Hendrick stands by his man

CHARLOTTE -- Nobody is trying to sugarcoat the train wreck that is Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s season.

He knows it's bad. His car owner knows it's bad. All of NASCAR knows it's bad.

Only nobody knows how to fix it.

And as the most prolific pairing in NASCAR history teeters on the brink of disaster, car owner Rick Hendrick is in a race to figure out what to do with his No. 88 team before Earnhardt loses what's left of his crumbling confidence.

"I'm as frustrated as those guys are," Hendrick said of Earnhardt's team. "But I can tell you this ... I'm as committed as I know how to be, and we're all committed to each other. We're just going to keep digging."

Earnhardt is 22nd in the standings, hasn't finished higher than 17th in the past seven races, and an electrical problem Saturday night at Lowe's sent him to the garage early and a 38th-place finish.

"Rick has been put me in a great position, but I haven't made the most of it," he said. "For whatever reason, we're just not getting it done. So, I don't know what to do."

All he can do is keep plugging away, and look forward to the Nov. 1 race at Talladega, where he's got an opportunity to snap out of his funk. The five-time winner at the Alabama track finished a season-high second there in April, and another strong finish can give him a much-needed boost.

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