LONG POND, Pa. -- In its 16-year history, the Truck Series has witnessed a lot of diversity -- in its drivers, venues and schedule; and this weekend is the latest twist as the series makes its first visit to Pocono Raceway.

Series director Wayne Auton, who was in the same position in the series' inaugural 1995 season, sat down to talk about Saturday's Pocono Mountains 125 and its unique qualifying format, but also the state of the series.

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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.

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-- WAYNE AUTON

Q: From your director's chair, what does it mean to come to Pocono Raceway, a speedway with a deep NASCAR legacy in a traditional short-track racing area?

Auton: Any time we can go to a new venue is pretty neat. The first time out of the box we're throwing a lot of new stuff at the fans. We ran at Nazareth [Speedway], Pa., right down the road from here and it was always great to come and see the fans there and we always had a great race there.

Any time you can go to a new venue, but especially one of this magnitude like the Mattioli family, who has been so instrumental in the growth of NASCAR, has here at Pocono, it's a good thing. It's a unique facility. I keep saying it has six corners, even though there are only three, but it's got long straightaways and there's going to be a lot of drafting.

It's going to be a quick race -- only 125 miles -- but that's pretty cool, too, because the drivers are gonna have to stay on the throttle the whole time to be able to get up front as quick as they can. I'm excited to bring the series back to a new facility in the Northeast and I'm excited about the qualifying procedure we're going to use [Saturday].

This is a whole new deal, but the fans seem to be opening up to the Truck Series coming here. I said this a long time ago, the first time we went to Daytona, the trucks were more aerodynamic [going] backwards than they were forward; but we're at this 2.5-mile facility with long straightaways and sweeping corners and the Tunnel Turn is gonna be neat.

Q: You're trying a new qualifying format here, in which multiple trucks will be on the track at the same time -- which has never been done on an oval -- so what's your take on that?

Auton: Pocono gives us the availability of trying something new. It's not a road course and it's not an oval -- it's got its own unique shape. I wasn't against it, but it was gonna be something new -- but now I'm excited about it because I believe if we hadn't done that when the last truck rolled in qualifying we'd have been rolling out to take the green flag [in the race].

To run a regular single-truck qualifying would take a little over two hours and we start qualifying at 10 a.m. We threw different scenarios out there, like running two laps and averaging them, or sending a group out and saying, Have at it.' But we settled on just continuing to release trucks in intervals and we think it'll take about 45 minutes.

It's an exciting time and something new -- nobody's ever tried it on an oval before. The garage is really excited about it. We met [Friday] morning at 7 -- which isn't even on these guys' watches -- and they were all there. It's on my shoulders to not allow anybody to get an advantage on when we let them out. As a team of officials we'll be able to pull this off and it'll be awesome.

• Multi-truck qualifying planned for Pocono race

Q: When you come to a new facility like this, what's your perspective on the series' growth?

Auton: Sitting in this seat since 1995 and knowing what Bill France wanted us to accomplish with this series, and knowing we went to some facilities that might not have been the nicest ...

We went to Evergreen [Speedway in Monroe, Wash.], where the trucks were kept in the horse barns [at the fairgrounds]; working at Louisville [Ky.] Speedway, with its unique pit road where part of the field had their fuel fillers on the left side and the others had it on the right side.

So knowing we've grown this series so much over the years, and knowing where we've come from, and what our roots are -- we still run at some of the original facilities, like Martinsville and O'Reilly and Phoenix, that have been on the schedule since Day 1 -- and seeing the caliber of drivers we have, makes you excited to still be a part of this series.

We knew, when we organized this series in 1994 it was going to be a feeder series, and when you look at Greg Biffle and Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick it's amazing the number of drivers who have come through this series -- and mechanics, who came through the Truck Series and are now Cup crew chiefs. Chad Knaus comes to mind, a four-time champion crew chief that actually got his start in the Truck Series.

We're like the AA level of racing, with Sprint Cup being the Major League and the Nationwide Series being like AAA baseball, if you will. And I've always been excited to sit in my chair and get to be a part of that development.

Q: Gateway International Raceway recently announced they wouldn't hold a Truck Series event in 2011, so from your perspective do you see another 25-race schedule and where do you see the series going?

Auton: Steve O'Donnell [NASCAR competition administrator] down in Daytona Beach [Fla.] does a great job with our schedule and he tells me we're going to have 25 races. It's unfortunate there are race tracks that go away, but it's also great to know there's an opportunity to go to a new venue -- like we're here in Pocono this year because we lost a couple tracks from 2009.

From that aspect it's an exciting time, but Gateway International was a great fit for us and they had great fans there -- it just didn't fit the economics in the area right now. You never know, we might go back there some time -- I'm not saying we will -- but it's also awesome and exciting to wonder where that next new venue is going to come from.

• Gateway won't host races during 2011 season (Continued)