This year's trip home to the Northeast for Martin Truex Jr. was not as pleasant as the one last year. The Mayetta, New Jersey native finished a disappointing 6th at his home track of Dover International Speedway, where he scored his first career victory, and came home an even more frustrating 17th at Pocono Raceway this past weekend.

Heading to the Irish Hills of Michigan for Sunday's LifeLock 400, Truex Jr. hopes some of the luck he had in 2007 begins to rub off on his Dale Earnhardt Inc. team this year. The driver of the No. 1 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet was the runner-up in both races at the 2-mile D-shaped oval in 2007, and was certainly a contender for the win.

"Michigan's a great track because it's fast and wide," Truex said. "You can run a bunch of different lines and still be competitive. There's plenty of room to pass and the surface is smooth. We've pretty much always been strong there and hopefully that will continue this weekend."

The No. 1 team has definitely not had the worst year on record, but it is clear they are looking for some improvements.

In fourteen races thus far in 2008, Truex Jr. has only one top-5, four top-10s and two DNF's. At this point last year, Truex had one win at Dover, two top-5's, five top-10's and only one DNF. Leaving Pocono in 2007, the driver of the No. 1 DEI Chevy was 11th and points and did not fall out of the top-12 in the standings for the remainder of the season.

This season, Truex Jr. broke into the top-12 in the series standings following the second race of the year at the Auto Club Speedway, only to fall out four races later at Martinsville.

Since leaving the short track in the hills of Virginia, Truex Jr. has hovered around 15th in the standings - moving up one week, only to lose it all the next. Following a 17th-place finish at Pocono last week, Truex Jr. sits 16th in the standings - 56 points outside the top-12.

"I think we just haven't finished any races," crew chief Kevin "Bono" Manion said. "Loudon we led a lot of laps and had a chance to win, Michigan we ran second both times. So, I can't say we haven't raced good we just haven't had that finish. It takes an awful lot to get everything completed and we just haven't got everything complete."

As Manion mentioned, Truex is headed back to a track he has come close to having success at before. Dover and Pocono are also tracks the 27-year-old driver had success and great runs on, but this year the team left disappointed.

"We really started to click as a team at this point last year," explained Truex. "This year is shaping up like 2007. We've been bringing good cars to the track, but we've had some bad luck. Our team knows that we need to be consistently fast if we're going to make the Chase."

In order for this team to turn the corner and become a Chase contender again this year, more consistent finishes are in order and, as Manion put it, the team must "get everything completed."