All Jeremy Mayfield needs is for someone to tell him he's on his way out. All he needs is for someone to indicate that his manufacturer, Dodge, or team owner, Ray Evernham, are ready to make a change and that he's on the hot seat.

All he needs is for the rumors to circulate and make their way back to him.

That's all it takes to light a fire under his butt. Just look at how hot he is right now.

With a second-place finish at Dover this weekend, Mayfield made it two second-place finishes in three races; and five straight finishes of 11th or better.

"Every time we get those rumors running out there we start running better," Mayfield said in the midst of his current streak. "I don't know what the deal is, but keep it up -- whatever we've got to do. It's just weird. We're just now starting to come together as a team, and we've shown that.

"We had three top-10s in a row a month some time before this. Then a month ago we had six top-20s. All of a sudden we had a couple of bad weeks, and everyone says I'm back on the hot seat again, or whatever. But, we came back and got three more in a row. That just shows you how tough we are. We're not going down, you know?"

For Evernham, it continues a run of strong finishes by both of his drivers. Mayfield has climbed from as low as 30th in the standings just a few races ago to his current perch of 22nd in points. Bill Elliott, Mayfield's teammate, is up to 15th in the points standings -- higher than he's been all year. He had two top-fives in three races coming into this past weekend's race at Dover, where he finished 14th.

Evernham said its not what he thought he would be celebrating. He was hoping for a couple of top-10 drivers at the beginning of the year. But the No. 9 team has had trouble keeping up with the changes and keeping Elliott up front. Meanwhile, it's taken this long for Mayfield's team to start clicking.

Elliott said last week that the team has come a long way and feels confident going into every race weekend, now. Though he understands luck plays a big part in the race weekend, he says the entire team believes it can win on any given weekend -- or at least contend for a top-five finish.

	Mayfield has five consecutive top-11 finishes.

"I think the whole (Evernham organization) is feeling a lot of confidence," Elliott said. "You never know what's going to happen, but we feel good every weekend."

"This whole race team has worked really hard all year, and basically the last couple of months, trying to get what we've wanted," Mayfield said.

And now that the team has what it wants, he'd hate it if the rumors were true and someone decided to break things up.

"I'd hate to say that a guy who has got a run of top-10s like this is on the hot seat, but if I am, so what?" he said. "I don't believe I am. Ray hasn't told me I am. I just read it in the papers. Somebody is talking about it, but I don't know who's saying it. Somebody's putting me in the hot seat, and if that's what happens -- if it's Dodge, or Ray, whoever -- then so be it. We finished second tonight. We've got a great team. Whoever wants to mess this team up, is pretty crazy if they want to do that."

Mayfield said the atmosphere around the team has been changing slowly the last couple of months. Back in July, the No. 19 squad appeared to hit a stride. Though they went on a top-10 drought, they're back turning heads again and Mayfield believes it's just a preview for what the team is can do in the future.

"That just shows that the potential for chemistry is there," he said. "We've come a long way together. That's why I say whatever we need to do in the future -- I'm not sure what's going to happen -- somebody must be crazy to mess this up. But if they do, the strong will survive. ... It's really worked out really good, and it's getting better."

"The team has worked really hard to build the best cars we can, and we have run well for the past month or so," team manager Kenny Francis said. "We've worked hard on our bodies, setups, engines, and Jeremy has done his part too."

Rupen Fofaria is a freelance writer living in Chicago and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at rfofaria@espnspecial.com.