Truck Series shedding image as hidden gem

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- In its 13 seasons, the Craftsman Truck Series has created a comfortable niche on the motorsports landscape.

The series that proudly displays what many call the best racing in NASCAR plays to smaller crowds -- both live and on television -- than the Busch Series, billed as America's number two racing series and NASCAR's premier division, the Nextel Cup Series.

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Depending on whom you poll, you'll certainly get an opinion on whether or not it's "NASCAR's hidden gem." And while some agree it is and some don't, everyone's ready to discuss it.

Truck Series director Wayne Auton has a deep family legacy in NASCAR racing and is the Truck Series' only director. He agrees the series performs somewhat under wraps.

"I believe it is a hidden gem, because if you go and watch the races, the drivers just get after it," Auton said. "The races are short enough to where the drivers can't sit back and wait, yet they're long enough for strategy to come into play.

"We only have a few races that are 250 miles in length, so if you sit back at the green flag and wait for 200 miles to pass before you go, you're going to be way back at the back. The big difference is, I think, that the competitors just want to win -- that's what it's all about.

"We have a good mix of drivers, with veterans, some young drivers and some middle-aged drivers that are trying to maybe get back over to our major leagues, which is our Nextel Cup Series.

"But all in all it's a good mix because the veterans know they can't sit around and wait on the rookies, because the rookies are going to beat on them to get to the front. And then the veterans go, 'If they're going to dish it out, we're going to give it right back to them.' "

Team owner Jack Roush has maintained a commitment to the Truck Series that goes back virtually to the series' beginning. A couple of his best developments, 2004 Cup champion Kurt Busch and former Truck and Busch series champion Greg Biffle, got their starts for Roush in trucks.

Two of his current Cup standouts, 2007 Busch champion Carl Edwards and Jamie McMurray, also started in trucks, though not with Roush, who ran two teams this entire season and is in prime position to assess the series' value.

"It certainly lacks something, and maybe that's just gestation time," Roush said. "It's great racing, it's a great format that saves a little money from the expense that goes with running a Busch program or a Cup program; with fewer tires and shorter races."

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For 2008, NASCAR is looking at further cutting costs by putting rules in place that will increase engine life. Ron Hornaday, who this season became the series second three-time champion, instantly and vigorously reacted to that news as a direct threat to his Kevin Harvick Inc. team's competitiveness.

"If the Truck Series is that good, why are they going to ruin it?" Hornaday said. "They're going to slow us down with gear rules and [carburetor spacers] to take 75 or 100 horsepower out of them, where at most of these tracks we run wide-open now.

"We'll try it -- we'll see if we can still maintain that standard we've had over the years for competition. Here we are in 2007 and it's gotten better every year, so I'm not the one to judge NASCAR, because everything they've done is class act, always works and always puts on good shows."

While Roush supports the series, he doesn't want to see the schedule expand much beyond 25 races, if at all.

"I believe with the schedule, if they included more races, but if we did that, we'd have to make more money for the teams, to be able to pay for all that. The money is behind and the participation, the viewership and spectatorship is not what it should be, but hopefully that will all get itself fixed over a period of time.

"The Busch Grand National Series wasn't 10 years ago what it is today, and the Truck Series has gained in stature and relevance and importance and I think , in appeal every year that it's been there -- it's just fairly new."

"We're real happy with the Truck Series," NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France said. "It's one of our three national divisions that we're real, real proud of. A lot of people think it is some of the best competition that we have. They obviously had a very tight point battle that came down to the last event [at Homestead]."

The series, which was born through a series of demonstration events in 1994 before it staged its first season in '95, has always traded off its "tough trucks" persona. Its format, with shorter races and fewer pit stops, creates an atmosphere in which competitors are more apt to get after it than play a strategic game of chess.

Kevin Harvick built this season's Truck Series championship team, Kevin Harvick Inc., with his wife DeLana because his career lacked a Truck Series victory, and he felt he'd never had the equipment with which to do it right.

Obviously, with KHI's first title coming in the trucks, the team's namesake has strong feelings about it.

"I think truck racing is very entertaining," Harvick said. "It has a lot of drivers, crew chiefs and crew members that are just flat-out burned-out on Cup racing. They don't want to go Busch racing, but they still want to race.

"So in a sense it's just a lot of racers that want to race. You can get away from some of the politics and things you have on the Cup side. To me, it's the best racing that we have in our sport right now -- for whatever reason, I don't know.

"But shorter races are the ticket. I think we should have the Daytona 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 and those should be our longest [Cup] races of the year -- the rest of them should be 500K. Six hours is a long time to sit there, by the time you get done watching the pre-race and the race and the post-race: That's a long time to expect someone to sit there."

His wife agrees when it comes to Truck Series philosophy.

"If you look at the schedule and you look at length of the races -- they're just right," DeLana Harvick said. "Sometimes you sit through these Cup races and they drag on and they drag on. Truck races are just long enough that these guys can't go out there and ride around -- they're racing, and every position counts, because these races are so much shorter.

"They can't ride around for 200 laps, they've got maybe one to two shots at adjusting their truck and getting it right and I think that makes it pretty interesting. I just think the talent level is there and SPEED does a really good job promoting the series." (Continued)