Junior the odd man out at Hendrick
Three different Hendrick Motorsports drivers have won in the last three races.
One Hendrick driver hasn't won this season, hasn't finished in the top five and isn't playing well with others.
Three Hendrick drivers are happy, constantly smiling and on the rise in 2009.
One is unhappy, constantly frowning and falling faster than a banker's 401(k) account.
Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Now which of these four is not like the others?
These are not good days for the crown prince of NASCAR and the sport's most popular driver. The name and fame mean constant pressure for Earnhardt.
The pressure increased when he signed with the best organization in NASCAR, as he knew it would. But this certainly isn't what he envisioned when Rick Hendrick brought him in last season.
Earnhardt is weathering an undeniable slump on a team of home-run hitters. Right now, it's the Dream Team trio and the Scream Team outsider.
For the No. 88 team, it's a sickness that needs treatment. But the cure may be a few days away -- Talladega.
Not many drivers would consider this Alabama oval of destruction a place to get well, but the giant restrictor-plate track has been a comfort zone for Earnhardt.
Five of his 18 Sprint Cup victories have come at Talladega.
Earnhardt won four consecutive races at Dega from 2001 to 2003 -- he won both races in 2002 -- and his fifth victory came in the fall race of 2004.
That made 15 victories at the track overall for the Earnhardt family. Dale Sr. holds the track record with 10 Cup wins.
North Carolina is home, but Alabama is Junior's home-court advantage. No place loves him more than the fans at Talladega.
So NASCAR's biggest and most dangerous speedway is Earnhardt's Xanadu. Or is it?
His last seven races at Dega haven't produced much success. He finished 23rd or worse in five of those events. Since the fall of 2005, his average finish on the 2.66-mile speedway is 25.5.
Maybe the magic is gone. All we see at the moment is an illusion, like the illusion of his running up front Saturday night at Phoenix before finishing 31st.
Earnhardt had fallen behind the leaders, but the horrible finish was a result of getting slammed into by Casey Mears. That led to postrace fender banging by both drivers on the cool-down lap.
Earnhardt left the track without speaking to reporters, but his moment of anger directed at Mears probably was a release of emotions about the entire season.
The Mears incident came after more pit road problems and more questionable adjustments that hurt the performance of the car late in the race.
“I think Junior has a lot more talent than he's given credit for. All I can say is that during the [team] debriefs, the type of information that we get from him is very good. That tells me a lot.
” -- Jeff Gordon
Earnhardt is 19th in the standings. Even with 18 races to go before the Chase begins, that's a bad place.
In the five-year history of the Chase, only one driver made the playoff if he ranked 19th or worse after the first eight races.
Martin Truex Jr. was 20th after eight races in 2007. He finished 11th in the Chase.
If Earnhardt is going to get back to the top 12, he needs to start now and avoid the typical big wreck at Talladega. And he needs to lean on his teammates and follow their lead.
"I think Junior has a lot more talent than he's given credit for," Gordon said before his victory at Texas. "All I can say is that during the [team] debriefs, the type of information that we get from him is very good. That tells me a lot.
"For him, it's really about adapting to being at Hendrick and looking at what all the other teams are doing -- what's working, what's not working -- and adapting that to your own style."
Earnhardt and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. already were heading in that direction before the race at Texas.
"I think we have to be wise and open-minded to what our teammates are learning and what they're doing to go fast," Earnhardt said. "It's Tony Jr.'s job to be smart enough to know what to do.
"He's the crew chief and he's the leader of the team. The one thing you must not do with your teammates is let your ego stand in the way of understanding what they're doing and how they're making something work. I don't think Tony Jr. does that."
Earnhardt, Eury and the Hendrick brain trust had a closed-door meeting last month to try to figure things out.
"I just want them to lead me, man," Earnhardt said at Texas. "I just wanted them to tell me their real thoughts and give it to me. If it was a punch in the face, then that's what it was.
"I just wanted to hear it from them as to what they wanted me to do and what I could do better. I want them to guide me and tell me when they think I'm doing the wrong thing."
Earnhardt is searching for something to give him some positive momentum this season. Johnson found it at Martinsville, Gordon found it at Texas and Martin found it at Phoenix.
Maybe an old friend -- Talladega -- is the place where Earnhardt finds some answers.
Terry Blount covers motorsports for ESPN.com. His book, "The Blount Report: NASCAR's Most Overrated and Underrated Drivers, Cars, Teams, and Tracks," was published by Triumph Books and is available in bookstores. Click here to order a copy. Blount can be reached at terry@blountspeak.com.