-
Home
- TV Shows
-
TV Schedule
-
SPEED Showcase
-
- NASCAR
-
Latest Headlines: NASCAR
-
-
Formula 1
- Auto Racing
- Moto Racing
- Cars
- Bikes
- Store
- Social
- Games
- Mobile
- Deals
- Videos
- Photos
- Home
- TV Shows
-
TV Schedule
-
SPEED Showcase
-
- NASCAR
- Formula 1
- Auto Racing
- Moto Racing
- Cars
- Bikes
- Store
- Social
- Mobile
- Deals
- Videos
- Photos
Sprint Cup
CUP: Allison’s Story Blends Triumph And Tragedy
On his way into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Alabama driver Bobby Allison had the best and worst of times…
Bobby Allison had this thing about driving race cars. Seemingly, he wanted to drive every type. At every track. For every owner. Against every challenger.
And survive it all.
Remarkably, he has. And his accomplishments – 84 Cup victories, a national championship in 1983 and a reputation as one of the hardest grinders and never-say-die drivers in the history of automobile racing – have led to the sport’s highest honor. Allison, along with David Pearson, Ned Jarrett, Bud Moore and the late Lee Petty, will be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in a ceremony in Charlotte, N.C., on May 23.
Many who followed Allison’s long and productive yet very controversial career might wonder if next week’s induction should be for the Human Hall of Fame. In a 28-year driving career, Allison won virtually everything there was to win. Along the way, however, he lost so much that the sorrow could have overwhelmed a lesser man.
Allison and his wife, Judy, had two sons – Davey and Clifford. Both drove race cars, and Davey, more so than his younger brother, seemed to ride with the wild gene that drove his father.
Both died, each in an accident related to racing. Clifford, 27, was killed in a wreck during practice for a Nationwide (then Grand National) Series race at Michigan International Speedway in 1992. The next year, Davey, 32 and a much-loved son of Alabama who carried the state’s racing hopes on his slim but strong back, died after being injured in a helicopter crash at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama.
Donnie Allison, Bobby’s brother, had a respectable NASCAR career, but it was cut short when he suffered head injuries in a crash at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1981.
And then there was Bobby’s long, agonizing struggle to recover from head, leg and rib injuries he suffered in a near-fatal crash at Pocono Raceway in 1988. Only a paramedic’s quick thinking – and a tracheotomy performed at the crash site – saved Allison, who was at the edge of death after the savage accident.
Earlier that year, Allison had enjoyed one of the most striking and memorable moments of his racing career as he and Davey, a rising star and an almost certain future champion, finished one-two – the father winning – in the prestigious Daytona 500.
That father-son Daytona finish is memorable for virtually everyone except the father. The horrible Pocono crash, which Allison still carries with him in his limp, robbed him of parts of his memory, and his run to glory that day with his son is part of the now missing chapters of his life.
Allison lost his racing team to debts and struggled for years to pay off the medical costs associated with his Pocono accident. Doctors said he might never walk again, but Allison, as determined a man as ever strapped into a race car, persevered through years of rehabilitation and regained his speech and much of his strength. He reappeared at race tracks to rejoin the circus that had almost killed him, his walk and his talk slow at first. He seemed to be a man back from the wilderness in those first months.
Now 73, the lines of a turbulent life are written across his kind face as he pushes ever-forward, never giving in.
Monday’s grand celebration will come with mixed emotions for Allison and for Judy, the wife he lost to divorce in the aftermath of the family tragedies but the sweetheart and partner he regained in a second marriage when they both realized how much they needed each other.
It will be a most poignant moment for the Allisons and all who have shared the highs and lows of their life together.
“I feel like life is tough,” Allison said, thinking back over the years. “Everybody has had good times and bad times. Some people have had really bad times, and some have had more bad times than other people. I feel like we put our effort in, we had some success that we’re really proud of, so any time the deal comes up I’d rather think about the successful part.
“You don’t have to like what happens, but you have to accept it. I accept it and go on to whatever the next deal is.
“I know people that have lost children to disease and highway crashes, those kind of things. Same thing. It’s something you really, really wish didn’t happen, but you have to accept it.”
Allison’s long ride through motorsports began when he was 9 years old. His grandfather took him to a short-track race, and he saw the cars rocket out of the fourth turn, their engines singing a sweet summer song of speed and power.
Like many 9-year-olds introduced to a new sort of experience, young Bobby was intrigued. He wanted to be one of those drivers. Unlike most of the other 9-year-olds, however, he remembered, persevered and, against tough odds, made it happen at the highest possible levels.
He banged together some ragtag race cars as a teenager, finally talked his mother into signing a permission form (after running in one race using a fake name – Bob Sunderman – so his parents wouldn’t know) and, in 1955, off he went. He drove well in some short-track races in and around his hometown of Miami, Fla. Winning quickly became the only target.
“It was feast and famine any way you looked at it in those days,” Allison said. “There wasn’t nearly enough money to go around. It was a ‘grab it and growl’ situation. With such small purses, the guy who won did all right, and all the others didn’t. It made things tough.”
It also made him determined.
In 1959, Bobby and Donnie, both into racing, moved from Florida to Alabama because they had heard the racing was good and the money to win was better.
Allison finished fifth in a race in Birmingham and won $145. “I thought I had died and gone to heaven,” he said.
Allison hit NASCAR’s big time in 1961 and won for the first time in 1966. By the end of the ’60s, he was on his way to stardom.
Even when he became a regular winner in Cup racing, Allison still wedged short-track races at backwater tracks into his schedule. As late as the 1987 season, he ran a total of 90 races. He loved the competition, and the extra cash paid for his travel, and for his toys.
Allison’s early success earned him a coveted ride with the Holman-Moody team, where he quickly showed how productive he could be in excellent equipment, winning 11 races in 1971. Allison feuded with team co-owner John Holman, however, and they parted ways. Allison landed with team owner Junior Johnson in 1972.
Allison and Johnson also locked horns – this was a trend for Allison over the years, but they won 10 times. Then Allison abruptly quit, Johnson later saying if they had stayed together they could have challenged Richard Petty’s career victory record of 200.
Along the way, Allison rooted his way to the front of race after race, relentlessly challenging the status quo and targeting the man – Petty – who ruled the sport during those years. Allison and Petty engaged in a long-running feud that stretched from the late 1960s into the early 1970s, a fierce rivalry that resulted in fistfights among their crew members and enough wrecked and battered race cars to fill significant junkyard space.
Fans even got involved. After a Petty victory at North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina, a spectator who had been overserved with adult beverages lunged toward Petty, only to be stopped by the well-placed fist of Maurice Petty, Richard’s brother and engine builder.
The two sides called an end to the drama in 1972, and Petty and Allison have been good friends for many years. They often recount the days of the on-track shenanigans for interested observers.
Asked about his greatest racing accomplishments, Allison divides the category.
“The 1988 win at Daytona should be number one, but I still don’t remember 1988,” he said. “Some day maybe I will, and, if so, maybe I’ll have to change my outlook.
“But I have to go with the 1983 championship. I had worked so hard and had gone through so many different scenarios – leaving teams, getting fired from teams, all kind of stuff – in my pursuit and finally achieved that. It stands out as the biggest achievement that I remember.”
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 29 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
And survive it all.
Remarkably, he has. And his accomplishments – 84 Cup victories, a national championship in 1983 and a reputation as one of the hardest grinders and never-say-die drivers in the history of automobile racing – have led to the sport’s highest honor. Allison, along with David Pearson, Ned Jarrett, Bud Moore and the late Lee Petty, will be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in a ceremony in Charlotte, N.C., on May 23.
Many who followed Allison’s long and productive yet very controversial career might wonder if next week’s induction should be for the Human Hall of Fame. In a 28-year driving career, Allison won virtually everything there was to win. Along the way, however, he lost so much that the sorrow could have overwhelmed a lesser man.
Allison and his wife, Judy, had two sons – Davey and Clifford. Both drove race cars, and Davey, more so than his younger brother, seemed to ride with the wild gene that drove his father.
Both died, each in an accident related to racing. Clifford, 27, was killed in a wreck during practice for a Nationwide (then Grand National) Series race at Michigan International Speedway in 1992. The next year, Davey, 32 and a much-loved son of Alabama who carried the state’s racing hopes on his slim but strong back, died after being injured in a helicopter crash at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama.
Donnie Allison, Bobby’s brother, had a respectable NASCAR career, but it was cut short when he suffered head injuries in a crash at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1981.
And then there was Bobby’s long, agonizing struggle to recover from head, leg and rib injuries he suffered in a near-fatal crash at Pocono Raceway in 1988. Only a paramedic’s quick thinking – and a tracheotomy performed at the crash site – saved Allison, who was at the edge of death after the savage accident.
Earlier that year, Allison had enjoyed one of the most striking and memorable moments of his racing career as he and Davey, a rising star and an almost certain future champion, finished one-two – the father winning – in the prestigious Daytona 500.
That father-son Daytona finish is memorable for virtually everyone except the father. The horrible Pocono crash, which Allison still carries with him in his limp, robbed him of parts of his memory, and his run to glory that day with his son is part of the now missing chapters of his life.
Allison lost his racing team to debts and struggled for years to pay off the medical costs associated with his Pocono accident. Doctors said he might never walk again, but Allison, as determined a man as ever strapped into a race car, persevered through years of rehabilitation and regained his speech and much of his strength. He reappeared at race tracks to rejoin the circus that had almost killed him, his walk and his talk slow at first. He seemed to be a man back from the wilderness in those first months.
Now 73, the lines of a turbulent life are written across his kind face as he pushes ever-forward, never giving in.
Monday’s grand celebration will come with mixed emotions for Allison and for Judy, the wife he lost to divorce in the aftermath of the family tragedies but the sweetheart and partner he regained in a second marriage when they both realized how much they needed each other.
It will be a most poignant moment for the Allisons and all who have shared the highs and lows of their life together.
“I feel like life is tough,” Allison said, thinking back over the years. “Everybody has had good times and bad times. Some people have had really bad times, and some have had more bad times than other people. I feel like we put our effort in, we had some success that we’re really proud of, so any time the deal comes up I’d rather think about the successful part.
“You don’t have to like what happens, but you have to accept it. I accept it and go on to whatever the next deal is.
“I know people that have lost children to disease and highway crashes, those kind of things. Same thing. It’s something you really, really wish didn’t happen, but you have to accept it.”
Allison’s long ride through motorsports began when he was 9 years old. His grandfather took him to a short-track race, and he saw the cars rocket out of the fourth turn, their engines singing a sweet summer song of speed and power.
Like many 9-year-olds introduced to a new sort of experience, young Bobby was intrigued. He wanted to be one of those drivers. Unlike most of the other 9-year-olds, however, he remembered, persevered and, against tough odds, made it happen at the highest possible levels.
He banged together some ragtag race cars as a teenager, finally talked his mother into signing a permission form (after running in one race using a fake name – Bob Sunderman – so his parents wouldn’t know) and, in 1955, off he went. He drove well in some short-track races in and around his hometown of Miami, Fla. Winning quickly became the only target.
“It was feast and famine any way you looked at it in those days,” Allison said. “There wasn’t nearly enough money to go around. It was a ‘grab it and growl’ situation. With such small purses, the guy who won did all right, and all the others didn’t. It made things tough.”
It also made him determined.
In 1959, Bobby and Donnie, both into racing, moved from Florida to Alabama because they had heard the racing was good and the money to win was better.
Allison finished fifth in a race in Birmingham and won $145. “I thought I had died and gone to heaven,” he said.
Allison hit NASCAR’s big time in 1961 and won for the first time in 1966. By the end of the ’60s, he was on his way to stardom.
Even when he became a regular winner in Cup racing, Allison still wedged short-track races at backwater tracks into his schedule. As late as the 1987 season, he ran a total of 90 races. He loved the competition, and the extra cash paid for his travel, and for his toys.
Allison’s early success earned him a coveted ride with the Holman-Moody team, where he quickly showed how productive he could be in excellent equipment, winning 11 races in 1971. Allison feuded with team co-owner John Holman, however, and they parted ways. Allison landed with team owner Junior Johnson in 1972.
Allison and Johnson also locked horns – this was a trend for Allison over the years, but they won 10 times. Then Allison abruptly quit, Johnson later saying if they had stayed together they could have challenged Richard Petty’s career victory record of 200.
Along the way, Allison rooted his way to the front of race after race, relentlessly challenging the status quo and targeting the man – Petty – who ruled the sport during those years. Allison and Petty engaged in a long-running feud that stretched from the late 1960s into the early 1970s, a fierce rivalry that resulted in fistfights among their crew members and enough wrecked and battered race cars to fill significant junkyard space.
Fans even got involved. After a Petty victory at North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina, a spectator who had been overserved with adult beverages lunged toward Petty, only to be stopped by the well-placed fist of Maurice Petty, Richard’s brother and engine builder.
The two sides called an end to the drama in 1972, and Petty and Allison have been good friends for many years. They often recount the days of the on-track shenanigans for interested observers.
Asked about his greatest racing accomplishments, Allison divides the category.
“The 1988 win at Daytona should be number one, but I still don’t remember 1988,” he said. “Some day maybe I will, and, if so, maybe I’ll have to change my outlook.
“But I have to go with the 1983 championship. I had worked so hard and had gone through so many different scenarios – leaving teams, getting fired from teams, all kind of stuff – in my pursuit and finally achieved that. It stands out as the biggest achievement that I remember.”
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 29 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
Shake and Bake: Recent Posts
-
NASCAR Teams Lend Helping Hand To Oklahoma Tornado Victims »
-
Singer Chelsea Bain's Dad Loves Her Music, Doesn't Love Her Choice Of Clothing »
-
Mr. E Would Rather Watch Soap Operas & Teletubbies Than 4 Hours Of Single-File Racing (Video) »
-
Krash Kab Invades Darlington With Jimmy Spencer And Monica Palumbo (Video) »
-
Sebastian Vettel's Monaco GP Helmet Has A Nearly Naked Pinup Girl »
-
Last Lap: Despite Struggles, Danica Patrick Unlikely To Return To IndyCar »
-
NHRA Champ Antron Brown Will Try A Stock Car »
-
The Lovely MWR Girls Talk Beer Cooler Racing With 'Vodkatime' (Video) »
2013 All Star Race
LATEST HEADLINES: NASCAR
-
CUP: Saturday Charlotte Notebook (UPDATE 8)
Denny Hamlin will start from the pole in the Coca-Cola 600…… -
CUP: France – Schedule Good As It Is
NASCAR chairman Brian France says he prefers fall race to stay in… -
CUP: Keselowski Still Confident Despite Slump
Brad Keselowski is seventh in points heading into the Coca-Cola 600…… -
HAMMOND: 600-Mile Race Will Tax Drivers, Equipment
I expect we will see a lot of green-flag runs Sunday, making for… -
CUP: Menards Signs Renewal With RCR
Multi-year partnership renewal was announced today... -
CUP: Man On A Mission
Denny Hamlin going all out in pursuit of a shot at the championship…… -
NNS: RCR Crew Penalties Upheld
Nelson Piquet Jr. was allegedly assaulted at Richmond International… - More News
