By Dan Gelston

DOVER, Del. (AP) _ Scott Riggs could not have got off to a worse start with his new Evernham Motorsports team than by failing to qualify for the Daytona 500.

Now Riggs is steadily working on a season that won't be defined by that opening miss. He won the pole in the Coca Cola 600 and has earned one of the highest spots in the standings (25th) among drivers who haven't raced a full schedule.

``Everyone wondered how I could possibly keep my positive attitude and still feel good about my team,'' Riggs said. ``It's because I knew after being in teams the last couple of years that hadn't had the technology and people needed to be competitive, to go to Evernham Motorsports and see how much they had to offer there, I knew great things were going to come.''

After two lacklustre seasons with MB2 Motorsports in which Riggs never really lived up to the promise of his 2002 Busch Series rookie of the year award, he moved into the strongest ride of his career this season when he was hired by owner Ray Evernham.

That brought a better car, top equipment and the promise that he would have a chance to be competitive every race.

``This is the best opportunity I have to be competitive and win races,'' he said.

The jump also brought a whole lot of pressure for Riggs, 35, who knew he wasn't going to get as much leeway as some of the younger drivers in the garage.

``It's the pressure I wanted,'' he said. ``You want to have a great car and go get it done behind the wheel.

``I think that having good cars is less pressure on me thinking I have to overdrive the race car just to make up for it.''

With a new team and a relatively new crew _ chief Rodney Childers worked with him for most of last season _ results were sluggish early in the season. They failed to make Daytona because of a mechanical error in qualifying and a lack of owner points from the previous season.

Then Riggs finished 10th at Martinsville and his season started to improve. The next race he finished seventh at Texas and two races later he had another top-10 finish at Talladega. Those performances were a prelude to one heck of a streak at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

He started on the pole and won the 30-lap sprint Nextel Open, which earned him a spot in the all-star Challenge, where he finished 10th.

Riggs made it 2-for-2 when he won the pole again at Lowe's for the Coca Cola 600 the following week. Teammate Jeremy Mayfield started second to make it an all-Evernham Motorsports front row.

Riggs then led a majority of the event until a series of mistakes in the pits took him out of contention.

Riggs was the leader when he pitted, but didn't come to a clean stop, stalled his Dodge when he tried to pull away, and as his crew pushed him out, the jack and fuel can left his assigned area _ drawing a stop-and-go penalty that took him out of contention. He ended up 13th, after leading eight times for 90 laps.

``We keep making mistakes, and the mistakes we're making is because myself or someone on the team is trying too hard,'' Riggs said.

Riggs followed that up with a 20th-place finish at Dover International Speedway.

``Scott Riggs has shown he can drive a race car and win races,'' Evernham said. ``Mistakes in the pits have taken them out of a couple of races.''

Riggs has three top-10 finishes, and he's higher in the points standings than drivers such as Mayfield _ who may have paid the ultimate price when Evernham expanded to three teams.

``We're definitely confident in the way we've been running, but at the same time, we're disappointed in our finishes,'' Riggs said. ``Those results don't reflect that we've had some pretty good cars.''

Riggs believes his recent success can carry into Sunday's race at Pocono.

``I don't think I'll ever go back to a team that doesn't have the engineering power that this team has, and feel confident and secure about going to the next race,'' he said. ``We need to keep this momentum going.''