Journeyman Appreciation: Greg Sacks
Today’s driver appreciation is the first one I’ve done for primarily a Cup driver, but I thought that Greg Sacks was worthy. Coming out of the northeast modified scene that at that time was a rare stepping stone to the bigger series except for the likes of Geoff Bodine or the Bouchard Brothers, Greg won just about every big event you could win in a modified at that time before moving up into Cup for his family-owned team.
After running 5 races in ‘83, he embarked on his first full-time season for the family team in 1984 where the basically unsponsored team suffered a number of mechanical issues but also had a number of top 20 runs when they got to the finish and top 10 finish at Bristol on their way to a pretty solid 19th place finish in points. Despite starting the year with a career best 6th in the Daytona 500 and a 13th and 10th in the following races, the family owned team shut down just 3 into season and Sacks was left to hop around which led to his most famous and infamous race, when DiGard entered a second research & development car at the July Daytona race with one of the most notorious cheaters (and later man in charge of catching cheaters) Gary Nelson as his crew chief, where he was bad fast leading over 30 laps to win his one and only Cup race. Famously, this was the race that made Bobby Allison quit DiGard Racing which was the ultimate downfall of a once dominant team, but not before Greg replaced Bobby in the car and collected a couple more top 10s.
The next 4 seasons would see Greg running only part-time schedules for a variety of different teams including DiGard, the Dingman Brothers, Buddy Baker and Tom Winkle, collecting 6 top 10s along the way. It was in 1990 though that Greg got his best opportunity, hooking up with Hendrick Motorsports initially as one of the drivers for Days of Thunder, entering both Busch and Cup races in cars from the movie. This led to the opportunity to race for the short-lived third Hendrick team co-owned by Paul Newman with Slim Fast sponsorship, earning a pole and nearly winning at Talladega and earning the opportunity to fill in for an injured DW later in the season where he had yet another 2nd place finish, finishing the season with the most top 10 finishes (4) he’d had since that ‘85 year. However, the Slim Fast deal fell apart and soon did the Hendrick-Newman effort, leaving Greg with just a part-time effort in ‘91 before scoring his first full time ride in nearly a decade in 1992 for Larry Hedrick’s start-up effort though that was derailed by an injury, hooking on with Mark Smith part way through ‘93 and driving what would prove to be his last full-time season in 1994 for longtime independent DK Ulrich, finishing 31st in points but scoring 3 top 10s which would also prove the last of his Cup career.
That wasn’t the end of his career though. In 1995 alone he ran races for 4 different car owners, from ‘96 through ‘98 he was the go-to phone call for many teams who needed an injury or performance replacement for a few races or a research & development driver, and in ‘96 also continued to show what a great superspeedway racer he was by earning his lone Busch win for Diamond Ridge at Talladega. After going fairly quiet in the late 90s/early 00s Sacks returned around 03-04 in his early 50s to run a handful of lowbudget efforts in Cup down through ARCA, having a couple good ARCA runs and qualifying as a field filler for some Cup races. Finally, at the track which made his career, he effectively ended it in style getting a one off in good equipment in Xfinity at the age of 57 for JR Motorsports where he qualified 5th and finished 21st on the lead lap.
Greg only twice ran a full season in any NASCAR season, despite being a winner he ended his career with only 3 finishes inside the top 5. However, when sometimes very good owners like Rick Hendrick and Felix Sabates let alone any number of smaller teams wanted a dependable driver who could give good feedback and bring the car home in one piece with pretty solid speed, Greg was often at the top of many rolodexes. He really strikes a prototypical figure as a journeyman, and for this I salute him.
