Richard Childress Racing looks ready to contend

Burton, 41, has a career-best points finish of third, which came in 2000. At that time, he was on the rise at Roush Racing and was finishing in the top five for the fourth time in four seasons. He dropped off pace a little between then and now, but after joining RCR midseason in 2004 he began the move back into top form and has finished in the top seven in the Chase standings three consecutive seasons. He won two races in 2008. While that is two more than teammate Harvick, both drivers showed signs of strength. For his part, Harvick seemed pleased overall with his season. While he did not win a race, he did earn 19 top-10 finishes. "Our team was very consistent through the whole year and ran in the top 10, top five pretty much every week towards the end of the season," Harvick says. "I think our average finish was like ninth in the Chase, and you go back five years ago and anything better than 12th would have won." When he looks at his Todd Berrier-led team, he doesn't see that much that needs changing — just a little tweaking that can be done from time to time. "I don't think I'd change one thing, to be honest with you," Harvick says. "Obviously we all just need to get a little bit better, from a driver standpoint to making the car faster, at what we do and just tweak on everything a little bit. We have to keep the consistency that we have. We ran in the top 10 pretty much every week the second half of the year and put ourselves in contention to win a few races and didn't make that happen, but we've got to keep the consistency that we have and figure out how to take those cars that lead a lot of laps on particular weekends and capitalize on those." That slight improvement could net Harvick a slot in the battle for the championship come November. He certainly has the tenacity to contend with the sport's elite. A perennial favorite to win at least one race, he has finished in the top 10 five times in eight seasons, including each of the last three. He has been fourth in the standings two of the last three seasons, including this year, and closed this season on a string of four top-10 finishes in the last five races and seven top-10s in the 10-race Chase. Bowyer and Mears are the two facing more of an unknown entering the year. With no testing, the pair have less time to adjust to their new groups. Mears is working with Gil Martin — the crew chief who has led Bowyer to his pair of Chase runs — and Bowyer will unite with Wilson. Bowyer, 29, carries the momentum of a strong 2008 into the year. He won the Nationwide Series title, placed fifth in the Cup standings and finished in the top five in two of the final three Cup races of the season. Entering his third full season of Cup competition, Bowyer still has all the RCR technology and equipment, his relationships with his teammates and his team owner entering the year. As to his relationship with Wilson, he's not worried about any time that might take to develop. He's opted to forego a defense of his Nationwide title in an effort to spend more time with Wilson and developing the team week to week. Bowyer seems confident and comfortable entering 2009, intent on doing whatever he can to contribute to the team. "We're in a building year, building a start-up team and looking forward to the challenges ahead and probably don't need too many other distractions other than staying focused on getting this car into the Chase," he says. So while most of the preseason speculation centers on 2008's top winners — Johnson, Edwards and Busch — the RCR teams are intent on continuing their success of the past and on finding incremental improvements within their organization. And that could give them what it takes to be the headline-stealing super team of 2009.

Rea White is a writer for NASCAR Scene, which is published weekly, 50 weeks per year. Visit www.scenedaily.com for more information.