What Jimmy Spencer lacks in on-track success, he more than makes up for with an unending outlook of optimism.

To hear Spencer talk, you'd think he was right in the thick of the Winston Cup championship, rather than sitting in 30th-place in the standings heading into the final 20 races of the season. The driver of the No. 7 Dodge has had only one top-five, another top-10 and three other top-20 finishes in the first 16 races of the 2003 season, yet the Berwick, Pa., native feels confident he'll finish much higher in the standings by season's end.

"We came out of the box and ran pretty good and were very competitive in the first six races," Spencer said about his early-season performance.

But then things turned south. In the last 10 races, Spencer has struggled miserably. Sure, he finished fourth at Charlotte, the one bright spot, but he's also finished 29th or lower in eight other races during that same streak.

Yet, Spencer isn't giving up fighting the good fight. He feels confident that when he arrives in Daytona next week to begin the start of the grueling marathon of 20 consecutive weeks of racing up to the season's finale, things will start to turn around for him and the No. 7 team.

"We felt like we made a lot of mistakes (in the last 10 races)," Spencer said. "We've had some things happen to us that we felt was some of our own doing. Right now we're in turmoil because we're confused. We didn't run good at Michigan (finished 29th). That was the car we had at Atlanta and ran really well with (finished seventh). We're doing some searching right now. We think we can find it."

Even with the talent he possesses behind the wheel, there's only so much Spencer can do on his own. Last season, he had Sterling Marlin as a teammate and the deep pockets of team owner Chip Ganassi behind him. He raced in the best equipment and had a teammate he could compare notes with.

This year, Spencer is the lone driver for an owner, Jim Smith, whose pockets are admittedly not as deep as Ganassi's. Yet, it was Smith who threw Spencer a lifeline after he was fired by Ganassi after a sub par 2002 season.

While the overall performance has been hit-and-miss, Spencer can't wait to start a whole new chapter on this season next week at Daytona for the Pepsi 400. He's anticipating more of a finesse race rather than the fender-banging brawl that took place in the last restrictor plate race at Talladega (Ala.) nearly three months ago, noting, "I don't think you'll see them beating and banging at Daytona like they did at Talladega."

What you will see is the start of what has the potential to become one of the closest and most exciting races to the championship that Winston Cup racing has seen in many years. While Matt Kenseth has remained atop the standings for most of the first 16 weeks, and still maintains a fairly comfortable advantage over his closest chasers -- Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Bobby Labonte -- a lot of things can happen in 20 weeks.

	Spencer and his team are working toward scoring better finishes.

"You have to have that smile on your face even when you don't want to smile at the crew members, and you have to keep thinking positive all the time," Spencer said. "That in turn rubs off on everyone in the shop and the road crew. That really establishes how good a summer you have. This is where it's at. The next 10-12 races establish where you're going to be in the points and how well prepared you are and how well you stay focused. You keep building on that situation for the final third of the season and on into next year."

Not only has Spencer struggled this season, so too has the overall performance of Dodge-powered cars. In the first 16 races, Dodge has reached Victory Lane only twice, both times by last year's Rookie of the Year, Ryan Newman. Chevrolet leads all manufacturers with eight wins, Ford has won five races and Pontiac has a solo win by Ricky Craven.

"Ray Evernham and his group, Tommy (Baldwin, Spencer's crew chief) and our group, the Ganassi group and everybody is working together to try to make this car better constantly," Spencer said. "(Roger) Penske has been a big asset to the organization. To me, that's put a lot of pressure on all the other manufacturers. Dodge hasn't won as many races this year, and there's a lot of fingers being pointed, but all in all, a lot of the Dodge teams have had some tough luck. I don't think the Dodge is that bad at all. I think they'll win their share of races before the year is over."

And if Spencer can shake some of the bad luck that's been following him around for the last few months, he has a good chance at potentially finishing in the top-20 by season's end.

"We have a brand new car for Daytona," he said. "We're excited about that coming up and I think we're going to some tracks where we should really run good. But our biggest concern right now is to get ourselves back thinking the way we were at the start of the season. I think we'll get back on track and start notching some more top-10s and top-fives."

Why, he might even find himself back in Victory Lane. It would certainly be a long time in coming: Spencer hasn't won a race since claiming his only two triumphs in Winston Cup competition, both in the same year, in 1994. It's not for lack of trying. Rather, the competition is just so tough from week to week, and just keeps getting tougher, as Spencer will attest to.

"Let me tell you what," Spencer says. "There ain't a frigging series, I don't care whose series it is, that's even close to Winston Cup. It is so far more competitive than CART, Formula One, IRL. Those guys could all do whatever they want to. They could bring everything they can and they cannot dominate the Winston Cup Series. NASCAR, the way they have it structured, the point system, it is absolutely the toughest thing you could ever imagine doing in your life."

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com. He can be reached at Motorsportwriter@Yahoo.com.