Bobby Allison, whose life in NASCAR included both great triumphs and indescribable heartbreak, died Saturday, NASCAR announced. He was 86 years old.
Through NASCAR, Allison became a champion driver and Hall of Famer. But the sport also deprived him of his two sons, who died in tragic accidents less than a year apart.
He was a member of the second class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame, which placed him among the top 10 legends in the history of the sport.
As the leader of the so-called “Alabama Gang” – a group of pilots from Hueytown, Alabama – Allison was part of a family of talented pilots. His sons, Davey and Clifford, both ran. His brother, Donnie too.
Bobby, however, got most of the victory. He won three Daytona 500s, the 1983 Cup championship and 85 NASCAR Cup Series races, including a 1971 race at Bowman-Gray Stadium awarded to him in October. He ranks fourth on NASCAR’s all-time wins list.
Although he was already an established winner well into the 1970s, Allison – and NASCAR – burst onto the national scene together in the 1979 Daytona 500.
On the final lap of the race, Cale Yarborough and Allison’s brother Donnie crashed while racing for the lead. Richard Petty won the race instead and Yarborough began arguing with Donnie Allison. Bobby stopped his car on the infield grass near the crash site and quickly attacked Yarborough.
Or, as Bobby’s version faithfully repeated for decades afterward, “Cale started punching my fist with his nose.”
He continued to win after this famous fight, including the Cup championship. After five second-place finishes in the points standings in 18 years, Allison finally won her only title in 1983.
In 1987, Allison was involved in one of the worst wrecks in NASCAR history. While racing at Talladega, Allison’s tire exploded and sent his car into the air. He hit the fence with tremendous force, tearing off a section and almost missing entering the stands.
Allison did not miss any races despite the accident, but it prompted NASCAR to place restrictor plates on the cars at Talladega and Daytona.
The following season’s Daytona 500 was Allison’s greatest moment in NASCAR; but he never remembered it. With son Davey second, Allison won the 500 for the third time; the two celebrated together at Victory Lane.
But four months later, Allison blew a tire early in a race at Pocono and was T-boned by another driver. The accident nearly killed him and left him with severe head trauma and broken bones. Additionally, he was robbed of his memories of everything that had happened in the preceding months, including the father/son triumph at Daytona.
“This race, the one I know and that means the most to me, is the one I don’t remember,” Allison told author Robert Edelstein for the book. NASCAR Legends. “It continues to be covered in dust there.”
Allison never ran again and was never able to fully recover from her injuries; he walked with a slight limp for the rest of his life.
But the pain he endured in the years after his retirement was far worse than anything physical.
In 1992, Allison’s youngest son, Clifford, was killed in an accident while practicing for a Busch Series race in Michigan. Less than a year later, Davey Allison was killed while trying to land his helicopter at Talladega.
Just like that, both of Allison’s sons were gone.
“I don’t know if it will ever get better, if it will be easier from one day to the next, less painful,” Bobby said in 2011. “That’s what happened. It is our duty to continue. »
The grief was overwhelming and eventually led Allison and his wife, Judy, to divorce. But when Adam Petty, grandson of Richard Petty and son of Kyle Petty, was killed in an accident in 2000, Bobby and Judy decided to comfort the Petty family together. They reconciled and remarried two months later.
In her later years, Allison was revered as an ambassador for NASCAR. His Hall of Fame status brought him great joy and he was almost always seen with a big smile when making appearances at tracks or speaking with fans.
This article was originally published on USA TODAY: Legendary NASCAR driver Bobby Allison dies at 86
