of confidence in me, and I can go and carry that on. I’ve learned to be a better driver over the radio, and a better communicator, and I think I can continue to do that going forward."

Contributing: Staff reports

MORE: