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MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Bobby Allison was a true racing hero, famous for his incredible NASCAR Hall of Fame career that included three Daytona 500 wins, 85 NASCAR Cup Series victories and the 1983 NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Allison died Saturday. He was 86.
Allison’s greatest exploits came behind the wheel of a stock car, but there was more to his racing ability than driving a car with a roof and fenders.
Allison competed in two Indianapolis 500s, both for team owner Roger Penske.
On April 4, 2019, I wrote a feature for NBCSports.com entitled, “When the ‘Alabama Gang’ took on the Indianapolis 500.” It was an IndyCar feature leading into that weekend’s race at Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Alabama, that helped connect the famed “Alabama Gang” with the IndyCar racing.
Here is an excerpt from that feature to help honor the strong-willed Allison, who, to many, was the epitome of a race driver:
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Winner of 84 (since updated to 85 with a victory at Bowman Gray Stadium in 1971 added to his career total) NASCAR Cup races and the 1983 championship, Bobby Allison remains a legend and is a member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame. But the most successful member of the “Alabama Gang” had a miserable experience in the two Indianapolis 500s that he competed in for famed team owner Roger Penske.
In 1973, Bobby Allison would get his chance to compete in the Indianapolis 500. It ended up being one of the worst experiences of his career, up to that point.
“Penske was getting his team put together and at the time Mark Donohue was alive and was one of Penske’s chief engineers,” Bobby Allison told NBC Sports.com. “They asked me to go to an IndyCar test and treated me like a ‘Red-headed Stepchild’ at the test. Mark was there and Peter Revson was there, and they told me, ‘Don’t you dare go fast. You have to go slow, or this car is going to kill you.’
“I went out slow. I came back in, and they laughed at me.
“This was 8:15 in the morning and they weren’t going to let me go back out until 3:30 in the afternoon. When they let me back on the track, they told me I could go as fast as I wanted, just be careful.”
Allison ran nine laps but didn’t know how fast the speeds were until he came back into the pits. One of the engineers confronted him over the nosepiece of the car and grabbed Allison by his collar and shook his fist in his face.
Allison was stunned.
The engineer was mad because a NASCAR driver had run laps equal to what Donohue and Revson had run. It was the first time I had ever sat in an Indy car.
“I pushed him backwards, took my firesuit off, got in my airplane and came back home,” Bobby recalled to NBC Sports.com. “Donnie had a similar situation, but Donnie put up with it. Donnie’s fuse is sometimes shorter than mine. I was surprised Donnie put up with Foyt and his cronies.
“Roger Penske stepped in and promised to straighten it out. But Roger Penske wanted Gary Bettenhausen to run my car after any and all changes were made. That really irked me.”
Allison thought the world of Donohue and admired the driver that was the cornerstone of Penske Racing in those days.
To add to the misery of 1973, Allison and his wife, Judy, were close friends with popular driver Art Pollard. When Allison and his wife entered the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Pole Day, Pollard was killed in a crashed that happened right before their eyes.
“Judy and I came through the tunnel and this crash happened and it’s Art Pollard getting killed,” Bobby Allison recalled. “Judy wanted to leave right then and there, but I had to do it because I had given my word to Roger Penske.
“All the IndyCar drivers and crewman were convinced they were automatically better than any NASCAR driver. I knew better than that. I was flabbergasted at the attitude.”
After two days of rain and a horrifying crash at the start of the race on Memorial Day Monday when Salt Walther’s car went into the tire fence and spewed hot fuel into the crowd, badly burning dozens of spectators. The race was halted that day for more rain and darkness. Tuesday was completely rained out so on a Wednesday morning, race officials hurriedly tried to start the race.
Allison’s engine blew up on the Parade Lap.
“I had been up there all month and never turned one lap in the Indianapolis 500,” Allison said. “Judy was sitting in the stands for the raise and was only a few hundred feet away from where Swede Savage was killed.
“She was plenty unhappy about the whole experience.”
Penske talked Allison into one more attempt at the Indy 500 in 1975. Allison was driving Penske’s AMC Matador in NASCAR, and the combination was enjoying success. But Bobby could not get along with Penske Racing chief mechanic Jim McGee. Changes were made to Allison’s car without his knowledge.
“I missed the field on the first day,” Penske said. “I qualified what would have been the top 10 but it was on the second day.
“I started 13thand led the 23rd lap of the race. I pitted and the fuel system failed and doused me with alcohol. I was sitting in a tub of alcohol and the crew told me to go and ran the car until it ran out of fuel. I got it stopped, lost a lap, had a caution, got the car fixed where I was comfortable. I unlapped myself under the green six laps after the halfway mark of the race.
“Then, my engine blew up two laps later.
“I said, ‘I don’t need this.’ I had worked hard to do well in NASCAR. I wanted to do good in NASCAR.”
Throughout Bobby Allison’s career, he was often at odds with authority figures, be it team owners, NASCAR officials, crew members or fellow drivers.
When told of his older brother’s reflections of the resentment he felt in the Indy 500, Donnie took a more diplomatic view.
“Different personalities and different egos,” Allison said of his older brother and Penske Racing. “When Bobby drove for Penske, he owned his own team and did a lot of the engine work and engineered the car himself.
“Bobby was just like AJ Foyt – he knew what he wanted, he knew how to get it, and he didn’t want anyone to know what he wanted.
“Bobby and I had identically built race cars than he did. I was winning all the races in that car and Bobby wasn’t. He wanted to know what was different in my car and his car and I told him, ‘the driver.’ He asked again and I told him what it was.
“He didn’t like that. I beat him at a big race in Birmingham and I told him the same thing. He didn’t like that answer. I did an awful lot of work for Bobby. Bobby Allison Racing was built by Bobby and Donnie Allison.”
Neil Bonnett attempted to compete in the 1979 Indy 500 for team owner Warner Hodgdon, but rain ruined his chance to qualify for the race. Bonnett was driving for the Wood Brothers and was prepared to skip the World 600. But when qualifications interfered with the NASCAR race at Dover, Bonnett withdrew from the Indy 500 and never had a chance to return.
Bobby and Donnie Allison are the only two members of the “Alabama Gang” that ever competed in the Indianapolis 500 and are part of the history and legacy of that race.
“I feel very good about that,” Donnie Allison said. “I ran pretty damn good there.”
Donnie and Bobby both watch the NTT IndyCar Series races on NBCSN and NBC. Although Bobby is more of a stock car fan, Donnie has become a big advocate of the current IndyCar Series, its stars and its races.
Bobby Allison remains one of the more tragic figures in the sport. He lost both sons including Clifford in a NASCAR Busch Series crash at Michigan International Speedway on August 13, 1992. Bobby’s son, Davey, killed in a helicopter crash at Talladega on July 13, 1993.
Bobby’s career came to an end when he suffered a very serious head injury in a crash at Pocono Raceway on June 19, 1988, just a few months after he won his third Daytona 500 in a 1-2 finish with his son, Davey.
Bobby Allison has no recollection of that glorious moment in his life when father and son finished first and second in the Daytona 500.
“To this day, I see replays of it and it’s like I’m watching a movie,” Bobby admitted. “It’s not me and Davey on the track, it’s a movie.”
Bobby became a widower on December 18, 2015, when he lost the love of his life, long-time wife Judy.
His connection to the Indianapolis 500 was not a happy one, but Bobby does have something from that race that is a proud possession to this day.
“I’m still proud of the fact we both represented ourselves well with the speed that we ran and Donnie getting the finishes that he did, and me running as good as I did,” Bobby Allison said. “To lead that 23rd lap of the 1975 Indianapolis 500 – they gave me a little trophy for leading that lap. They used to give the lap leaders a trophy for the laps they led.
“I have that trophy in my house.
“There are a lot of guys who are really good race drivers that don’t have a trophy for leading laps in the Indianapolis 500.”
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