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Gregory Sacks (born November 3, 1952) is an American former stock car racing driver. He has previously competed in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, the NASCAR Busch Series, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, and the ARCA Re/Max Series.
Sacks has spent most of his career as a research and development (R&D) driver for many NASCAR teams. He won the 1985 Firecracker 400 at Daytona International Speedway acting as an R&D driver for DiGard Motorsports.
In 1983, Sacks made his NASCAR Winston Cup Series debut in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona in the No. 5 car owned and sponsored by his father, Arnie. He only completed nineteen laps until experiencing engine failure, finishing 38th out of forty cars. Sacks competed in four more events that season, posting a best finish of seventeenth in the Champion Spark Plug 400 at Michigan International Speedway, the only race he finished that year.
Seven races later, Sacks was able to drive the No. 49 car owned by 1966 NASCAR Rookie of the Year James Hylton. Before the Firecracker 400, DiGard Motorsports asked Sacks to drive their R&D car. Sacks qualified ninth and defeated pole-sitter Bill Elliott to earn his only NASCAR Nextel Cup victory. The win was considered to be one of NASCAR's biggest upsets, as Sacks's car was only scheduled to run a set number of laps before going behind the wall to make changes, but his car kept competing for the win, therefore DiGard decided to let Sacks race as normal. After DiGard's regular driver Bobby Allison quit the team days after the race, the team let Sacks finish the season in their regular car. The next year, Sacks found himself running a limited schedule as DiGard slowly went bankrupt.
In 1987, Sacks signed on to drive the No. 50 Pontiac for the Dingman Brothers, where he struggled with qualifying for each race. Three-quarters of the way through 1988, Sacks left the team to drive for Buddy Baker's team, the No. 88 Oldsmobile. He came close to a victory at Bristol in 1989, where he led 119 laps only to lose the lead to Rusty Wallace with forty laps to go. Although he posted two top-ten finishes in the first ten races of the 1989 season, Sacks was replaced by rookie Jimmy Spencer. Sacks was unemployed for a brief period, then joined on with Tom Winkle's No. 48 Pontiac for most of the season, joining with Hendrick Motorsports for the Autoworks 500 at Phoenix International Raceway as part of the driving team gathering in-race footage for the "Days of Thunder" movie.
Sacks started off 1991 at the Daytona 500 driving his own No. 18 car, but crashed early in the race. He ran ten more races that year in the No. 47 Oldsmobile for Derick Close, posting two top-twenty finishes. He started 1992 with Larry Hedrick Motorsports, but suffered injuries in a lap five crash at the Champion Spark Plug 400, and only drove one race for the rest of the season. He moved on to Tri-Star Motorsports in 1993, and finished sixth at the DieHard 500. In 1994, Sacks set the track record at Atlanta when he won the pole. Nineteen-ninety four also marked the second time in his Cup career that he completed the full schedule, piloting the No. 77 Ford owned by D.K. Ulrich. Sacks raced part-time in the Cup and Busch series over the next two years, winning a Busch Series event in a one-race deal for Diamond Ridge Motorsports at Talladega Superspeedway in 1996. The next year, he started out driving the No. 20 Ford for championship owner Harry Ranier, but was soon released as sponsorship funding ended; following his release, he sued the team, claiming breach of contract. Later in the season, he filled in for rookie driver Robby Gordon, who had suffered burns in the Indianapolis 500. After Gordon was released later in the year, Sacks finished the season for the team.
Sacks made his return in 1999 in the Busch Series, but only qualified for one of the several races he attempted. Sacks tried his hand at Winston Cup again in 2000, attempting that year's Daytona 500 in the No. 96 Chevrolet. He did not make the field. After making sporadic races in modifieds, Sacks announced his return to the Winston Cup Series and Busch Series in the summer of 2002, driving the No. 05 Chevy. Sacks teamed with Loren Fossie to form "Team Franchisit/Sacks Racing". Originally set to debut at the Brickyard 400, the date was pushed to the fall race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Nothing was ever heard from the team since, and it is not clear if the team was originally planned as a marketing tool for Franchisit.
In 2004, Sacks formed Daytona Speed Inc., with Ed Raabe and James Wilsberg. Making its first attempt at Chicagoland Speedway, the team did not make a race until the Pennsylvania 500 the next month. In February 2005, Raabe departed to form his own race team (Chevrolet), leaving all of the (Dodge) Daytona Speed equipment in the care of Sacks. Sacks ran both Pocono races in 2005, and finished 43rd in both of them.
The team attempted a part-time schedule in 2006, but failed to make the field for any race. In early 2007, an arbitrator forced his sponsor Who's Your Daddy? to pay over a million dollars to Sacks after a contract violation.[1]
Sacks and his family, who own Grand Touring Vodka, sponsored JR Motorsports for the 2011 Nationwide Series season.
| † - Qualified for Robert Pressley |
| 1984 | Sacks & Sons | Chevrolet | 20 | 18 |
| 1985 | 13 | 6 | ||
| 1986 | DiGard Motorsports | Pontiac | 26 | 35 |
| 1987 | Dingman Brothers Racing | Pontiac | 42 | 20 |
| 1988 | 7 | 40 | ||
| 1989 | Buddy Baker | Oldsmobile | 37 | 23 |
| 1991 | Daytona Speed Inc. | Chevrolet | 25 | 42 |
| 1992 | Larry Hedrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 9 | 14 |
| 1994 | U.S. Motorsports Inc. | Ford | 31 | 6 |
| 1995 | Dick Brooks Racing | Pontiac | DNQ | |
| 1997 | Ranier-Lundy | Ford | 34 | 37 |
| 1998 | Yarborough-Burdette Motorsports | Ford | 24 | 39 |
| 2000 | Beau Petty | Chevrolet | DNQ | |
| 2005 | Sacks Motorsports | Dodge | DNQ | |
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