Kicking off the 2008 Chase for the Sprint Cup in the fourth position, Dale Earnhardt Jr. failed to please his boss by carrying his pre-chase consistency thoughout the most important part of the season.

“I’m disappointed. I felt like we were so good early on, and we just had tremendous little gremlins bite us here from tire problems to things that you just can’t control,” Rick Hendrick noted. “All of those things that happened to him could have happened to Jimmie Johnson. He could be fifth in the points, and Jimmie could be third in the points. So racing luck has got a lot to do with it, but I think when we look back on the year and we look back at what he’s accomplished and how he’s fit into our organization and how happy he is and [crew chief] Tony [Eury Jr.] is, we’re going to go to work to make it better for next year. That’s the good news: there is next year.”

With one win, 10 top-5's and 16 top-10's this season, Earnhardt Jr. has had, no doubt, more success in his first year at Hendrick Motorsports than he had in his last season at Dale Earnhardt Inc.

Despite his disappointment, Hendrick knows as well as anyone that you can't assemble a team and expect them to win a championship right out of the gate. With next year in their sights, Hendrick looks foward to the No. 88 team having a much smoother season in 2009.

“I think he learned a lot,” Hendrick said. “There’s no way you can put a team together in their first year and they be as good as the 48 team [of Johnson] because they’ve been together. That’s the chemistry that’s going to get better on Dale Jr.’s side as we roll into next year with a year under our belt. We’ll look at areas and things that we can improve in, and we know him better, our engineers know him better now, and we know what he needs and what he wants, and we’ll be working to make that better. This sport’s always about trying to improve in every area, so we’ve got some improving to do.”

With their first season as a team behind them Hendrick has high hopes for the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet, "He might get his first championship next year. Who knows?"