The NASCAR Hall of Fame opened in May 2010. (Photo: Getty Images)

Unbeknownst to Allison, the Bud Moore Engineering crew already was hard at work getting the No. 15 Ford Thunderbird ready for NASCAR’s biggest race of the season.

“We took it and put it on the frame machine to straighten that out on the back, and we went to a Ford dealership to get the Ford panels to fix the car, so we worked day and night getting that car ready,” said Moore. “So Bobby came out to the race track on Saturday about noon and he was gonna tell me that he was going back to Alabama. He walked up and started to say, ‘I’m fixing to leave. I’m going back,’ and then he saw the car sitting there ready to go. He was so amazed.”

“I went back down to the garage and Bud and his group had repaired that car, straightened all the dents out, painted it and lettered it,” Allison said. “I said, ‘Wow, this thing looks so good. If they’ve done this for me, I’ve got to give them one more day.’ So I bit my lip.”

Not only did he bite his lip, he won the Daytona 500.

“The car was good,” Allison said. “We had to start way in the back on account of being in that wreck, and it took quite a while to get to the front, but when I got to the front the car was there to stay and we got that Daytona 500 win. It really was a thrill for me. Bud and his attitude and his support of me and our gang, ... it helped me get back on my feet, but it also helped me get back to victory lane. We wound up winning five times that year and finished second in the points. That really did help me get back going.”

For Moore, it was sweet revenge, beating Baker, who had left him at the end of the previous season.

“We went out and ran awful good all day in the race and we won the Daytona 500 with Bobby Allison, and right after the race Baker walks over and says, ‘Damn, I just got out of that car and you win the Daytona 500.’”

VIDEO: NASCAR HOF - 2011 Inductees Recap SPEED's experts break down the newest NHoF selections. (Image: SPEED)

And it was one of the races that helped Moore and Allison build Hall of Fame careers.

“For the years that I was in racing, over 50 years, I had 43 different drivers drive for me,” Moore said. “Bobby Allison, Dale Earnhardt and all the others, it was great to know that they went into the Hall of Fame when they did and it’s just been great to know that I got to go in at the same time they did. It’s a wonderful feeling.”

Allison agreed.

“To be able to go in with (Bud), that always meant so much to me along the way,” Allison said. “We separated on race teams, but we remained friends and to this day are still really good, personal friends.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.