NASCAR Driver and Owner Stacy Compton Is a Local Man on the Move
Stacy Compton is a man on the move.
A native of the small Pittsylvania County community of Grit, he first felt the need for speed at age 6, when he started racing go-carts. He then worked his way up to late model stock cars at the local Saturday night short tracks.
From there, things literally have been a blur, including a start in NASCAR’s late model stock series, the Winston Racing Series, at age 20, followed by competition in all three of NASCAR’s top series.
These days, Compton does as much racing around off the track as he does on it, relishing his new role as owner and driver in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, in which he’ll compete in 25 races in the season that runs from February through November.
“Drivers have a lot of sponsorship commitments, and I’ve got really good people in place to run the day-to-day operations when I’m on the road,” Compton says.
A few years ago, Compton switched to the other side of the camera as lead racing analyst for ESPN but found it hard to be away from his wife and childhood sweetheart, Vickie, and their two daughters, Olivia and Isabella.
“I was missing my little girls pretty bad,” Compton says. “I didn’t want to miss their childhood, so I had to leave the on-air work behind.”
But stopping that doesn’t mean he’s slowed down. Compton also has multiple real estate investments in and outside Virginia.
“I got involved in real estate about 10 years ago,” Compton says. “I started buying some farms and doing small developments and ended up buying larger pieces of property and putting it in residential development. I have four going now, and two commercial developments are in the Pittsylvania County area with strip centers and car washes and retail spaces. If I’m not racing, I know I’m not the kind of person who can sit behind a desk every day, but I really like looking at a piece of property and figuring out if it’s going to work.”
Wherever his travels take him, Compton will always consider the Pittsylvania County area home.
“My family and I have been all over the country, and there are certainly beautiful areas, but my family is here, my wife’s family is here, and this is a great area to raise a family,” he says.
For the future, Compton sees more of the same in both his racing and real estate adventures.
“I’d like to have two truck teams and a NASCAR Sprint Cup team,” he says. “Right now we’re a one-truck team with a lot of potential, but I’d like to grow the race team to be a multi-truck team.” Compton pauses, then adds: “You know what happens when you stand still, right? Everybody’s going to pass you.”
Story by Danny Bonvissuto
