Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Left) and crew chief Lance McGrew (Right) worked hard over the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series break. (Photo: Getty Images)

For his part, Earnhardt said the Shootout was a learning experience. Two years ago, in his first race with Hendrick, Earnhardt won the Shootout. Last weekend, though, his car simply wasn’t fast enough.

“This car here is not as good by no means,” Earnhardt said Saturday night of his Shootout car. “The chassis is not as good by no means as what we're racing in the 500. So, I feel pretty good about what we're going to use there and we learned a little bit on our front end. You kind of pick and choose and try to figure out what's the best right-front spring and all this good stuff and how the bump-stops need to work. And I think we learned a little bit.”

Earnhardt was also pleased that he and Martin are in different Duels. “I was glad that me and Mark had qualified on the front row so we don't have to compete against each other on Thursday,” said Earnhardt. “We can sort of settle our own little issues in our qualifying races separate from each other. Hopefully both of us can win a trophy.”

Team owner Rick Hendrick made improving Earnhardt’s performance the team’s top priority for 2010, and it paid dividends in Daytona 500 qualifying, which Hendrick hopes will also show up in the race.

“The challenge was we wanted one team with two cars, then they unloaded two cars that ran almost identical times,” Hendrick said of Martin and Earnhardt. “I know this is just one race, but no one here and no one outside of our company will know the effort that Alan (Gustafson, Martin’s crew chief) and Lance (McGrew, Earnhardt’s crew chief) put into this team and these two cars, and I'm really proud of 'em.”

And Hendrick is eager to make amends for Earnhardt’s struggles last season.

“Everybody in the organization has been amazed at the amount of effort,” said Hendrick, who had six 500 victories as a car owner. “Everybody is smiling in that group. They kind of made a commitment. I think when Junior sees that kind of commitment, he's been working hard. We had good opportunities towards the end of the year, and no matter how good we were running, something was going to happen. We all felt like we were snake bit. So it was really good to wipe the slate clean.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of "Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED," and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to