Auton happy with Truck trip to Pocono, qual setup (cont'd)

Q: Is there any interest, particularly in the current economic climate but given the growth of the series away from the smaller race tracks, to look at a short-track race as even a short-term replacement?

Auton: We grew up on the short tracks, which was all we ran [initially] -- 1-mile tracks and under -- before we ever went to a speedway. I remember going to Texas the first time and there was a sign up that said, 'Are the trucks racing into disaster?' And we had one of the greatest races Texas had ever seen.

Truck Series

• 2010 Schedule / Results
• Driver Statistics / Box

So from that aspect it doesn't matter where we go, as long as we get to go. We want to race. The competitors in this garage are as fierce as they are in the Nationwide or Sprint Cup series. We're proud to be the No. 3 national series in all of motorsports -- we believe we're the No. 3 motorsports series in the whole world and we've got the competitors in our garage that believe that.

We respect other motorsports but we feel like we're as good as there is out there and we put on some of the best racing that there is. We've got fantastic drivers and fantastic fans. The owners understand the economics and to lose a facility is bad. But do we need to go back to a short track? It doesn't matter to me. I grew up on the short tracks, at Hickory Motor Speedway.

Q: Talk about the competitive diversity you have with veterans like Todd Bodine, the championship leader, and Ron Hornaday and Matt Crafton, mixed in with newcomers who are competitive such as Aric Almirola, Johnny Sauter, Timothy Peters and Austin Dillon.

Auton: I think it goes back to when we started the series in 1995, when we had motorcycle racers come in and off-road racers -- which was how the series got started, when four off-road owners came to Mr. France and asked him to start a truck racing series.

So now you start with Ron Hornaday, a four-time champion, Todd Bodine's a former champion and Mike Skinner was our first champion, and then you mix in young guys like Austin Dillon and Justin Lofton and someone like Matt Crafton, who's not a veteran and not a rookie -- somewhere in the middle -- and Johnny Sauter; the whole Sauter family can race and Johnny's done a phenomenal job in the Truck Series.

Aric Almirola's been great even though the last couple weeks have been off a little. When you look at Richard Childress coming back into the sport as an owner [for his grandson, Dillon], owners like Tom DeLoach [of Red Horse Racing] and Steve Turner [Motorsports] -- and what about Ricky Carmichael? Last year he got his feet wet and this year he's competitive and I look for him to possibly win a race if everything falls right.

Mario Gosselin come from another series [ARCA] and he's got a small-budget team and he's running up front. It's amazing to see all these teams -- and people think they have money and they don't. What can you say about Jason White and the season they're having with the GunBroker team? They might be the least-funded [full-time] team we've got in the garage area and they're running in the top 15 in the points and almost won Daytona.

The difference between winning and almost winning is the experience -- and you've got great crew chiefs in the garage area, like [Billy Ballew Motorsports'] Richie Wauters. What he's done with Aric Almirola this year is just unbelievable. Then you've got Mike Hillman Jr. [at Germain Racing] and Rick Ren is still with Kyle Busch Motorsports -- and when Kyle comes he's a threat to win every week; and he's giving a young kid, Brian Ickler, a shot in good equipment.

So you've got the mix of wily veterans and rookies and that group that's somewhere in the middle that are all having great years, and the competition has been second to none this season. Ron Hornaday took what, 12 races to win his first race this year and we've never seen that before. That's a testament to how competitive this garage is right now.

Q: During the past several years the manufacturers have decreased their support in the Truck Series, so how has that affected things from your perspective?

Auton: It's affected the economics of the garage area, but I'll tell you what, we have done a lot of work with our teams but one thing -- and Bill France taught me this and as long as I'm sitting in this chair I'll do it. It's not NASCAR against the teams or the teams against NASCAR -- we have to work hand in hand.

Kevin Harvick invited us over to his place and invited all the owners to come and we had a roundtable discussion, so to speak, with about 30 owners, and we threw some stuff out on the table. And we left there and said, 'You might not like everything we're going to try, but I think some of the stuff you are going to like.'

Last year we went to double-pitting, where you couldn't add fuel and change tires on the same stop, and you could only have five guys over the wall at a time. We've done a lot. We instituted a roster rule where teams could only bring 12 guys to the track and that saved teams a lot of money. And we came up with the new fueling system ... and it's safer because you don't have the [catch-can] person standing at the back of the truck -- which is the most vulnerable person.

And the one I'm most proud of is that you have to run a sealed engine -- one that's been used before -- at least every third race. That cut the cost of an engine bill from two years ago from about $1.2 million down to almost $500,000 this year, and that is a huge savings.

So a lot of changes have been made behind the scenes and a lot of people notice but a lot of people haven't noticed -- but it's actually saved this garage area. The owners were all for it and the crew chiefs keep coming to us telling us they've figured out how they can save another $100,000 out of here.

You can run a truck team now for about $2 million. We have a lot of teams that are running for a whole lot less than that and they're very, very competitive. You always talk about your family team that's racing from out behind the house -- and we have some teams like that.

Timothy Peters started out like that and now he's with Red Horse Racing and they won Daytona with a new team. Who would've thought they'd do that, but they did.

Q: What's your thought on going back to Darlington Raceway for the first time since 2004?

Auton: Awesome -- I can't wait [until Aug. 14]. And I'm telling you, the entire garage area is as excited as I am. You know, Hornaday has never raced there in a truck because he was doing Cup and Nationwide when we raced there -- and I don't think Skinner has, either.

For us to go back there -- as soon as I got the phone call that we were going back there, it was like the best steak you ever had in your life -- you can't wait to dig into it. With the great races we've had there in the past, I can't wait to get back there.

• Tickets: Too Tough to Tame 200

Q: What can you say about the Truck Series' purse structure, as you've tried to make money-saving changes but a lot of people don't understand purses?

Auton: You've got to be conscious of what it costs the owners to get to and from the race track, but you've also got to be conscious of what it costs the tracks to put on a race. At the first of the year -- and again, with Steve O'Donnell doing such a good job with our schedule -- we knew we needed to do something to help the race tracks out, also.

In the end, it was about a 10 percent cut on purses for each company, across the board -- for International Speedway Corp. and Speedway Motorsports and Dover Motorsports -- whoever's running our races. It wasn't individual races, but rather the total in purses.

We had to be very mindful that it's business for the race tracks, also. There were a lot of questions about it, but our garage area is OK. Our 25-race schedule works with the budgets the guys with the teams have and don't forget, last year we struggled to have trucks. We had a lot of non-full-field races and this year we're averaging 37 or 38 trucks a race.

I think that says a lot to our lock in rule that we cut to 25 trucks from 30. That opened up 11 spots and we've gained a lot of teams, just because of that. We're fortunate in our career that there are race tracks out there, in cities that really want the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series to come in and play in their playground, so to speak.

We're a guest at their house and we feel very confident and very respectful of the places that we go to and we're pleased we get to have a 25-race schedule, where there are a lot of other organizations that don't have that luxury.