Coming close, Jeremy Mayfield said in no uncertain terms after last weekend’s race at Dover, Del., stinks.

Actually, the driver of the No. 19 Evernham Motorsports Dodge used stronger language, language you don’t normally hear on national television, to describe his frustration over his runner-up finish to Ryan Newman in the MBNA American 400.

“We should be happy to finish second, and we are,” Mayfield said after cooling down. “But you only get the opportunity once in awhile and when you get it and you come so close it just makes you mad.”

Second is not something a Winston Cup driver wants to get used to, of course. But for Mayfield, two runners-up finishes in the past three races certainly couldn’t have come at a better time.

If you buy into all of the recent speculation, Mayfield is racing for his job. He’s certainly talking like somebody who wants to keep it.

“This is a good race team,” Mayfield said. “A lot of other teams out there would like to be running like we’re running right now. I just feel like when you’ve got something good, don’t change it. Don’t fix it if it’s not broke.

“Things are going good right now. I’d hate to think anybody would want to make changes, and if you did, could you get it back like it is right now?”

On the whole, it has been a frustrating year for Mayfield. After finishing eighth in the Daytona 500, he went 12 races without being better than 18th.

Driver Jeremy Mayfield's car, left, leads a pack of drivers during the Brickyard 400 Aug. 3 in Indianapolis.

The bottom came at Lowe’s Motor Speedway near Charlotte in the Coca-Cola 600, when he wrecked after 123 laps and finished last to drop to 33rd in points.

“There have been several (races) where we were mad, not as much mad at each other but frustrated we couldn’t get it to work,” Mayfield said. “I feel like we all knew the potential was there. We all knew we had a great race team. It was just a matter of how we were going to put it all together.

“I think that’s where we all sucked it up and realized we could all be better ourselves. It’s still hard, but you’ve just got to continue on wanting to learn and wanting to be better.”

There have been bright spots. In April, he won the pole for the Aaron’s 499, his third Talladega pole but his first anywhere since joining Evernham Motorsports last season. He finished eighth in both Daytona races this year, and Mayfield led 19 laps on the way to an 18th-place finish at Talladega.

He put together five top-15 runs in June and July, and now is riding a five-race streak where he’s finished no worse than 11th and has moved to within 56 points of the top 20 in the series standings.

Mayfield has three Winston Cup victories, but hasn’t won in 109 races — since Pocono (Pa.) in June 2000.

“I think it says a lot about the competition,” Mayfield said. “I feel like I’m a lot smarter driver than I was a long time ago. I feel like the experience I’ve gotten since then has helped me a ton.

“I feel like I’m a better driver now than I’ve ever been, and we’re running bad. I think that’s what motivated our race team. We all feel that way about ourselves in general. We know this is a good race team. We weren’t running the way we were capable of running, and knowing that, I think it’s brought out the best in all of us. It’s certainly made me sit down and think about what I can do to make this team better.

“It’s all about everybody wanting the same thing and just doing it, putting all egos and pride aside and just doing whatever it takes to race. That’s what’s cool. I’ve seen this team go down. Before midseason we should have broke up. We should have all gone different directions, but we stuck it out and feel like now we won a couple of battles.”

In the last five races, Jeremy Mayfield has finished no lower than 11th and was runner-up in last week's MBNA America 400.