With a year of Cup experience behind him, David Ragan is ready to take his career to ... The NEXT LEVEL

David Ragan, the sophomore driver for Roush Fenway Racing's No. 6 Ford, entered NASCAR's elite division last year with as little experience as any driver who ever advanced to the Sprint Cup level. So it wasn't much of a surprise that he made his share of rookie mistakes and wrecked a lot of cars.

GREG LAUDICK / Cox News Service Currently 17th in the Cup standings, Roush Fenway driver David Ragan is showing more confidence and poise in his sophomore season. "Still, we have to go and show people," says the 22-year-old driver. But the 22-year-old graduate of the Legends racing ranks showed great promise, so he got another chance in the same car that veteran Mark Martin drove to 35 victories during his years at Roush.

Ragan and his crew chief, the veteran Jimmy Fennig, have set lofty goals for this season.

"He's not a rookie anymore, so I think we'll have a good year," Fennig said. "My expectations are pretty high. I plan to try to make a run to make the Chase."

Ragan, who also is running a full schedule in the Nationwide Series, seems far more at ease in his job than he was a year ago. And it shows.

He's 17th in Cup points and fourth in the Nationwide Series heading into this week's race at Phoenix. At this point last year, he was 24th in Cup and 16th in Nationwide.

"We're not right where I want to be, but we're better than where we were the same time a year ago," he said. "With the Cup car, with the exception of Daytona, we've run a lot better. On the Nationwide side, the cars have run extremely well every week.

"I'm getting in the habit of running in the top 10, and that's where you want to be every week. I feel a lot more comfortable."

Some of that comfort comes from knowing what to expect each week.

"There's a big difference in your rookie year and your second year," he said. "My understanding so far is that everything comes more naturally.

"You know how the flow works and what comes next.

"One of the big things last year was just not knowing what comes next. I was never really prepared for the next move I had to make, whether it was in practice or coming down pit road or how the tires fall off late in a race at different tracks.

"I can somewhat sit back at night and kind of get a game plan together and think about things."

But he also knows that the expectations are higher.

"Still, we have to go out and show people," he said.

He said that, even considering his inexperience last year, he could have won a race or two had the circumstances been a little different. His best run came in the fall at Richmond, where he had the fastest car late in the race and was closing on the leaders, but ran out of laps and finished third.

"That night at Richmond, our car was great, but I can name six more races where we had a car that could have won, where I tore the fenders off of it or got caught speeding on pit road or made some other mistake," he said.

"In the second California race, we ran in the top 10 all night, and I got caught speeding in the pits under green two times back-to-back. I had to come down pit road three times under green and still finished 11th.We had an unbelievable car there."

Ragan said it won't take as big an improvement as it might seem to climb high enough in the standings to make the cut for the seasonending Chase.

Last year, his average finish in the first 26 races was 23.4. Kevin Harvick made the Chase with an average of 15.5 and Clint Bowyer got in with a 14.8.

"If we can average just a few spots better, we've got a shot at making the Chase, and that's what we'd like to do."