Stacy Compton

Stacy Compton
Born	(1967-05-26) May 26, 1967 Hurt, Virginia, United States
Awards	1998 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Most Popular Driver
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career
89 race(s) run over 7 year(s)
Car no., team	No. 74 (Turn One Racing)
2012 position	56th
Best finish	33rd - 2001
First race	1996 Goody's Headache Powder 500 (Martinsville)
Last race	2012 Pocono 400 (Pocono)
Wins Top tens Poles 0 1 2
NASCAR Nationwide Series career
173 race(s) run over 6 year(s)
Best finish	80th – 2009
First race	2001 GNC Live Well 300 (Homestead)
Last race	2006 Ford 300 (Homestead)
Wins Top tens Poles 0 33 1
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career
158 race(s) run over 10 year(s)
Best finish	4th - 1999
First race	1997 Chevy Trucks Challenge (Disney)
Last race	2010 Lucas Oil 150 (Phoenix)
First win	1998 Craftsman 200 by NAPA (Portland)
Last win	1998 Lund Look 275K (Topeka)
Wins Top tens Poles 2 65 9
Statistics current as of June 9, 2012.

Stacy Compton (born May 26, 1967)^[1] is a NASCAR team owner and former driver. He currently owns Turn One Racing, and competes in part-time in the Sprint Cup Series driving the No. 74 Chevrolet. He is a former co-owner of Bobby Hamilton Racing-Virginia in the Craftsman Truck Series, and is a former racing analyst for ESPN full-time. Before he ran in NASCAR, Compton was a successful short track racer in Virginia.

Early career

Compton was born in Hurt, Virginia, and grew up racing in Virginia with his focus on late models in local racing divisions. Eventually, he moved up to the NASCAR Winston Racing Series, and won 36 races in seven years of late model competition. During this time, Compton also hosted a TV show dedicated to covering Virginia races. In 1996, Compton made his debut in a major NASCAR series driving for Dean Monroe, when he qualified in 9th place for the Goody's Headache Powder 500 at Martinsville Speedway in the Winston Cup series. He finished 33rd that day after suffering brake failure. He ran one other race during his rookie season, the fall Martinsville event. He finished 33rd in that race as well.

1997-1999

In 1997, Compton signed up with a new team, Impact Motorsports, to run the #86 Valvoline Ford F-150 for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Rookie of the Year Award. During his initial Truck Series season, Compton had three top-five finishes and a 13th place finish in points, but fell well short of the top rookie award. For 1998, R.C. Cola replaced Valvoline as sponsor. In the third race of the season, at Phoenix International Raceway, Compton captured his first career pole position, and finished in third place during the race event. The next week at Portland Speedway, Compton led all but two laps and won his first Craftsman Truck Series race. He got another win later that year at Heartland Park Topeka. He finished seventh in points that year and was named the Most Popular Driver. Compton had high hopes for 1999 as Impact switched to Dodge Rams and getting a teammate in Randy Tolsma, but he was unable to visit victory lane that year, although he did improve to 4th in points. Late that season, Compton began running some Winston Cup races for Melling Racing. Soon afterwards, Melling announced that Compton would pilot their #9 Kodiak Ford Taurus in the Winston Cup Series in 2000.

2000-2002

Compton struggled during his first year in Cup, as his best finish was 16th at New Hampshire International Speedway. That summer Michigan race, he crashed during qualifying and suffered minor injuries. He was replaced by Bobby Hillin Jr. at the following event. Compton ended the year 38th in points.

In 2001, Melling switched to #92 and Dodge and had a new crew chief with Chad Knaus. Compton started the season by qualifying on the outside pole at the Daytona 500, and went on to score a 10th-place finish. At the next restrictor-plate race at Talladega Superspeedway, he won his first Cup pole position, but finished last due to mechanical issues. After winning another pole at Talladega, he was only able to improve his points position by five spots. At the end of the year, sponsorship problems at Melling forced him to look elsewhere for a job.

In 2002, Compton signed with A.J. Foyt Racing to drive the #14 Conseco Pontiac. He had a best finish of eighteenth when Conseco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. He was let go after the New England 300. He returned to Melling for one race before running two races for BAM Racing at the end of the year. His last Cup start for nine years came at the 2003 Pepsi 400 for Morgan-McClure Motorsports.

Busch Series-present

In 2001 at the GNC Live Well 300, Compton made his Busch Series debut with JTG Daugherty Racing, then known as ST Motorsports. He qualified 12th and finished 10th. For four consecutive seasons, Compton ran every Busch Series race with JTG. Although he did not win a Busch Series race, he has 33 career top-ten finishes and one pole position. His best points finish was a 9th in 2002.

Following the conclusion of the 2006 season, Compton was replaced by Marcos Ambrose and returned to the Truck Series, sharing the #09 Ford with Joey Clanton for nine races. In 2006, Compton founded Turn One Racing, LLC, as a way of promoting talented young drivers in the southeastern United States. He made a total of fourteen starts that season, ten for Wood Brothers/JTG, as well as one for Key Motorsports and three for Xpress Motorsports. He bought into Bobby Hamilton Racing in 2008, and was named driver of the #4 Dodge for the team during the season. After the race at Bristol Motor Speedway the #4 team shut down, leaving Compton out of a job. He drove the #60 Toyota for Wyler Racing in 2009 mostly unsponsored until sponsorship came from Safe Auto Insurance Company late in the season, finishing with 8 top-tens and finishing 11th in points. Despite the new sponsorship, Jeff Wyler was unsure if the team would continue into 2010, so Compton and Turn One Racing bought the #60 from Wyler, though the team continued into 2010 under the Wyler Racing banner. Compton would split the #60 Truck with former Formula 1 driver Narain Karthikeyan and Red Bull development driver Cole Whitt, while also changing manufacturers to Chevrolet. Compton later took sole ownership of the team and renamed it Turn One Racing. Compton scored only five top tens and finished 20th in points. Karthikeyan left at the end of the year to drive for Hispania Racing in F1, while Safe Auto left the team to sponsor ThorSport Racing's #13 Truck.

2012 saw Compton expand his Truck Series team, Turn One Racing, into the Cup series with an unsponsored #74 Chevrolet, starting at Bristol Motor Speedway in March ^[2] He himself would attempt to qualify the car at Texas Motor Speedway but failed to do so. However, Compton did later manage to get into the field for the Pocono 400 in June.^[3]

References

External links

• Official website
• Stacy Compton driver statistics at Racing Reference

Persondata
Name	Compton, Stacy
Alternative names
Short description	American stock car racing driver
Date of birth	May 26, 1967
Place of birth	Hurt, Virginia, USA
Date of death
Place of death