DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The future of NASCAR is in very good hands based on a quick glance at the roster for the Camping World Truck Series this season.

It’s been a long time since the sport has been awash with this many talented youngsters, especially for the Truck Series, which traditionally has been a veteran-heavy division since its inception in 1995. Sure, two-time champion Matt Crafton and perennial contender Johnny Sauter are still around, but the youth movement has fully taken hold.

The Sprint Cup is in a state of transition, with many of its most tenured stars having recently retired or otherwise expecting to leave by the end of the decade. This presents a massive opportunity for William Byron, Christopher Bell, Rico Abreu and Daniel Hemric — top prospects who are expected to compete for both the championship and a chance to keep moving up the ladder.

Nearly a decade removed from the economic downturn that crippled young drivers from finding the funding needed to compete in NASCAR, teams and manufacturers are once again starting to invest in the future of the sport.

Brad Keselowski Racing will employ two such drivers this year in Hemric and Tyler Reddick. Both teammates enjoyed successful short track careers — Hemric on asphalt and Reddick on dirt. Team owner Keselowski shares a similar blue-collar background, and Hemric said it’s been reflected in the drivers he’s hired for 2016.

“For me, this whole deal started when I won a Late Model race in Michigan in 2012 where Brad was the special guest,” Hemric said. “We talked a lot about the sport that night and the things we were passionate about. We hit it off and said we’d try to work together at some point.

“We just weren’t able to do it until this year and it took all of us really putting all the pieces together.”

Entire manufacturers are now starting to get behind drivers with Bell receiving a large amount of his backing from Toyota Racing Development. Cut from the same mold as Kyle Larson, a former TRD development driver, Bell has all the tools needed to advance to the highest level.

But what he lacked was funding until he joined Toyota while driving open-wheel midget cars for Keith Kunz Motorsports. Having lost Larson to Chevrolet in 2012, Toyota President and General Manager David Wilson resolved to strengthen its development program and never lose a driver of that caliber again.

“It was a wake-up call,” Wilson said. “Manufacturers have never been the best at developing drivers in NASCAR since we don’t run teams. We still don’t have a development program in the traditional sense, but losing Kyle was definitely a disappointment. So as a result, we’ve worked to become a lot more proactive in keeping drivers we believe in.”

His Kyle Busch Racing teammate, Byron, is the defending champion of the K&N Pro Series East and secured his own funding at Liberty University. Byron previously drove Late Models for both Hemric and Dale Earnhardt Jr. and believes there has never been a period where young drivers have received this many good opportunities at once.

And then there’s Abreu, who gained attention with his back-to-back Chili Bowl wins and signed with ThorSport Racing to drive a Toyota after competing in a Chevy for NTS Motorsports last year.

And somehow, they’ve all ended up in the Truck Series.

“It’s going to be a tough year,” Byron said. “It’s really hard for me to wrap my head around it as a driver because there are so many other good drivers. It’s going to be great for fans too because a lot of these guys are going to be around for a long time and you get to see them here first.”

The future has arrived.