For two years Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Matt Kenseth fought each other for Busch Grand National titles and each year Junior came out on top -- frustrating the talented Kenseth who came out of NASCAR's minor league system without any hardware.

This year, he's releasing a little bit of that frustration -- and he's doing it with a steady precision that has him inching away with the Winston Cup points lead.

But this story isn't about Matt Kenseth. This is about Junior, who is starting to see how the other side feels. And he doesn't like it.

That's why Junior, seen frequently joking around with his friend Kenseth, is still clear about how things are.

"We're still thinking everyday about the bigger picture of winning the championship at the end of 36 races," Junior said.

For the first time in his three-plus season Cup career Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his No. 8 Chevrolet Monte Carlo team have found the consistency to contend for the points title his father won a record-tying seven times. But the man who used to frustrate the heck out of Kenseth has been unable to catch him. Recently, Junior fell from second to third in the points race, but said he refuses to get frustrated about not gaining points despite his solid finishes.

After all, it's a long season. And anybody can make a strong run on Kenseth's 17 team.

"We focus on our own car each week, and we can't be worrying about what those 17 guys are doing all the time," Junior said. "Yeah, I do pay attention to how he's doing, but it's not just about Matt and me. If we only paid attention to Matt, then we'd get our butt kicked by the 24 (Jeff Gordon) or the 18 (Bobby Labonte) and the other guys in the top-10 in points. We're racing 42 other cars -- not just one other car."

To be sure, the atmosphere surrounding Junior and Kenseth has a little extra heat. After all, the two are friendly rivals and constantly compared to one another. In a recent episode, Kenseth and Junior touched at the end of a race, and Junior wasn't too pleased.

"We're buddies and all, but Matt always seems to run me into the wall," Junior told Speed Channel. "He had new tires, so he was going by me anyway, so I don't know why he did that. It killed my momentum, it lost me two more spots. That's two spots I should've had. If that's how he wants to battle, that's how we'll battle."

Outside of that incident, it's been mostly smooth sailing for the No. 8 boys.

	Earnhardt Jr. is currently third in the Cup standings, 176 points behind Matt Kenseth.

The demeanor and focus that Junior's team has displayed this season shows it's maturing. Even on solid days when Junior will finish sixth, there is little frustration over the fact that Kenseth finished fourth and still put a little more distance between them in the points race.

The team is focused on the big picture, and it understands that what's really important is when a sixth-place finish comes at a track where he's never finished better than, say, 10th.

Hence his excitement over last weekend's performance.

"We worked hard for that 11th-place finish," Junior said of his run in Sonoma, Calif. "This is a track where we knew we had to improve, and I think we showed that we're here to stay as a championship contender. I wanted a top-10 so bad -- and we had the car to do it. I want to thank the guys for a car that was the best I've had on a road course. We came, we conquered, we kicked some butt. That was a knock-down drag-out, and I had some fun."

It's been decades since someone has lost the series title after owning as big a points lead as Kenseth has at this point in the season. But Junior's all about improvement, and he's trying to improve to one-time champion, with just six more to go to catch up to Daddy.

"If this team has shown anything this year, it's that we're improving at almost every track -- especially the tracks where we used to struggle," he said.

Rupen Fofaria covers NASCAR for The Raleigh News & Observer and is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at rfofaria@espnspecial.com.