Change is coming to the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, but is it the change that most want to see?

The most notable addition to the third-tier stock car tour is the Special Rules Engine -- an Ilmor Engineering spec motor that is optional for the 2018 campaign. Toyota teams initially were in opposition to the concept, but TRD president David Wilson said last week that the manufacturer would accept it in the Truck Series, recognizing its importance to driver development.

But in terms of cost control and entertainment, a majority of fans and participants simply want to see more short tracks.

The original NASCAR SuperTrucks Series was essentially a West Coast short track tour, with races at venues like Tucson Speedway in Arizona, Evergreen Speedway in Washington State and Phoenix Raceway, plus occasional trips out east to Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville and North Wilkesboro, North Carolina.

It was the alternative brand, providing the NASCAR spotlight to a different brand of motorsports, with the occasional Cup Series crossover. But over the past decade, the economics of the sport has dictated fewer stand-alone events for the Truck Series and Xfinity Series, with each tour becoming more like a carbon copy of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.

Two-time champion Matt Crafton has been around the series since the 2000 season. When he made his debut, there were stand-alone races at Nashville, Memphis, Mesa Marin in California, Evergreen and Indy Raceway Park -- all tracks less than a mile in length.

That doesn’t even include companion races at short tracks Martinsville and Richmond. Crafton wishes there was a better way to blend stand-alone and companion races.

"I think what we need to do is go to some different places and not just have us racing all the same racetracks," Crafton said during the NASCAR Media Tour. "It’s great to race with the Cup Series, but, at the same time, we need to go to different places. We need more road courses.

"If you look in the Cup Series, what races did they sell out? The road courses. Our biggest turnout of the year was a road course. We need another road course, I feel. Maybe another dirt track. Take us to some short tracks and not just all the mile-and-a-halves."

The stand-alone races for the Truck Series this coming season? That would be Gateway Motorsports Park, Eldora Speedway, Iowa Speedway and Mosport in Canada.

Fresh off his election to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, four-time series champion Ron Hornaday said the Trucks were so beloved because of the close competition it provided compared to the Cup Series. There were rivalries born from incidents and personalities like Mike Skinner, Jack Sprague, Todd Bodine and Dennis Setzer.

"They had the beating and banging," Hornaday said. "Nowadays with the mile-and-a-halfs, stuff like that, you depend on aero so much where you can't do the beating and banging.

"Go to Martinsville, watch that. You'll get the excitement back out of it, where you'll have the rivals you have because you got to move somebody out of the way, you can't keep following them around."

Owen Kearns was a communications manager for NASCAR during the Truck Series’ initial rise. And while the series remains arguably the most action-packed division, he admits it also has deviated from many of its original selling points.

"The series was designed to bring a national series to short tracks, which it did quite successfully -- in fact, in retrospect, too successfully," Kearns said. "It became obvious that costs would rise, both purses and to cover NASCAR’s officiating … The early years’ schedules hit some of the nation’s best paved tracks and many of them went out of business for a variety of reasons -- Saugus, Portland, Mesa Marin, Louisville, I70 and Flemington.

"Safety also played a role, especially after 2000 and 2001 when the SAFER barrier and allied costs eliminated most small venues. Mansfield was the only paved facility to come on in the post-2000 era and while it drew well, weather and promoter issues gave it a short shelf life. Sadly. Fair to say the same costs that earlier drove XFINITY into combo weekends with Cup produced the same results with the Trucks too."

Nowadays, Cup weekends produce enough revenue through the current television agreement to essentially subsidize the remainder of the event weekend, which is why it has become commonplace to see all three divisions at a single track on a given weekend.

The routine will start at Daytona, continue at Atlanta, Las Vegas, Texas, Dover, Kentucky, Phoenix and Homestead. Even if the Truck Series produces the best show of the three, do fans really want to see the same show three days in a row, oftentimes with the same drivers running and winning all three?

The Kentucky event is especially unique because it takes place on a Thursday night when the Cup Series races on Saturday. Couldn’t that Sunday be used for a showcase Truck Series race at a short track close to home like South Boston, Myrtle Beach or Motor Mile Speedway?

The challenge with such a proposal is that NASCAR would admittedly have a hard time finding five to 10 venues that could afford the costs of hosting such an event, especially for a series that doesn't derive a large amount of promoter revenue through the back gate.

These events would need title sponsors and a little help from NASCAR on a more affordable sanctioning fee. But Crafton deeply wishes that certain elements of the old Truck Series could be new again moving forward.

"I know NASCAR is in a tough box ... you have all the sanctioning fees and the tracks to be able to sell enough seats to be able to pay for those races and a lot of mile-and-a-halves do," Crafton said. "But I would definitely like to see us go back to quite a few of these tracks.

"IRP is by far one of my favorite short tracks I’ve ever raced on and Irwindale is still open. That is my favorite race track I’ve ever raced on. Just really, really cool short tracks."

Crafton cited the success of the race at Eldora and so many fans turning out over the past half-decade just because it felt novel.

"They don’t need to just keep going to the same track, and people just get burned out," he said. "If you eat the same box of cereal every day, you kind of get burned out on it. You throw a different box in there and everybody wants to try it."

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