FanHouse Dale Earnhardt Incorporated

As is often noted on any television broadcast in the past few years from Martinsville, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has hit just about everything -- including the tow truck. And you can bet that Sunday, Darrell Waltrip or Larry McReynolds will keep that streak alive when the camera pans over to that 8 car.

However, will Junior be getting the attention for being near the front?

He sure hopes so, and definitely needs it to get this season headed in the right direction.

Last week at Bristol and the week before at Atlanta, Earnhardt has improved markedly. Posting finishes of 7th and 14th respectively, the DEI flagship car has started to make a little bit of noise. A finish at Las Vegas -- in which he led his only lap of the year -- started that trend. He's been consistent, but just not quite hitting full stride.

As a result, the Budweiser Chevrolet still sits 17th in points, 279 marks behind leader Jeff Gordon. A wreck at Daytona and a engine failure at California will do that.

Saturday, though, was a good sign for Earnhardt and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. The 8 car paced the final practice session and even had the best average practice speed over his 56 laps. Junior starts 8th today.

He seemed pretty content with the car after practice.

"We tried a lot of different stuff, made it better, made it worse, made it better, made it worse. Just hopefully tomorrow we roll out the good car for the race."

And the Bud Nation is putting a lot of hope into that hopefully -- both today and the rest of the year.

They're not the cream of the crop, but they have solid footing in the Top 35 heading to Martinsville. They don't have to worry about qualifying, but they need to make adjustments if they want to secure their spot in the Chase. Here are your teams in the middle of the road:

Chip Ganassi / Felix Sabates: Two teams solidly in the Top 35--the #40 in 11th and the #42 in 19th. Their third team, the #41 isn't faring quite as well in 29th, but they're inside for at least one more week.

The CGRFS cars have gained an average of 3.3 positions from the end of last season.

While the teams cars are on the rise, so is one of the team's stars. Juan Pablo Montoya's entry into NASCAR is one of the most talked about stories in all of auto racing--there's the F1 angle, the international angle, the diversity angle and the he'll push anyone and anything out of his way to win angle ...

Ganassi is also off to a good start in the Indy Racing League, which kicked off Saturday and saw the third one-two finish for Ganassi drivers Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon.