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

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.

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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.

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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.