After quietly beginning the season as one of the frontrunners in the series, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has fell back in the same fashion that he got there.

Earnhardt Jr. kicked off his first season at Hendrick Motorsports by keeping the No. 88 Chevrolet Impala SS in the top-15 for 10 of the first 11 races. Silently keeping his car no lower than fourth in the standings for the next 22 races, Earnhardt Jr. looked to be on the verge of contending for the 2008 Cup championship.

His fall began at Dover International Raceway's Camping World RV 400 presented by AAA in September. Since then he has only collected one top-10 finish that came at Martinsville Speedway.

With all championship hopes gone, Earnhardt Jr. will look to just simply improve on what began as a promising season.

With a seventh place finish at Phoenix International Raceway earlier in the year, Earnhardt Jr. would like to finish strong in the last two events of 2008. Leading 87 laps in the Subway Fresh Fit 500 in April, the first year Hendrick Motorsports driver is very well one of the favorites heading out west.

"I think Phoenix is a good track for us," said crew cheif of the No. 88 Tony Eury Jr. "We've had a lot of success there. Dale and I have won twice there. This past time it was kind of a unique race. We were battling with Mark Martin most of the night. Then on the last run we kind of let the car setup get away from us, and everybody was on some different fuel mileage strategy."

Currently sitting in the 11th spot in the standings, Earnhardt Jr. is looking ahead to his teammate Jimmie Johnson who is hoping to assemble his third straight championship season.

"It's fun," said Earnhardt Jr. of watching his teammate's attempt at making history. "He's a nice guy. Jimmie's got a lot of confidence in his abilities and so does Chad (Knaus, crew chief for the No. 48 Chevrolet). They just run good."

Despite how his season has wound up, Earnhardt Jr. has enjoyed his debut season in a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. With people behind him to cheer him on no matter his results, it has helped Earnhardt Jr. get through a roller coaster of a season.

"It's been busy. It's been flattering and humbling," Earnhardt Jr. stated. "A lot of good things have happened, and a lot of neat stuff happened to me, being with Hendrick, that was flattering to me. There were a lot of little pats on the back and compliments going down the road that were pretty cool. You get appreciated for when you do good; you get recognized for it. And you get help when you do bad. You get people trying to remedy why that happened, try to help you keep that from happening again. When we do bad, people want to help us make it right, and that's a really good feeling. Then when you do good, someone says something about it. When you are doing your job, you get rewarded for it -- at least some acknowledgement for it, which is good. That makes you want to go out and keep going, keep working."