With his crew chief situation set for next year and the return of Lance McGrew, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is hoping to end the Sprint Cup Series on an upswing and be prepared for 2010.
Last week's announcement that McGrew would return to the pit box for the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team at least brought some stability to the squad. Rumors of more changes had been hinted at for weeks but Earnhardt is pleased that McGrew will be back to call the shots in 2010.
"I'm excited about it," team owner Rick Hendrick said. "We've been kind of idling along in neutral waiting for to finish with some good results, but if you can be committed to each other after the kind of [year] we've been through – it's real easy to be positive when you're going through good times.
"But if the chemistry can work and you can see that you're getting better and everybody is focused on it, I think it was definitely the right thing to do."
After a good run at Talladega Superspeedway Earnhardt sets his sights on Texas Motor Speedway and this Sunday's Dickies 500.
Earnhardt likes the 1.5-mile track, where he scored his first career Sprint Cup win back in the 2000 season. He's notched seven top-10 finishes there over the course of his Cup tenure.
"I like racing at Texas," Earnhardt said. "It's a fun track. The fans always seem to be excited about us coming out there. We've had some good success at Texas, too, so that helps a lot and makes us get excited about coming back. I just like the enthusiasm that the crowd has and the people that are from in and around that area have for racing, so it gets me excited."
Doing well at Texas would bode well for Earnhardt's overall intermediate track program, which he understands is important with so many similar tracks on the Sprint Cup schedule.
"We've had some good runs on intermediate tracks but just haven't had the finishes we need to have," he said. "I like going to Texas. It's a fast track. Corner speed at Texas is crucial. You are going to fight tight off of turns 2 and 4, so your driver has to be able to get in the throttle, accelerating off the corners to go fast."
