With the appointment of Richard Buck as NASCAR Sprint Cup Series managing director, a three-year “mystery” finally comes to an end.
Buck, currently serving as vice president of racing operations for the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) will assume his new duties after the completion of the Rolex 24 At Daytona on Jan. 26.
Buck will replace current NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Director John Darby, who will remain with the sanctioning body as managing director, competition.
“Thanks for reminding me that we’ve been saying this for the last three years, that we were going to replace Darby as the Cup series director, which has been part of our game plan,” NASCAR President Mike Helton quipped at a Thursday news conference at Daytona International Speedway.
“Once we started that effort, what became apparent to us was the need for recreating the NASCAR competition group, and so we didn’t look as hard as we probably should have for a long time, knowing that there was a lot of internal work that was going to come…”
In addition to his role with IMSA, Buck has served simultaneously as managing director of NASCAR’s Touring Series. In a varied career in racing, Buck played a key role in the development of a “spec” engine for what are now the NASCAR K&N Pro East and West Series.
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