DAYTONA BEACH, Fla — Johnny Benson opted out of Bill Davis Racing weeks before capturing the NASCAR Truck Series championship last fall, unsure if he wanted to keep going.

Benson should’ve known better.

Three months after edging Ron Hornaday by seven points for the title, the 45-year-old veteran is back at Daytona International Speedway for tonight’s 250-mile season-opener in a different truck — Red Horse Racing’s No. 1 Toyota — but the same expectation: to win.

“There’s going to be a lot of different challenges ahead of us,” Benson said. “If we’re able to overcome those challenges quickly, I think we have a shot at defending the title. If we don’t, then it will be a little long.”

Maybe, but following NASCAR’s tough winter, Benson has as good a chance as anyone. Crew chief Trip Bruce and several team members made the jump along with him and a little carry-over could go a long way toward pushing Benson to a second straight championship.

Yet for all the progress made in the series over the last 14 years to improve performance and competitiveness, the fiercest battles may be going on in the board room as teams make their pitch to find sponsors.

“You have five or six people going after the same sponsor, or probably 100 would be a better number,” Benson said. “It’s difficult in probably this time now. Like Todd (Bodine), he’s probably talking to people the same as us and hopefully three, four, five months down the road we’ll be able to land one of those bigger ones, but it’s tough out there right at the moment.”

Bodine thought he had solid financial backing heading into 2009 before a major sponsor backed out in December. He found someone to back his No. 30 Germain Racing Toyota this weekend as he tries to win the spring Daytona race for the second straight year, but knows he’ll need help to ease some of the financial burden.

Benson and Bodine are hardly alone. While there will be a full 36-truck field for today’s race, there figures to be plenty of space available when the series moves to California next weekend.

“NASCAR’s helping everybody out and Camping World should be attractive, but we understand that people probably have the money and they’re just a little afraid to let loose of it right now,” Benson said.

Bodine snapped a 34-race losing streak at Daytona last spring, kickstarting a solid season that saw him finish third behind Benson and Hornaday. The cloud of never being able to win at his sport’s most famous track now gone, he’s eager to move forward no matter how long it lasts.

“You got a Daytona win, you’re something different,” Bodine said. “You got that name in the book. To be able to finally get that last year, it meant a lot. It meant a lot to me. I think it was 34 tries to finally get it in there, and we did it. Friday night is going to be another opportunity to do something special.”

And as tough as it has been, for veterans like former champion Mike Skinner, the truck series is in much better health than it was when it started in 1995.

“When we started no one knew who we were and this probably helped our careers, to do something that we had wanted our whole life to do,” Skinner said. “There wasn’t 15 of us out there in ’95. It’s harder to win now than it’s ever been.”