Bobby Allison, whose life in NASCAR included both grand triumphs and unspeakable heartbreak, died Saturday, NASCAR announced. He was 86.
Through NASCAR, Allison became a champion driver and a Hall of Famer. But the sport also robbed him of his two sons, who died in tragic accidents less than one year apart.
He was a member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s second class, which placed him among the top 10 legends in the sport’s history.
As the leader of the so-called “Alabama Gang” – a group of drivers from Hueytown, Alabama – Allison was part of a talented racing family. His sons, Davey and Clifford, both raced. So did his brother, Donnie.
Bobby, though, did most of the winning. He won three Daytona 500s, the 1983 Cup championship and 85 NASCAR Cup Series races, including a 1971 race at Bowman-Gray Stadium that was awarded to him in October. He ranks fourth on NASCAR’s all-time wins list.
Though he was already an established winner well into the late 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 accident scene and promptly attacked Yarborough.
Or, as Bobby’s version faithfully went for decades afterward, “Cale went to beating on my fist with his nose.”
He kept winning after that infamous fight, including the Cup championship. After five runner-up finishes in the point standings over 18 years, Allison finally won his 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 blew and sent his car airborne. He hit the fence with a tremendous force, tearing out a section and nearly going into the grandstands.
Allison didn’t miss a race despite the crash, but it prompted NASCAR to place restrictor plates on the cars at both Talladega and Daytona.
The next season’s Daytona 500 was Allison’s greatest moment in NASCAR; but one he never remembered. With son Davey in second, Allison won the 500 for the third time; the two celebrated together in 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, along with broken bones. Furthermore, he was robbed of his memories of everything that had happened in the months prior – including the father/son triumph at Daytona.
“That one race, the one I know has to mean the most to me, is the one I can’t remember,” Allison told author Robert Edelstein for the book NASCAR Legends. “It continues to be covered up with the dust back there.”
Allison never raced again, nor was he able to ever fully recover from his injuries; he walked with a slight limp for the rest of his life.
But the pain he suffered in the years after his retirement was much worse than anything physical.
In 1992, Allison’s youngest son, Clifford, was killed in a crash while practicing for a Busch Series race at 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 that it will ever ease up, that it will be easier any day, less painful,” Bobby said in 2011. “It’s what happened. It’s our duty to go on.”
The grief was overwhelming, and it 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 a 2000 crash, Bobby and Judy decided to comfort the Petty family together. They reconciled and remarried two months later.
In his later years, Allison was revered as an ambassador for NASCAR. His status as a Hall of Famer brought him great joy, and he was almost always seen with a big smile when making appearances at tracks or speaking with fans.
This story was updated with new information.