Don't be surprised if Johnny Benson approaches Sunday's Subway 400 at North Carolina Speedway at Rockingham -- simply known as The Rock -- much the way he operates a VCR.

If everything goes right, the driver of the No. 10 Pontiac will be able to hit rewind and emerge from Sunday's event the same way he last left the track in November, when he earned his first Winston Cup victory after a 225-race winless drought.

	Johnny Benson picked up his first win last November in Rockingham, N.C.

Ironically, Benson, who finished 19th in Sunday's season-opening Daytona 500, has never watched the entire tape of his first win -- but he's seen enough to know what he has to do to return to Victory Lane on Sunday.

"I have seen a couple of clips of it, at least the last 10 laps of it," Benson said. "As far as the race goes, the most important (lap) was the last one. I watched a little bit of it at the end. You always watch certain things to see what you could do differently.

"It was one of those days that everything went right for us. There wasn't a lot to look at to learn from. But it was definitely a great race for us. A lot of people have commended us for winning that race and a lot of that has to do with the team. They gave us a good race car for that day. (Crew chief) James Ince did a tremendous job on the calls he made for the race."

Rockingham has been very good of late to Benson, who has two other top-10s there since 2001. Ironically, he started fifth and finished 26th in last year's Subway 400, yet came back and started 26th and won the Pop Secret Popcorn 400.

"Rockingham has always been a track where we've ran pretty decent at," Benson said. "Sometimes we haven't had good finishes, but by the same token we've always ran good there. We're comfortable with the race track. It's the type of race track that I like to race on. I was finally glad we were able to win. We've been close in the Busch Series and had had a bunch of top fives in Winston Cup too. Now we'll go down there and see how the spring works for us. I feel good going into it."

So, will the Grand Rapids, Mich., native emerge with his second career win Sunday? The way he sees it, getting the first victory was the hardest, which hopefully will pave the way to an easier second triumph.

"I'd won in everything that I've raced, except for the Winston Cup Series until last year," Benson said. "I just felt we could get it done. If you keep knocking on that door, you're going to win one. There were so many years we were so close. But I never thought we were never going to win one. I still feel like we have more wins in us. We just have to do it maybe in a little quicker manner than we did in the past."

Despite winning Rookie of the Year honors in the Busch Series in 1994 and in Winston Cup in 1996, Benson drove his heart out each time he started a Cup race, yet never wound up the winner. It wasn't for lack of talent, rather, it was almost as if Benson had a black cloud following him. That is, until November.

"Well, there's every (race) that you finish second, third, fourth, or fifth in that you could go back and wish you would have done this or that, or what could we have done that could have made us better in that area," he said. "I think running the Brickyard back in '96 in my rookie year was something. We had a pretty good control of the race. We ran good and led a lot of laps. We were in position to win that race that kind of got away from us on a pit stop.

"I can think of (a race at) Darlington where the same thing happened. We were running extremely well and leading the race when we had an issue where the pit stop could have -- it's really hard to say what would have happened -- that cost us some positions. Martinsville is another one where we ran extremely strong. We were right there but weren't able to quite get in the lead there at the end. You could sit there and probably do that for every race that you finished in the top five and wish you would have done this or that."

While Daytona was the season-opening race, crew chief James Ince has a different perspective on things. Racing at Daytona is special, but Rockingham is the real start of the season in Ince's mind.

"Our season definitely begins at Daytona and they hand out the same amount of points there as they do at Rockingham, but it's totally different," Ince said. "At Daytona, you're so dependent on what the other teams have done. You're so dependent on getting the right draft and being in the right pack.

"When you go to Rockingham, you're basically seeing what your race team is. At Daytona, the cars are so close now that you can be off a little bit, but the templates can kind of keep you in line. But when you go to Rockingham, it all falls back on the team. We're going to know this week pretty much where we stand for the rest of the season."

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com.