It's been a good year for Rick Hendrick. His team became the first in NASCAR history to sweep the top-three points positions and one of his drivers became the first to win four consecutive Sprint Cup Series titles.

However, one driver, was not included in the team's celebration on Sunday night at Homestead.

As the dreadful season for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 88 Amp Energy/National Guard Chevrolet has come to an end, Hendrick said his attention will shift to fix the team prior to the start of the 2010 Sprint Series season in February.

"...my priority right now is the 88 team," Hendrick said during a national media teleconference on Tuesday. "We're working on them to try to make that team stronger. The goal going into next year now will be win races and get all four teams in the Chase.

The season, which included four DNFs, has been a near disaster for Earnhardt Jr., who will be entering his third year with the team next season. His post-Dale Earnhardt Inc. career started off strong in 2008 when he won the first two exhbidition races as well as a fuel mileage race in Michigan earlier that year. However, this season has been one of up and downs for NASCAR's most popular driver.

While the team's average running position for the races in the chase have been on a fairly steady increase, the team still hasn't scored a top-ten finish since the fall Bristol race.

"Well, you know, you see this happen," Hendrick said. "I've seen it happen with Jeff Gordon and Jimmie had a slump back around last year about the time we were in Vegas. You just go through these. We know we can make the team better, and it's frustrating, and it's, you know, the driver begins to think that no matter what he does, that something's going to happen, because we just had – we've had failures. We've had wrecks. We've just had a – if it could happen, it happened to that team.

"...when he's running good, something happened. And we just got to be better all the way around. I think when we do that, when Dale sees that we've stepped up in a lot of areas, it will give him the confidence he needs. So we're all over it, and we've been all over it. But it's really one of my focuses here. My priority – my primary focus here starting this week, starting Monday, really."