Jimmy Spencer
Jimmy Spencer
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Jimmy Spencer

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Jimmy Spencer

James Peter Spencer (born February 15, 1957) is an American former racing driver, team owner, talk show host and television commentator. He is best known for competing in NASCAR. He hosted the NASCAR-inspired talk show, What's the Deal?, on Speed, and was co-host, with John Roberts and Kenny Wallace, of Speed's pre-race and post-race NASCAR shows NASCAR RaceDay and NASCAR Victory Lane. Before retiring, Spencer had a segment on Speed's NASCAR Race Hub offering commentary and answering viewer questions (on Tuesdays and Thursdays). During his days racing modifieds, he was nicknamed "Mr. Excitement" for his aggressive racing style. Spencer is one of the few drivers to have won a race in all three of NASCAR's top series: the NASCAR Cup Series, the Xfinity Series, and the Truck Series.

Spencer's Cup wins both came in summer 1994 at the restrictor plate races at Daytona and Talladega.

Spencer followed his father, Ed Spencer Sr., commonly known as "Fast Eddie", in racing. Spencer started driving Late Models in Pennsylvania. He captured his first win in the Late Model division at Port Royal Speedway in 1976. He moved to NASCAR Modifieds at Shangri-La Speedway (Owego, New York), then branched out to bigger events throughout the Northeast. In 1984, Spencer was one of the top contenders for NASCAR's National Modified Championship, at a time when all sanctioned races counted toward that title; after running over sixty races, he was second to Richie Evans in the final standings. When NASCAR changed the National Modified Championship into the smaller-schedule Winston Modified Tour (now the Whelen Modified Tour) in 1985, Spencer continued to run, and won the title in 1986 and 1987.

Spencer debuted in the Busch Series in 1985, finishing nineteenth at North Carolina Motor Speedway in the No. 67 Pontiac for Frank Cicci Racing, which was also his Modified team. The team ran twice in 1987 with a best-finish 36th, then ran the full season in 1988, finishing 7th in the point standings with five top-fives and thirteen top-tens in the No. 34. In 1989, Spencer won his first career Busch race, the Mountain Dew 400 at Hickory Motor Speedway. Spencer later won another two that season at Orange County and Myrtle Beach, finishing 15th in the final standings.

In 1989, Spencer moved to the Winston Cup Series, driving the No. 88 Crisco Pontiac for Buddy Baker's team in seventeen of the 29 races. He posted three top-tens and finished 34th in points. He then ran full-time in 1990, finishing in the top-ten twice for Rod Osterlund Racing in the No. 57 Heinz Pontiac and finished 24th in points. In 1991, Spencer moved to the No. 98 Banquet Foods Chevrolet for Travis Carter Motorsports. Despite six top-ten finishes, Spencer dropped one position in the standings due to twelve DNFs. He began 1992 with Carter, but moved down to the Busch Series to drive the No. 20 Daily's 1st Ade Oldsmobile for Dick Moroso after Carter's team folded early in the season. He responded with his second career wins at both Myrtle Beach Speedway and Orange County Speedway.

Late in the 1992 season, Spencer joined Bobby Allison Motorsports' Cup team and posted three top-fives in the last four races of the season. He signed to drive Allison's No. 12 Meineke Ford Thunderbird full-time in 1993, and finished in the top-five five times, resulting in a career-best 12th place in the final standings. In 1994, he drove the No. 27 McDonald's Ford for Junior Johnson and won his first two and only career Cup races, the Pepsi 400 at Daytona, and the DieHard 500 at Talladega. On the final lap at Daytona, Spencer won his first career Cup race passing Ernie Irvan for his only scored lap lead. He also won his first career pole award for the Tyson Holly Farms 400 at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Other than that, the season was a huge disappointment, as he would only score two further top-ten finishes and finished the season 29th in the standings.

After finishing 29th in the standings in 1994, Spencer left to reunite with Travis Carter, who was then fielding the No. 23 Smokin' Joe's Ford. He finished in the top-ten four times in 1995 and in 1996, Spencer had two top-fives en route to a 15th-place finish in points. He fell to 20th in 1997.

In 1998, Winston/No Bull became his team's new primary sponsor and he was 11th in points when he suffered injuries at the Brickyard 400, forcing him to sit out the next two races to recover and fall to fourteenth in points. During the season, Spencer formed his own NASCAR team, Spencer Motor Ventures, which fielded the No. 12 Zippo Chevrolet Monte Carlo in the Busch Series for himself and Boris Said, Steve Grissom, and Rick Mast. The team expanded to two cars in 1999, fielding the No. 12 and the No. 5 Schneider National Chevy for Dick Trickle. In 2000, he moved his team up to Cup to run the road course races with Boris Said in the No. 23 Federated Auto Parts Ford Taurus. The team ceased operations at the end of the season.

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