Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants more speed to combat Joe Gibbs Racing

LONG POND, Pa. – Earlier this season, it seemed like no one could touch the Hendrick-powered cars when it came to speed.

The Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets of Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne and Dale Earnhardt Jr. were plenty fast, and the best cars every week belonged to Hendrick-powered Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch of Stewart-Haas Racing.

But the balance of power has shifted over the last month or so in the Sprint Cup Series, and it’s Joe Gibbs Racing’s Toyotas that seem to be fastest right now. JGR has won four of the last five races (all with Kyle Busch) and three straight poles, including Friday.

“We’re not on top of the mountain anymore – by ourselves, at least,” Earnhardt said Friday at Pocono Raceway. “(JGR) has found some speed, and we need to combat that with some speed of our own.”

Earnhardt gave somewhat of a "State of the 88" address in between practice and qualifying at Pocono, speaking at length about the struggles of both his team and organization.

They’re minor struggles, to be sure – problems most other drivers would love to have. But by Hendrick standards, it’s not acceptable to have only one driver with a top-five finish (Earnhardt at New Hampshire Motor Speedway) in the last three races.

“You gotta be honest with yourself: The Gibbs guys have found more speed,” Earnhardt said. “They look like over the last couple of weeks to be a lot stronger.

“I’ve seen it before where we get some competition or somebody gets a leg up on us and our guys go to work and find out where that speed is at and where that improvement comes from.”

The Toyota-powered cars seem to have caught the Hendrick group on engine power – something that shows up at places with long straightaways like Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Pocono. Earnhardt said the Hendrick cars “had a bit of an advantage last year, particularly on the engines, and a lot of things have changed.”

The 40-year-old driver also expressed some concern over his car at Pocono this weekend – it didn’t come off the hauler handling as well as he hoped – and tried to ease talk about his pit crew, which has had a few stumbles this season. The pit crew had an air gun go bad and there was a dropped jack among problems at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last week, for example.

“You don’t fix issues on pit road overnight,” said Earnhardt, who with two wins already has qualified for the Chase for the Sprint Cup. “A lot of this stuff takes time. We don’t learn about all these problems at Indy and have them tuned out for Pocono. This might be something we have to focus on for a couple of weeks before we shore it up. I know the company is aware of it and aims to fix it.”

VIDEO: Dale Earnhardt Jr.: 'Things need to be better'

But Earnhardt said he wasn’t worried about his season as a whole, because he said he had the "best resources" and “the best boss man” – team owner Rick Hendrick – who would keep pushing for more speed and not settle for any less.

“It looks like right now it’s a mad scramble to get ready for the Chase,” said Earnhardt, who swept Pocono last year. “I’d love to be sitting here .3 faster than everybody and only fighting my teammates for the win, but we need to work a little harder to get a little more and be ready for the Chase to be ready to compete.

“It definitely looks like our competition has improved. I think we can be honest with ourselves. We definitely aren’t where we want to be. These guys are working on it every single day to try to find that speed and making the difference back up."

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PHOTOS: Behind the wheel with Dale Earnhardt Jr.