JD Stacy

This flashback is a profile of one of the most controversial car owners in the modern area. Jim Stacy had it all, one sometimes two teams running at times. But, with his egotistical attitude towards drivers, business partners made him into the laughing stock of the Winston Cup series. In 7 years time, he was shunned from the sport, and no one really cares where he is today........

The story starts in 1977 with Neil Bonnett and Tom Sneva as his drivers. Neil made 12 starts for Stacy, and Tom Sneva making one. Two drivers made starts for JD Stacy in 1978 and those were Bonnett and Farrel Harris. Stacy's cars only started 3 races in 1979 and 1980. But, in 1981 is where this story really starts, Stacy bought the Rod Osterlund team in June of 1981 and as the result of this, Dale Earnhardt left the team and drove for his 1st stint in the Richard Childress operation.. Meanwhile, Joe Ruttman drove for the rest of the year for Stacy.

The thought about sponsoring 5 cars in the very early 80s was very unheard of. But regardless, it was an eye opener in the start of the 1982 season. In addition, sponsoring 5 cars and fielding 2 of your own, was crazy. Joe Ruttman was given the nod to be a primary driver and Jim Sauter as a second driver on the team. Stacy also agreed to sponsor Harry Lanier's cars for 5 years with Benny Parsons as the driver, for about 1 million annually. Others carrying Stacy's name was Billy Hagan with Terry Labonte, Junie Donlavey with Jody Ridley, Jack Beebe with Ron Bouchard, and owner/driver Dave Marcis.

Marcis had given Stacy his only trip to victory lane with a win in the rain shortened Richmond 400. Within a month, Sauter was fired. Stacy said he would focus his attention to the 18 year old Robin McCall. Ruttman suddenly quit on Stacy, on March 30th to move to the RahMoc operations. A new and upcoming driver Tim Richmond, was hired to replace Ruttman. In April, Stacy laid off 6 employees and was rumored to be in financial trouble again.

On May 14th, Stacy was ordered to pay $4,503 to Harry Hyde, who had also filed several lawsuits against Stacy in 1978. Stacy also had to fork over $69,000 to former driver Farrel Harris, who sought recovery of an $80,000 loan he had made to Stacy in 1977.

In June, Parsons was fired by Harry Lanier, who put Buddy Baker in the seat of the Stacy sponsored Pontiac. The dominos were falling. In the June 6th 500 mile race at Pocono, Bobby Aillison and Tim Richmond were battling it out for 1st place honors. In the late stages Allison ran out of gas, and on the big 2.5 mile track, it was and still is very easy to stall halfway around the track before making it back into the pits. Meanwhile, Bobby's car stopped and Dave Marcis playing the "sportsmen", aided Allison by pushing him back to the pits. Allison then recovered, to lead the last 30 laps of that race and beat Richmond to the line

Robert Harrington, the team manager for Stacy, was upset that Marcis, a driver sponsored by Stacy, would assist another driver who wound up beating the car that Stacy owned. On the morning of June 13th, Lee Figgins, Executive Vice President of JD Stacy Enterprises delivered a message to Marcis. The letter said Stacy's sponsorship of Marcis would be terminated immediately. Marcis said that he was disappointed in losing his 1st big time sponsor as an owner-driver. "Mr. Stacy never told me that Richmond and I were teammates and if that is what he wanted, he should have said so and explained exactly what was expected from both of us. I would have done the same thing at Pocono for anyone else."

The contents of the letter didn't specify the Pocono incident for the withdrawl of sponsorship, instead it said that Stacy had objected to the associate sponsor, Hudson Chevy and Transmission's unlimited quarter panel space, with Stacy's name on the quarter panels. A few days later, Stacy removed his sponsorship from Billy Hagans car with Terry Labonte as driver, who was leading the points at that time. Stacy said that he objected to Labonte's uniform, which had a logo patch for Stratagragh, car owner Hagans personal business. Hagan was quick to add that Stacy was 3 payments behind on the contract agreement. Labonte, in his 5th season with Hagan was the points leader for most of the year prior to this, and despite not winning a race, it loomed as an upset in the 34 years of the Winston cup championships. No driver has ever won the championship without winning a race. But from early March to August, Labonte lead the points by as much as 144 points. After losing Stacys sponsorship, Hagan got the Texan Jeans sponsorship, but the damage was done. He fell to a distant 3rd in the points at years end.

Despite of the on track success, Stacy was having problems. In October, Harry Lanier took Stacy's name off the quarter panels. Ranier said Stacy was $145,000 in arrears for sponsorship fees. 2 weeks later Jack Beebe also took Stacys name off of the quarter panels for similar reasons. The only car left was Junie Donvley's that still carried Stacys name. In October, Stacy had begun to relocate most of his equipment - taking it out of his own shop he purchased from Rod Osterlund and moving it to the team manager Robert Harrington's facility. Harrington said it was "routine day to day business". But, there was serious undercurrents. Stacy had seen his race team padlocked in 1978, and wanted to guard that from happening again

With all of the uncertainty surrounding the Stacy team, Richmond quit after winning the Winston Western 500 at Riverside. He elected to join Raymond Beatle's new team for the 1983 season.

The 1983 season looked good for another newcomer at that time. Mark Martin sat in the JD Stacy car from Daytona until the 1st race at Martinsville. He was fired from that team, on the heels of his best career finish, because Robert Harrington felt that he was too inexperienced and they needed an experienced driver, which did shock Martin. "I thought I did everything right after Atlanta, I'm surprised." He also had a 3rd at Darlington, which I also think shocked everyone that he was fired from the team. After Martinsville, Morgan Shepard took over the ride with medium success, and posted no wins.

Mark Martin sold his ASA team to join Stacy for the 83' campaign, but after being fired, he was left out in the cold. He did run a few races in 1984, but had no where near the results he had with Stacy. Only later we would come to know that Martin would become a household name after 1988. This move in 1983 by Stacy, firing Martin, drove the final nail in his coffin as a car owner.

In closing - JD Stacy was a rich powerful man, but he had the ego that caused him to be disrespected by drivers and other car owners. If Stacy would have only known that 4 years later Mark Martin would become a championship contender. In 24 years of watching this sport, I have never seen more tough breaks. Especially with Marcis and Hagan because they were top teams in that era and were almost caught up in sponsorship wars with the "devil" (Stacy). In the next flashback, we will be going back to an UNUSUAL RACE, The Winston 500 at Talladega, AL in 1973. This was one of only a few races in the 70's that had a 60 car field. Until then...

Scott