A Championship Team Folds Because Of Test Car

Before the race was moved to the NASCAR Cup Series playoff cutoff, the July 4 race at Daytona International Speedway was as big of a tradition as its other race, the Daytona 500.

The fact that the race was always run on July 4 weekend made the race unique, and there would be nothing better than seeing cars in special patriotic paint schemes fly by at 200 mph, mere feet from each other in the draft.

The race has also produced some fantastic moments in NASCAR history. David Ragan got his first career win in 2011, 10 years after Dale Earnhardt Jr. worked his way through the field on the final restart to win in the series’ first race back at Daytona after his father’s death on the last lap of the Daytona 500. It was also the race where Richard Petty got his 200th and final career win, in front of then-President Ronald Reagan, back in 1984.

But just one year after that iconic Petty victory, the race produced one of the most unlikely and internally controversial victories in the modern-era that resulted in a driver quitting his championship team, taking his sponsor with him, and effectively ending the team.

Digard Racing, still relatively fresh off of winning the 1983 championship with driver Bobby Allison, was looking for ways to improve and return to championship contention with Allison still behind the wheel. So the team decided to field an additional car in the 1985 Firecracker 400 for little-known driver Greg Sacks.

The car was designed and entered with the intention of being a Research and Development (R&D) car: The team brought several setups to the race and planned to test as many as they could to gather data and info that the team could then use in Allison’s car in future years. The unsponsored No. 10 was not designed to compete in the race, only to test.

Crew chief Gary Nelson was tasked with exploring different setups, mainly as a means to find a way to take down superspeedway ace Bill Elliott. All the way up until the green flag, the plan was still in effect.

But then, something happened. Whatever setup Nelson had originally put in the car made Sacks’ car fast. Like, race-winning fast. So the team essentially scrapped the R&D plan and let Sacks compete.

And wouldn’t you know it? Sacks took home his first — and only — career victory, shocking the entire field.

Suddenly, the 32-year-old from Mattituck, New York, whom no one had heard of prior to the race, was now a winner in the highest echelon of NASCAR. Digard Racing was just…