Where is ... Greg Sacks?

Greg Sacks sounds excited.

Sacks, who hasn't qualified for a Cup race in two years, says he's close to finalizing a multi-year alliance with an existing multi-car operation that would put at least two cars on the track beginning next year. Chances are, Sacks adds, that he'll be the driver of one of those cars. He's got an option on 25 acres in the Charlotte area, and building permits for the shop complex are in place.

That's not all Sacks has on his plate. Plans call for his sons, Paul and Brian, to run an "ABC" schedule in 2008. Some ARCA and Busch Series will start warming them up, if all goes well, for a Cup race or two late in the season.

teamsacks.com

Greg Sacks

So, yeah. Greg Sacks is excited with everything he's got going on.

"We're very, very close to pulling the trigger on this endeavor," said Sacks, who adds that a formal announcement of his plans should be coming in no more than 30 to 60 days. "I don't want to disappoint our sponsors. We want to ensure that we've got the level of performance right from the start."

At age 54, Sacks hasn't given up on being a driver. Not yet. What Sacks is doing, though, is trying his best to make sure the deal he's putting together has the right kind of foundation.

"My focus is more on building the organization ... [but] yes, I want to drive," Sacks said. "Yes, I feel that I have the potential to go out and compete, and win races with the right operation. That's what we're looking to set up. That's why there's an alliance built with the current Cup operation. To start from scratch in this day and age, it's near impossible."

Early in Sacks' career, he was a hotshot Modified competitor, winning numerous races along the way. He first gave Cup a shot in 1983 with a team owned by his father, Arnie. Sacks would race the full 1984 schedule and the first three events of the following year with the operation, before hooking up with James Hylton and then a DiGard Racing research and development team headed by the noted -- if not infamous -- crew chief Gary Nelson.

It was with Nelson and the DiGard team that Sacks scored was has been called one of the greatest -- if not the greatest -- upset in NASCAR history, after winning the 1985 Firecracker 400 at Daytona. He beat Bill Elliott, who was in the midst of one of the most spectacular seasons ever put together by a racecar driver, to the finish line by more than 23 seconds.

Making the win appear all the more improbable was Sacks' supporting cast in the pits. He had won despite a crew consisting mostly of members culled from other teams that had fallen out of the event. Another crew member was a native of New Zealand, had been hired only two weeks before, was sleeping in the team's shop and had never been to a Cup race before Daytona. The jackman was the son-in-law of team owner Bill Gardner and a former Boston College running back who had never jacked a car under race conditions.

Each time Sacks pitted, he lost ground. Each time he lost ground in the pits, however, he made it right back up on the track.

How could it have been possible? There was talk, and still is to this day, that Nelson had tweaked the car well past the limits allowed in the rule book. Some said the Chevrolet had a big engine, others that there was something funny about its suspension ... or its fuel cell and/or lines. Asked about the rumors, Sacks doesn't bristle. He doesn't seem to take offense.

But he does explain his side of the story, in no uncertain terms. After a while, a reporter moves on to another subject. Before he answers, Sacks comes back to the matter of his Daytona win once again. (Continued)