As the Winston Cup Series heads from the sandy shores of Daytona Beach to the sand hills of North Carolina this week, it's back to reality.

"The real season starts now and we're ready to get on with the program," said Rusty Wallace, who finished 25th in Sunday's Daytona 500. "They paid 175 points to win last Sunday at Daytona. They'll pay 175 to win this week at Rockingham and another 175 to win at (Las) Vegas the following week. So when you look at the big picture, the next two weeks are far more important than all the months before and the two weeks we just spent down at the beach (Daytona). There were 175 points up for grabs in those two weeks; there'll be twice that many on the line the next two weeks."

For Wallace, and others who recorded a disappointing Daytona 500 finish, that may be a good way to look at it. After all, three of the last four Winston Cup champions have finished 30th or worse in the Daytona 500 and have recovered to claim the title. Dale Jarrett won the 1999 championship after finishing 37th, 2001 champ Jeff Gordon finished 30th and Tony Stewart's 2002 championship campaign included a last-place finish in the season opener.

Wallace leads all active drivers with five Rockingham victories, but he hasn't won there since 1994. Over the past decade Jeff Gordon has been the most successful driver at The Rock, posting four victories.

In the 20 Rockingham races held in the last ten years, Wallace and Gordon are the only active drivers who have notched multiple wins. In fact, there have been nine different winners in the last nine races at the North Carolina Speedway.

This list includes Johnny Benson, who picked up his first career win in the Pop Secret 400 this past November. Benson will again be considered a contender this week and is confident that the new Pontiac Grand Prix body style will not disrupt their winning formula.

"(The new Pontiac) seems to be a little bit better than what we had last year. And it's running about the same speed," said Benson. "So that, to us, is a positive -- knowing that the new Pontiac has a lot of potential in it yet. We've got to do a lot of work to get the potential out of it to get it as fast as we can as quick as we can. We feel good about it."

	Matt Kenseth won at Rockingham, N.C., a year ago.

The Chevrolet Monte Carlo was also redesigned for 2003, and now after an unblemished debut in Daytona, the Bowtie Brigade faces a different challenge. There are no similarities between Daytona and the North Carolina Speedway. Racing at The Rock requires a different car and mentality, as the focus shifts from aerodynamics to hard-nosed racing.

"What you do (at Rockingham) is solely based on what you and your team can do with your race car, not what drafting line you're in or how the car behind you is going to affect your next move," explained Stewart. "That's a track where you don't really worry about what everybody else's car is doing, you worry about what your car is doing. You're racing the racetrack. You're not racing everybody else."

Being competitive at the high banked, one-mile speedway requires a superior handling and balanced race car. There are multiple racing grooves; however, as this weekend's 400-mile event wears on, the primary line will gradually ascend from the middle of the corner to the top of the banking.

Adding to the challenge is the notoriously abrasive surface. The North Carolina Speedway was re-paved in 1994 but the region's excessive amount of sand is invariably wind blown onto the asphalt, accelerating its deterioration. Consequently the gritty racetrack is brutal on tires, which ultimately impacts the complexion of the race.

"The worst car in the race can easily pass the best car in the race in one corner if the best car has old tires on," John Andretti said. "On old tires at Rockingham you are driving just as hard, and you are just as much out of control as you've ever been. You are just even more out of control than what you are flying around with new tires. The new tires give the car grip, and the car turns and it doesn't break loose. On old tires, it's like driving on a hard, slick, dirt track. You have to be a little bit gentler getting on the throttle to keep the tires underneath you."

And that certainly makes things interesting. Let the real racing begin.

Mike Massaro covers NASCAR for ESPN and ESPN.com.