DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Never before had a cast of characters — and champions — like this been assembled. All at the same time. All in one room. All are linked together by one common bond. All are Daytona 500 champions.
Daytona Int’l Speedway treated everyone in attendance last weekend to a celebration of 50 years of the Daytona 500. Forty-nine 500s have been run on Daytona’s high banks, and the track made sure any ear that was listening knew the 50th 500 is coming next February.
The gathering was a smorgasbord of great stories, the kind where 20 minutes can pass in what seems like 20 seconds. There was, of course, the one about David Pearson and Richard Petty crashing off turn four in the 1976 Daytona 500. Two-time winner Sterling Marlin reminisced about his glory days with Morgan-McClure Motorsports. Darrell Waltrip’s “Icky Shuffle” in 1989, the first flag-to-flag television coverage in 1979, Buddy Baker and the Grey Ghost in 1980 — all were shared over and over. These tales were pulled straight out of the archives, yet the detail was exceptional.
All except for one.
Bobby Allison, the driver from Hueytown and leader of the famed Alabama Gang, won three Daytona 500s. He is one of only five drivers to have won the 500 three or more times. Allison, however, only remembers two victories. In 1988, months after he won his third Daytona 500 — the other two came in 1978 and 1982 — Allison sustained a severe head injury in a hard crash at Pocono Raceway.
Here is where it gets foggy. Allison has no recollection of the 1988 Winston Cup season. Not before the Pocono crash, not after. Bits and pieces, sure, but that’s about it.
This, Allison swears, is all he remembers of 1988.
“I have no memory, absolutely no memory, of racing in 1988,” Allison said. “Nothing of the 1988 Daytona 500. I remember a tiny piece of victory lane in the 1988 300 — the Saturday race. I remember a snapshot of several people and me in victory lane but don’t remember any of the race or anything that went on.”
The event before Pocono was the final race at the road course in Riverside, Calif.
“I do not remember being at Riverside,” Allison continued. “I do remember a little piece of the driver’s meeting at Pocono, where Dick Beatty called roll and said everybody’s here. He asked if there were questions before we start, and I said, ‘Yeah, Dick, I have a question. What should a guy do if an asshole spins him out?’ Michael Waltrip stood up and waved his hand and said, ‘I’m not the asshole. I’m just his brother.’ The week before, you see, Darrell spun me at Riverside. Other than that, that’s all I remember of 1988.”
The Pocono crash robbed Allison of the memory of that momentous occasion. What a shame. The 1988 Daytona 500 saw Bobby lead his son, the late Davey Allison, to the checkered flag in a 1-2 Allison finish. Miller High Life, if you’ll recall, was on the house in victory lane that day. That same year, he won his 125-mile qualifier, the Busch race and the fishing tournament.
Most of the good times stuck, though. Still fresh in Allison’s mind is when in 1978 he shrugged off an ill feeling and a wrecked car from his 125-mile qualifying race to win his first Daytona 500.
“My stomach was trying to be disagreeable, and I was going to load up and go home,” Allison said. “I laid around feeling sorry for myself. But on Saturday I walked down to tell Bud Moore that I was leaving, and they had the car fixed, painted and with a fresh motor. I said, ‘If these guys worked this hard for me, I have to give them at least one more day.’ To win that race was such a great event.”
Allison’s story was just a short chapter in this day celebrating the Great American Race.