By Brian Clements
This journalist still remembers the day Davey Allison died.
It was a typically hot summer day in July 1993, and my parents were driving me home from a friend’s house where we’d stayed up all night playing video games. I’d turned eleven a few months earlier and thought I had a better grasp on the workings of the adult world. But I didn’t understand why so many of the cars we met on the road had their headlights on. It wasn’t raining, and this was years before most cars had automatic running lights. I asked my parents if it was a funeral.
Davey Allison died a few hours ago, my dad told me.
I’ll confess I knew more about guys like Ken Griffey Jr. and the members of the Atlanta Braves starting rotation, but every kid had heard of Davey Allison. He was the best race car driver in Alabama — if not the world.
Davey Allison would have turned 65 this week. It’s hard to imagine Davey Allison applying for social security or using one of those motorized scooters, although he would surely have the fastest scooter around.
But we can’t change the past. The best we can do is make sure people don’t forget it.
Early Life and the Alabama Gang
Born in Hollywood, Florida, his family moved to Hueytown, a city independent of but also connected to Bessemer. His father, Robert Allison, was a stock-car driver who moved the family to be closer to the southern racing community. His brother Donnie and friend Red Farmer soon joined him in Hueytown.
Hueytown native Neil Bonnett joined the Allison brothers, and they formed a racing team that dominated small tracks and NASCAR events throughout the 60’s and 70’s. Supposedly the team got their name when they showed up at a race in South Carolina and a rival driver said, “Oh no, here comes that d**n Alabama gang.”
The name stuck.
Davey began working for his father’s Winston Cup Series team after graduating high school and soon built his own car with other second-generation members of the team known as the Peach Fuzz Gang.
He began racing in 1979 at Birmingham International Raceway and got his first win in his sixth start. Davey competed in the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) and was named its Rookie of the Year in 1984.
Allison won eight ARCA races in 1985, four of those wins taking place at Talladega Superspeedway.
Rise in NASCAR
With crew chief Red Farmer, Allison started competing in the lower NASCAR divisions that same year. He took tenth place at the Talladega 500 in his first Winston Cup start. The next year he substituted for the injured Neil Bonnett and finished seventh in the Talladega race.
Allison got a number and a sponsor in 1987, and from then on he would be recognized by the number 28.
He beat Dale Earnhardt in a close race that same year and became the first rookie to win a Winston Cup event since Ron Bouchard in 1981.
Allison would win the Budweiser 500 less than a month later, becoming the only rookie at the time to win two Winston Cup events.
The next year, Davey and his father Bobby would accomplish something truly memorable by finishing in first and second places in a father-son win at the Daytona 500. It was Bobby’s third win on that track.
Bobby Allison’s racing career ended that year in a near-fatal wreck at Pocono International Speedway. Davey’s record was understandably erratic that year.
Setbacks and Determination
The next year’s season didn’t start well either. A collision with Geoff Bodine at the Daytona 500 sent Davey’s car into a complete roll-over that tore the hood off his car. Davey finished in 25th place in the hoodless car and had a heated exchange with Bodine after the race. But he finished the season with seven top-five and thirteen top-ten finishes.
Allison won the fall race at Charlotte Motor Speedway but finished 13th in the Winston Cup standings in 1990.
Allison was in contention for the win at the Daytona 500 in 1991 until the final laps when Dale Earnhardt’s car spun out on a sharp turn and collided with both Allison and Kyle Petty. Later in the season Allison won the Coca Cola 600 and finished in third place at the Pepsi 400. He lost out to Earnhardt again in Talladega that year and broke his wrist by punching a wall in anger after the race.
He rebounded with several top-five finishes and came in second at a Michigan race where Dale Jarrett got his first Winston Cup victory.
Triumph, Injury, and Perseverance
Allison collided with Kyle Petty while crossing the finishing line at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1992 and was airlifted to a local hospital. He suffered a concussion and a bruised lung in addition to numerous superficial injuries. His car was totaled, and he later claimed to have had an out-of-body experience after the crash. His first words after waking up at the hospital were:
“Did we win?”
They had.
He didn’t let his injuries keep him down. Only a week later he finished fourth in the Coca Cola 600. Allison was first in the standings at the midway point of the season. At Pocono, Allison led the pack for 115 of the first 149 laps until a collision sent his car into a series of airborne flips before landing on top of a guardrail. He was again airlifted to a hospital. This time he had a concussion along with a broken arm, wrist, and collar bone.
Concerned fans wondered if his career was over.
He was back in the driver’s seat the next week at Talladega, his arm in a specially designed cast that allowed him to drive. Teammate Bobby Hillin Jr. relieved Allison after the first few laps and finished third in the race, allowing the team to stay ahead on points.
Allison stayed in contention for the rest of 1992 and was close to a Winston Cup when another collision ended his season.
The Final Season
Davey won at Richmond in 1993 and was sixth in the standings early on. In what would be his last race, he came in 3rd place behind Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin at the New Hampshire International Speedway.
On July 12th Allison was piloting a helicopter and attempting to land at Talladega Superspeedway when the aircraft crashed. Davey Allison never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead the next morning at 7AM.
A State in Mourning
Thousands attended his funeral at St. Aloysius Church in Bessemer, and Governor Jim Folsom Jr. ordered the flags in Alabama to be lowered to half-mast. The procession of cars en route to the cemetery was five miles long, and people parked their cars on Interstate 20 to watch the procession.
Throughout the state, people drove with their headlights on.
Davey’s wife Liz found a speech he had written when she was going through boxes in their home after his death. It was a speech he was going to give at a high school about the dangers of doing drugs. It read, in part:
“Drugs do not improve your abilities. I know in my line of work I don’t want to be around anybody who uses mind-altering drugs. Kids today are under more pressure because of the availability of drugs and peer pressure. Just remember peer pressure can be reversed. You can be a good influence on your friends and peers. Just say no and impress upon them that you don’t need drugs to have a good time. And remind them they don’t either. You can’t do something by taking drugs that you were not already capable of doing. Besides, if you accomplish something naturally, without artificial stimulation, it will mean a lot more to you.”
