Bobby Allison

Allison was born December 3, 1937, in Miami, Florida. He entered his first race as a senior at Archbishop Curley-Notre Dame High School in Miami; because he was only seventeen, he required his parents' permission to compete. After graduating in 1955, his mother sent him to Wisconsin to work for Mercury Outboard Motors, whose owner Carl Kiekhaefer also owned race cars. Allison worked as a mechanic and engine tester, spending ten months in the boat division before transfer to the racing division; during those two months he attended nineteen races, almost all of which were won by a Kiekhaefer car.

Back in Miami in 1956, Allison resumed racing under the fictitious name Bob Sunderman to avoid his parents' prohibition. His father saw him in the Sunday paper and told him to race under his own name. In 1959, Allison and his brother Donnie Allison traveled to Montgomery Motor Speedway in Montgomery, Alabama, where they learned of higher purses than were available in South Florida. Allison entered a race that night in Midfield, Alabama, finishing 5th for more money than second place paid at home. He and Donnie returned, bringing Red Farmer with them; the group became known as the Alabama Gang. Allison won back-to-back Modified Special titles in 1962–63, then two consecutive NASCAR National Modified championships in 1964–65.

Allison moved full-time to the Grand National circuit in 1965 and took his first victory at Oxford Plains Speedway on July 12, 1966. Over his career he accumulated 85 credited victories and one uncredited victory. In 1972 he was voted national Driver of the Year after winning ten races and taking eleven poles, including a record five consecutive poles. He won the Driver of the Year award again in 1983 while driving for DiGard Racing to the Winston Cup championship.

He won the Daytona 500 in 1978, 1982, and 1988. The 1982 victory was marked by controversy known as "Bumpergate": post-race inspection found Allison's car had lost its rear bumper, which appeared to have detached in an early-race contact. Tests showed the car was faster and handled better without it. NASCAR never fined him and the result stood; Allison and his crew denied intentional modification. He also won the Firecracker 400 in 1982, making him the fourth driver to sweep both Sprint Cup races at Daytona International Speedway in the same year.

In February 1988, Allison won the first Daytona 500 run under restrictor plate rules, beating his son Davey Allison by a car length — the first father-son one-two finish in the event's history. At 50 years old, Allison became the oldest driver ever to win the Daytona 500, and the first to win the race both with and without restrictor plates.

Allison ran in the Indianapolis 500 twice, with a best finish of 25th in 1975. He made two starts in the 1972 Trans-Am Series, driving a Brock Racing Enterprises Datsun 510 in the Under 2.5-liter class, finishing third on debut at Laguna Seca.

His NASCAR team owners included DiGard, Junior Johnson & Associates, and Roger Penske. For Penske he scored four of five NASCAR wins for American Motors' Matador.

In May 1987 at Talladega Superspeedway, Allison cut down a tire, turned sideways, and went airborne into the protective catch fence at over 200 mph (320 km/h), tearing out over one hundred yards of fencing. Parts flew into the grandstand, injuring several spectators. This was the same race where Bill Elliott had set the all-time qualifying record at 212 mph (341 km/h). NASCAR mandated smaller carburetors for the remaining 1987 events at Talladega and Daytona, then instituted restrictor plates at both circuits from 1988.

Early in the 1979 Daytona 500, Bobby, Donnie, and rival Cale Yarborough made contact. Donnie led the second half while Yarborough worked back through caution periods. With eight laps remaining, Yarborough reached second and the two crashed on the final lap; Richard Petty passed the wreckage to win. Bobby was two laps down, stopped at the crash site to check on Donnie and offer a ride to the garage, and a fistfight broke out with Yarborough. The incident was broadcast live on network television and has been credited with bringing NASCAR to a nationwide audience. NASCAR fined all three men $6,000 each; according to an account given in 2012 at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, officials later refunded the fines as acknowledgment of the exposure generated. Allison noted that, having earned only $4,000 in the race, he had needed his wife Judy to help cover the original fine.

On June 19, 1988, at the Miller High Life 500 at Pocono Raceway, Allison was hit head-on by the outside barrier on the first lap, then struck driver's-side by Jocko Maggiacomo. He was initially declared dead at a local hospital but subsequent medical assistance saved his life. Starting from a vegetative state, Allison entered rehabilitation and eventually regained most of his memory, preparing a racing comeback in the early 1990s.

Before the comeback could proceed, his younger son Clifford Allison was fatally injured in a practice crash for a NASCAR Busch Series race at Michigan International Speedway in 1992. The following year, his son Davey was killed in a helicopter accident at Talladega Superspeedway. Allison subsequently abandoned his comeback and retired from driving. He and his wife Judy divorced three years after these tragedies; they reconnected at their daughter-in-law's wedding and remarried in July 2000, remaining together until Judy's death in December 2015.

Officially, Allison won 85 Cup Series races. The controversy centers on two events.

The 1971 Myers Brothers 250 at Bowman Gray Stadium was won by Allison driving a 1970 Ford Mustang entered in the Grand American Series rather than the Grand National Series. Because the car was not sanctioned in Grand National competition, the win was not credited to his Cup totals at the time. On October 23, 2024, NASCAR officials awarded Allison this win, bringing his credited total to 85.

In the 1973 National 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Allison finished third behind Cale Yarborough and Richard Petty. Allison protested that the engines of both leading cars were over-sized. NASCAR inspected all three cars and found Allison's legal; six hours later, technical director Bill Gazaway announced the results were being sent to Daytona for a final decision. NASCAR subsequently ruled that, because inspection facilities at Charlotte were inadequate, pre-race inspection numbers would govern, and the results stood. Allison threatened to quit and sue; after a private meeting with NASCAR President Bill France Jr., he stated he had "received satisfactory restitution" but confirmed or denied nothing further.

Allison drove his own cars for portions of the early 1970s, including the full 1973 season, winning six races as an owner-driver from 1970 to 1974. After leaving DiGard Motorsports in 1985, he took car number 22 and sponsor Miller American to his own team; his best finish as owner-driver in 1985 was fourth at Dover. He subsequently moved the number and sponsor to the Stavola Brothers Racing team.

In 1990 Allison revived his team as a car owner for other drivers, running the No. 12 car with sponsors including Raybestos Brakes (1990–1992) and Meineke (1993). Drivers included Mike Alexander, Hut Stricklin, Jimmy Spencer, and Derrike Cope. Stricklin was Donnie Allison's son-in-law. Financial difficulties forced the team to close after the 1996 season.

Allison was named one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers and is one of ten drivers to have won what was then considered a career Grand Slam: the Daytona 500, the Winston 500, the Coca-Cola 600, and the Southern 500. He was elected to the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993, the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1992, and inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in May 2011.

Allison died in Mooresville, North Carolina, on November 9, 2024, at the age of 86. His family announced his death on the day of the NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship Race.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.