Greg Sacks - Success in The 1980s

Success in The 1980s

In 1984, Sacks made a full attempt at the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, once again in a car owned by his father, only now it ran as #51. Sacks made 29 out of the 30 races, finished 19th in points and runner-up to Rusty Wallace for the NASCAR Rookie of the Year award. 1985 got off to a rough start for Sacks. After the first four races, his father's team folded.

Seven races later, Sacks was able to hook on to the #49 Cleaner Hands Formula 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 what so far has been his only NASCAR Winston Cup Series victory. The win was considered to be one of NASCAR's biggest upsets, as Sacks' car was only scheduled to run a certain set 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, he signed to drive the #50 Valvoline Oil 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 #88 Red Baron Frozen Pizza Oldsmobile. Despite posting 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 #75 Dinner Bell Foods Pontiac for most of the season, joining with Rick Hendrick at Phoenix.