The Davey Allison Story: Reflections of Davey

through his entire life davey allison successfully handled the challenges and dangers that encompass stock car racing there it is davey allison now moves above mark martin and allison grabs the lead here comes mark martin trying to make a move off of carter number four it's a drag race wow i think davey allison won but i wouldn't say for sure it is ironic that his life would not end on a racetrack but in an accident while flying a helicopter what follows is the story of a racing superstar snatched away from all of us in his prime a story told by his friends family and davey himself i don't think you could ever meet a finer human being in any kind of lifestyle the determination the way he accepted the losses and the mishaps even when things was down and rough he never got down davey was a very sensitive person and he had one of the biggest hearts that that you could ever imagine he was really level-headed about what was going on in the sport what stardom did to him he did all the right things a superstar should do we really lived out a dream and i'm real fortunate davey felt real fortunate to be able to do exactly what he wanted to do never wanted to do anything else as far back as i can remember my mom tells a story it's not really a story it's true but i used to get kept after school when i was at st aloysius elementary school for drawing pictures of what i wanted my race car to look like while i should be doing my school work and my teachers would keep me after school and make me do my class work and then they'd bring me home and my mom tells everybody that she told one of the teachers that if she wanted me to count apples turn those apples into race cars and i could count them [Music] i really never thought of it any different as just being an ordinary kid with an ordinary dad the only difference was my dad's name showed up in the newspaper sometimes and he was on tv every once in a while and you know i heard his name on the radio occasionally but other than that you know to me it was no different until after i was grown up now i realize you know there is something different here he was a really fun child for me you know i have said a lot of times that a lot of fathers would like to be able to have a child like davey you know a son like davey because from early on he was really focused you know he talked about going racing from way way early age you know and [Music] he raced the tricycles and the bicycles and the wagons and those kind of things as he got on up but then one day he got to the point where it was time to quit talking about racism and start working toward it and he did that he was born with the allison name to bobby and judy in hollywood florida on the eve of his father's first daytona 500 david carl allison was born with racing in his blood but his ascent to winston cup stardom was not as easy as one might have thought foreign allison earned his way to the top by working hard and learning every step of the way the only thing that was ever handed was opportunity and davey took 110 percent advantage of that opportunity when davey grew up on crescent driving here town they uh it was wooded across the street and we had made a bicycle track out there and davey had a purple bicycle that it just was the talk of the town and uh he'd win every bicycle race we had out there we had our own flag set we made a flag stand somebody was always the flagman davey was always bobby allison and everybody else got to choose who they were after that you know he was very proud of his father which we all were and he grew up in a hurry and and learned how to learn a lot from his father i'm sure he told him all the inside tips but uh at the same time it wasn't handed to him he worked for it and uh so that his father knew that if you do it the hard way you'll remember how you got there well my dad taught me early on that that if you earned something you did appreciate it better and you know if you went ahead and worked for what you wanted instead of somebody giving you the the opportunity or the equipment or part of it or anything that really it was a better um better way to move into a situation that you want to be a long-term situation i i never felt any pressure from being bobby allison's son you know i i had a tremendous opportunity to work in his shop to learn from him and then he let me use his shop to work on my own race cars between the times that i was working on his and really gave me a tremendous head start on this sport i never let the name bobby allison have an impact on me as far as a negative or pressure i let that be a plus [Music] the peach fuzz gang was kind of dubbed on me by my dad or on us by my dad because the oldest one in the group was randy hill he was 19 years old i was 19 years old and none of us were shaving when we traveled around in the early 1980s as the peach fuzz gang that that to me will always be you know a tremendous bunch of memories because there was a group of kids that traveled around all over the southeast running some all-pro races we went and ran a couple of arca races and people would watch us roll into the racetrack and they would just laugh it was like a comedy show until the race started and then it wasn't comedy anymore it was for real when we leave there they everybody joke about it being the peach fuzz game but they say those guys come here to race we were we were going to nashville one night and we were laughed at just about everywhere we came into here come these kids again well we were late as usual getting there we had some trouble with the truck getting up there so we unloaded the car right off the truck we didn't get to practice or anything we qualified in the top five we let a lot of the race and we finished fourth and i think that's when the peach fuzz gang was really noticed that hey we're gonna have to race these kids every week they had that dream and that that uh that outlook that yeah we can affect how this thing does and davey had that you know davey said i can get better and uh you know so it was always it was more of a side step for me and a chance to to stop a minute and smile his fellow competitors they weren't laughing long at this bunch as davey finished fifth in his first race on april 22nd 1979 in birmingham he was driving a 1972 chevy nova that he had borrowed from his uncle five races later he'd win as father bobby watched from the pitch and that caught the attention of the entire alabama racing community including an up-and-coming young crew chief his name larry mcreynolds when davey first come along i really thought he was just bobby allison's son that was trying to be a race car driver you know i mean he he was peeling the fence down pretty regular at birmingham but the thing that i did admire about him was he'd peel that fence down he'd go back to hueytown and work night and day the next week and piece it back together and come back and give it his all again and it's like finally all of a sudden rather than peeling the fence down or going through the grandstands all of a sudden wow davey won you know and it's like he won again and then all of a sudden i realized that he wasn't just bobby allison's son trying to follow in his dad's footsteps he was davey allison that was probably going to be a pretty good race car driver encouraged by that early success davey continued on his quest to become a winston cup driver by april 1983 he earned his first super speedway poll and win in an arca racia talladega by the end of 1985 he'd proven himself on the arca circuit becoming the series all-time leader in super speedway polls and wins in all he'd win 45 short track features while waiting for his big break to happen his first chance came in the bush series in 1983. it was a 25th place finish but he was there then in 84 hoss ellington gave davey a chance to prove himself at talladega incredibly he'd finished 10th two years later he'd really turn heads as he took over neil bonnett's ride in junior johnson's car allison would start seventh lead twice and finish seventh leaving a lasting impression on all who witnessed his run including future car owner robert yates [Music] we had two names on the table rusty wallace and davey allison and actually rusty had more experience and and the he had a sponsor iugaard i believe and we talked to the sponsor people and it really wasn't enough money to do the program like you know here and everyone to do it and here he said listen how about davey you know i said how about sponsor you know because you don't it's deaf racing without sponsoring he said we'll get a sponsor i've got faith in it i said well it's awful tough but i remember that boy can drive a race car and certainly if after that he had driven genius car and hostel into this car real well so i said well we'll do it that day that phone call came and he got the ride with harry reinier and got to get in a car that was capable win and he got in and went to daytona the first year and qualified on the outside pole was the class of the field other than the problems that they had i knew that davey allison was a winner unbelievably in 1987 success seemed instant for davey allison as the rainier lundy race team sat on the front row for their daytona debut and then earned the poll at rockingham just one week later all with no sponsor but those statistics quickly put the rookie in the headlines while texaco soon jumped on board [Music] jt lundy bet me wanted to bet me money that we wouldn't win a race who was one of the owners you know david just had it you know almost on the poet daytona almost a daytona win the first time out would have been too much for us i think we probably i mean i went away from there thinking they knew we were here we didn't get so much confidence that we won't be any good and it just worked out pretty good for us when you really thought about it and then knowing what kind of race car he climbed into which was the 28 car with robert yates engines when you really thought about it i guess it really didn't surprise you but he did i mean he come along and set on the front row the first race a second race he won't run at rockingham he sat on the pole and then as you said by the end of may he was a two-time winner and that was pretty impressive [Music] but a rookie still has a rather steep learning curve no matter how much instant success they have had and davey was no exception as fast as he was on the pole in daytona at darlington a track notorious for giving drivers a lesson or two his hopes for a first victory literally went up in flames as he and his father crashed at the track too tough to tame i think we were running like fifth or sixth when he got in the corner too hard and crashed and crashed a couple of other cars and his dad was involved in the accident he came off the banking and at that time they had some old wood poles and a guard rail and he slid right through there and it tore the whole back of the gas tank out [Music] well he's talking to me while he's spinning he says man i'm crashing hard and that's the last thing i ever hear i look over there and i see this big loud see this big ball of flame going up and hear this explosion and the spotter's going crazy so the car is burning up so we take off running and the smoke is so bad i run right past davey and the firemen are grabbing me and i'm all tore up and everything he comes down and grabs me you know we hug each other it was an awful frightening experience really the first major wreck that he had been in and you know it was almost welcome to the big time it would only be a little over a month from that terrifying day that davey would actually reach victory lane becoming the first rookie since 1981 to do so fittingly that celebration took place at home where so many of his past accomplishments had taken place talladega but the victory would be bittersweet as 21 laps into the race bobby allison would go for the ride of his life as he flipped through the tri-oval frightening his home crowd and his son it was a race that would epitomize the careers of both father and son he called me says george my daddy's just died i've seen it in the rearview mirror he says the whole lap look you don't know that it's bad but just come on back around here and stop and get out so i'm taking off running down there he's a joy there's no way he can make it and all he did was scream and holler and cry all the way back around there and he come up there and slid to a halt and his daddy's you know out of the car and waving at him and i was totally scared that the worst had happened i watched it happen in the rearview mirror and i knew it was going to come back down in front of a pack of cars that was moving very fast and i just didn't see any way that they could all miss him and fortunately they did for the most part one car might have just grazed them but you know that next lap it probably only took 45 or 50 seconds to get around the racetrack that lap but it seemed like it took an eternity and as i came back around my dad was climbing out of the car and he waved to me to let me know that he was okay and that was just tremendous relief i just i was in shock first of all i didn't believe that he could make it through and then i was in shock to see him climbing out of the car on his own and tremendously relieved his dad okay davey would take his first winston cup checkered flag at 26 years of age totally incredible something that we had dreamed about for a long long time and to be 26 years old and to be sitting in a place like that it just was a dream come true to get the first win it was awesome it probably didn't even sink in for a couple of days but when we left there went home that night it was it was 10 o'clock before i got home after going through all the post race interviews and the race being delayed for 2 hours and 45 minutes and driving all the way home is like i kept having to force myself to drive the speed limit because i want to hurry up get back home and celebrate that win with my family and and to be there with my parents because my dad was pretty excited in victory lane too and he was a big part of the reason why i was there his legendary first season continued as davey sealed his rookie of the year title with another win at dover delaware when his young crew gambled on fuel mileage to earn yet another trip to victory lane a feat that no other rookie had ever accomplished he had a feel for a race car a fast feel just a bundle of talent as far as he'd raise the hood he'd look up underneath it and before he'd ever go on the racetrack so he understood the package that he was going to throw in the corner at 100 miles an hour 200. he grew up a lot you know he was always patient but he started to get a little impatient you know he went to daytona could have won the race down there had problems went to rockingham qualified on the pole ran real strong and we have problems so things were going well for being a rookie as 1988 approached davey was not content to rest on the success of the previous season but no one could have foreseen what lay ahead the season began with what is now a classic daytona 500 finish and perhaps the happiest day in alabama gang history and more importantly allison racing history as bobby and davey battled for the win in the season opening daytona 500. it was a happy victory lane but also testimony to the maturing youngster as he joined in his father's victory party a moment many close to him saw as a turning point in his career the moment that made me start pulling for davey allison was when his dad beat him at daytona and he took off running the victory lane and what they did after that riding around waving at each other and both of them were so happy for each other's accomplishments uh not being selfish i think that right there was what a fan would say okay i'm gonna swear i'm gonna pull for that guy right there you know he is he's brave but he's family oriented it seemed 1988 would be an allison year things really were looking good you know especially going into that race we had crashed in practice on saturday afternoon had to stay up all night rebuild the car we kept making adjustments on it during the race and then at the end i thought i was going to get to use some of those tricks my dad had taught me and use them on him to try to win that race and set him up for what i consider to be a slingshot maneuver and he taught me something else right there that he didn't teach me everything that he knew just everything that i knew so you know things started off really good in 1988 and we finished second that day thought we would come out of the box really running good for the rest of the year we kind of fell on some some tough times over there at rainier racing and things went downhill instead of uphill and then along came father's day in june and that's when the accident of all time as far as i'm concerned took place june 1988 pocono pennsylvania bobby allison was looking for a second championship when disaster struck on lap one of the race coming out of turn two bobby involved in a crash was hit hard and critically injured suffering injuries that would sadly end his career at that same moment davey allison was handed family responsibilities far beyond those that a 27 year old could imagine that was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to david that was his best friend his father i mean anytime he needed somebody bobby was there bobby was the leader at that time davey saw in that hospital that night or the doctor came and told dave he said son you better be prepared to be the leader of this family and i think at that point davey grew by leaps and bounds he went through a lot of struggles that year had a lot of people standing behind him by his side but nobody really knew deep down inside what davey allison was going through but that to me is probably where he grew more than any it really didn't change my attitude about racing but it had a tremendous effect on me personally you know my dad was my best friend he and i had gotten very close we've been traveling together a great deal and he you know we we spent more time together probably over the course of 1987 and in the first part of 1988 than we had in the 10 years previous and all of a sudden that was taken away and that hurt you know i could not get used to that and to go into a race track and see that he wasn't a part of the field something just didn't feel right about that and it wasn't just me because everybody i would talk to in the garage area would say the same thing you know this just ain't a winston cup race because bobby allison ain't here for the next three years davey would juggle his responsibilities old and new caring for his father a new wife as he would marry liz in 1989 a new family with daughter christa marie while continuing his learning curve on the racetrack he won eight winston cup races and began to become one of the most popular drivers on the circuit but in 1991 he reached new heights mainly due to a change in personnel at what is now robert yates racing as larry mcreynolds became crew chief and leader of the team with a new team effort the 28 car came together and became a contender consistently each and every week when 1991 was over davey had led more races 23 and more miles over 1800 than any other driver on the tour he won six races including the prestigious winston and route to a third place finish in the points in the meantime he'd become a father again as his son robbie was born when historians closed the book on 1991 davey allison was a superstar on and off the racetrack the two things that i really enjoyed working with davey and admired and made my job a lot easier is even when things was down and rough even when we could not find one hand with the other at the racetrack he still had the same aggressiveness and the same attitude about we'll figure it out we'll get it probably the other thing and you hadn't seen a lot of drivers in winston cup come along that is this way if on that day that car was only 70 he somehow found that other 25 to 30 percent if it was only 60 percent he might not find the whole 40 that might be asking a lot but he would turn it from a 15th place car into a sixth place car and if by some way you had a 100 percent race car you would do what we did on certain days like michigan and charlotte back in 91 and just about lead the entire race we got close you know and i think we showed that we had the the material to be championship contenders from when larry mcreynolds came over until the end of the season in 1991 finally had a group of guys put together that we were all communicating on the same level nobody felt like they were better than the next guy and nobody was too good to do anything no matter what it was and everybody was willing to listen and that man it was just a great feeling all of a sudden things just started falling into place we won the winston at charlotte we won the 600 we went on to win four more winston cup races in 1991 and we got to within 100 points of dale at one point chasing him down for the championship and then we had a problem at bristol that set us back the the radiator stopped up and we went on the dover and we lost an engine there and that put us back to third and we felt like from that point on what we needed to do was race hard try to win some races and get ourselves ready for 1992. as the 1992 season approached people expected a championship from davey and his robert yates crew when the 91 season ended you know we had to go through the winter of all the ink and the press saying 1992 winston cup champions we might as well go ahead and give it to him it's over with now they'll probably win all the races but we knew in our heart that it was not going to be easy and the scariest part about the 91 season ending was can we carry it into 92. it's no different than a football team that wins a super bowl before they hate to see it in because are you going to lose that momentum just through the winter time but together we knew as long as we kept our nose to the grindstone and kept this team pulling like it had been pulling that we would pick our momentum up and just continue right on and we did right from the start they didn't disappoint as davey avoided a 17-car crash and took control of the daytona 500. i'm glad everybody gives me credit for being so smart and making all these tremendous moves the only thing i did is i really didn't feel like they could make it through turn two three abreast you know no matter who was there didn't matter if it was bill sterling and ernie or if it was dale rusty and mark i just don't think three cars were gonna make it through their three abreast so i backed off and waved off the car that was behind me and when they tangled i saw which way they were headed and i just turned to miss them and as i went by the hole closed up behind me the only other one that made it through right then was morgan and everybody else had to pick their way real careful back to a subject we talked on earlier learning curve of davey allison i think at that juncture right there sure that that halfway ten thousand dollar lap was just a few laps away and it was obvious that three or four of those top six was gonna wreck or win that money and i think davey allison smelled that happening because two laps prior to that he come on the radio and said i sure don't like what i see going on but with the restrictor plates at daytona you can't really back off the gas fall back a little bit and get back in line if you do that you'll end up at the tail in the line but he was smart enough to keep a close enough watch on them top two or three to know what was fixing to come down and he cracked the throttle and turned the steering wheel just enough i think to avoid it where i think if it had been one daytona 500 sooner more than likely probably we'd have been right in the middle of it because we would have tried to win that ten thousand dollars or wreck along with them it would be the second time a father-son duo had won the daytona 500 as davey joined three-time winner bobby in victory lane but little did he know that the most challenging and tumultuous season of his career was about to begin we stayed consistent you know we finished second at rockingham in the second race and then we had a streak of fourth place finishes three races in a row and uh went to bristol and crashed you know and we thought man this is really going to set us back well even though we crashed at bristol we didn't lose the point lead and then we came back the following week at north wilkesboro and won crashed at marksville bruised right lung you know and that was the second car that we had totaled in three weeks two of our best cars were gone it was good we knew it was gonna set us back a little bit have to replace those two cars but we felt like the way things have been going that we did still didn't lose the point lead we'd go back to the shop build new cars to replace them and that we'd be okay and then we went on to talladega and ended up in victory lane again it was like crash one week win the next crash next week win next it just seemed like would be fast and wrecked you know we were just maybe we were you know david i never really discussed this but it's not like we were driving up on the edge and very unsafe we were just i mean i could go back through all the incidents and there was a reason for each incident in the middle of those ups and downs davey would lose one of the forces behind his ascent in nascar racing his grandfather affectionately known as pop a sore and beat up allison would dedicate his win to pop in an emotional victory lane as may began davey dominated again at talladega and found himself in the running for the winston million dollar bonus because of his win at daytona coupled with the win at the winston 500. a charlotte victory would give him the bonus his first challenge however would be a second consecutive win in the winston all-star event where the events of the first third of the season came to a violent head it all started you know about two laps prior to the finish we had had a pretty good car that night we had won the first segment and let every lap we had set on the pole and let all 30 laps the second segment by virtue of the invert process and not quite being as good as we was the first segment we ended up i think about fifth or sixth and with 10 laps shootout you know i told davey during the break you know if we can win this race that's great but we got a good race car one of the most important races of the season is coming up next week let's just take what it'll give us and we'll go from there and if that's winning it that's fine but don't get yourself in trouble and he agreed with me and it looked like with two to go we was gonna finish third and that was okay we we had won plenty of money that night with winning the first segment and sitting on the pole but again going back to the competitiveness of davey allison and really this entire team it seemed like all of a sudden that last lap we was catching up and then them boys got in trouble and it would have been easy for davey to have backed off and finished second and would have been worth a lot of money to this race team but i would not want to see the results no different just like davey allison said if he had to do it all over again he'd do it the same way i knew that we were going to crash just as soon as the two cars touched the final time and i knew that we were going to hit the outside wall and i i grabbed the whole steering wheel as hard as i could but still 175 mile an hour impact on the left side is that's a pretty serious impact and to be honest with you i shouldn't have walked away from that i shouldn't have been able to get out of that car with assistance from others but and be alert of what was going on and only have to spend the night in hospital one night that that's a pretty serious impact and i was pretty lucky that night well i took off running we had to end pitt and i was the first one to the car and i seen him in there all laid over and i pulled the top off the fire extinguisher and was getting ready to pull it because the front of the car was on fire not real bad but he was knocked out i really thought i'd lost my buddy but he had these old big veins in his neck and then little things he's just pumping and everything and the rescue squad comes over and i said you know he's alive i'm sure he's busted up pretty bad so we ended up cutting the roof and all that off and went and stayed in the hospital with him he was at the racetrack on wednesday ready to go that crash didn't stop the allison express as they'd be consistent through june even dominant at times as they won michigan for win number five then there was a july day at pocono davey had been showing his dominant form again and was making his way through the pack of cars after a pit stop when everything went silent the biggest thing that made it scary was our spotter was the only member of our race team that knew what had happened and how bad it was because it happened on the back side all of a sudden i see robert he's white as a ghost and it's because he's hearing what these other drivers is saying about the car and about davey i have a scanner on that i scan other teams so i'm starting to hear the driver drive by views of what's going on and i didn't want to hear those you know i mean i heard them and i heard mark martin say i don't know if it's hard to say this but you know he said it you know davey it doesn't look like davey made it and i'm telling you i mean i almost went through the asphalt you know just almost fell over the wall i dropped my radio [Music] i didn't know i really didn't know which way to go i started heading out toward the back to the garage you know i think i dropped my scanner and that still was hanging on the wire and i picked it back up and maybe they're wrong you know and uh i i figured you know it's real bad it was bad but you know already knew it was general and i get as i get to the infield care center this record driver comes up to me and he grabs me and he says davey's fine i see he's fine you know he said great he said yeah babies be fine because baby's okay and i said good you know it's a bad report i heard from mark and uh but actually what they were doing were covering up this cameras i think with some of the blue tarps i think all of us have tendency that when things are going our way and just seems like you can't do anything wrong you get to taking some things for granted almost feeling like we're bulletproof and i guess this year i was probably a little bit guilty of that you know everything i touched seemed to turn to gold so to speak you know took flying lessons and helicopters got my helicopter license we won the daytona 500 we were leading the point standings on the winston cup circuit for the first time we won the winston first time that anybody ever did that back to back it just seemed like everything we did was going our way and all of a sudden you get to taking too much for granted and then an accident like what happened at pocono brings you back down to earth makes you realize we're all human and we're all very vulnerable it was an accident that would change davey's entire perspective on life he became a lot more involved with the family less personal appearances less time away less of the things that will draw your family apart in the sport if you let it before his accident pocono i think we both took a lot of things for granted you know we were young we had a beautiful family and and it was like everything that he reached out to to grab he just would reach out and grab it and um it it's it's really hard to to put all of that into perspective and when his accident pocono happened i think we realized how quickly it could be taken away from you i flew up to pocono monday night and spent the week in the hospital with davey here we are 30 years old we've been on top of the world we've had a great season and we're doing everything we want to do i mean life can't really be any better we've got new children and just everything's falling into place and something like this happens we sat in the hospital and really reflected on what life was all about you know life had changed a bunch by looking back on it now i think yeah maybe there was something being sent to me you know through the little rex at daytona practice here in the race martinsville charlotte sears point you know something was trying to tell me something along the way and then in pocono let's wake up you know open your ears open your eyes and you know i i don't know what the future holds but whatever it is i'm gonna try my best to do it right just six days later incredibly he was back in the race car bobby hillen would qualify the car third but davey would drive five laps at talladega before yielding to hillen during a rain shower we never showed weakness or signs that well this has happened so we'll just have to kind of take it easy and then we'll get on with it and he showed that at talladega i think by getting in a car that we had to velcro his hand to the shift lever where he could shift the gears and i'll always believe that that that day i mean on a hot and humid day like that day at talladega and we needed a caution to get davey out of that car you pray for it but you do it in a manner that i hope nobody has misfortune and we get a three-minute rain shower it's a pretty good sign from god i think i can't think of anything that was as hard for me as putting him back in that car at talladega after pocono he was so broken up and hurt i mean he laid in the bed and he moaned and groaned he'd had several major surgeries a couple of days before that and and i just i was i was totally against that and and you know i told him you know if if you love me you won't get back in this race car and he said if you love me then you'll support me in this race car and so that's what i did and um and when it was all over i was glad that that he did that i think he proved something to himself and everybody else i wasn't real sure of the magnitude of the injuries and the effect on the person until i got there monday night but the determination when i got there in his eyes was tommy i'm going to be in that race car sunday well tuesday as things started to wear off and that pain started to set in he wasn't real sure of himself at that time but that determination kept driving him and come wednesday morning and thursday each day it got to be a little bit stronger and he was going he was going to be in that car sunday no matter what it took we got to the racetrack saturday morning and the people that were around and come to greet him i mean his fellow competitors all people involved it was just a tremendous feeling when he got in that car his deal was to get in the car make the one lap and get out so he can start the race on sunday when he got in that car and made four or five laps out by himself and ran pretty decent laps and then the next lap he comes by in a group of seven or eight cars in the draft and i mean just the tears started running in everybody's eyes this guy is not going to be slowed down by anything as the healing process continued somehow davey maintained the points lead in his quest for his first ever winston cup title davey was uh he was pretty good as a brother we had our competitions and we had our fights i don't think anything was was out of the ordinary but uh he had things that he liked to do and i had my things as the final third of the season continued a batter davey allison headed to michigan a place he had dominated in past runs while he was enroute to the race brother clifford was practicing for his qualifying run in a bush grand national event at the speedway when tragedy struck clifford would not survive his accident an emotionally stunned alison arrived at the track trying to erase the pain and move on towards his own championship dreams but there was nothing he could do but remember his brother despite his grief davey climbed into his race car on sunday seeking comfort the only way a stock car driver knows how racing i didn't understand that then as much as i do now uh i had a problem with that myself i didn't understand why we didn't just pack our bags and go home you know we we got the news that clifford died before we even left birmingham we were at the airport headed headed that way and um i we had a long discussion about that but he felt like that clifford would want him to go on and do what he'd worked hard to do and at the time he was in the championship battle which um you know he just felt that he'd worked too hard to get to that point that clifford would be disappointed in him and i i can understand that a lot more now from what i've had to deal with since davey's death there was a lot of people that questioned davey for what he did in august that year and the best thing davey could have done was be in that race car that was the best therapy that he had and even through his dad's deal in 88 the best therapy was getting in that race car he can pretty well wipe out anything in his mind and go do his job if you sit back and look at all the negative things and all the things that have gone wrong you can drag yourself down and i've never had the type of personality to do that i've always been the kind of person to look at the bright side of everything and try to make something positive out of even the worst situations you know clifford's death it hit close to home and it hit awful hard but the thing about it was he wasn't working at a job that he didn't like he was doing what he enjoyed and we all know what the dangers are and what the risks are before we ever fasten the seat belts and the shoulder harnesses that part of it makes me happy that i know that he might have died but he died happy another competitor might have thrown up their hands in frustration and given up entirely but not davey he moved on taking each challenge as it came even finishing fifth at michigan that trying weekend displaying a trait that runs deep in the allison veins and inner strength handed down through each generation davey's determination was his real strength you know just a setback was only a temporary setback to him you know just came right back and you know we saw him in a lot of races where he'd have some early problem and and fall way behind and he just would never give up the rest of the 1992 season continued to be turbulent including his last chance at the winston million dollar bonus at darlington after leading 72 laps he was in an excellent position to earn the win and the cash until a rain shower shortened the race after he pitted for fuel he'd finished fifth davey wouldn't win again until phoenix in november where he regained the points lead over second place alan kowicke by a slim 30. despite the pressure davey continued to smile we hadn't won since june in michigan and even we hadn't had very strong performances and we'd been through so much besides the injuries besides the torp cars we're going to darlington with a chance to win a million dollars have a car that's strong enough to do it and the rain bites us so the rain helped us in july but it bit us hard in in september but then we finally it's like phoenix was finally that turning block that finally said okay i think davey's recovered and everything's back on track we got our cars back where we need to have them we're okay now and we approached atlanta with the same attitude that we had approached every race i mean we didn't take it no different we felt fortunate to be in that situation and if it was god's will we'd win it if it wasn't then we just would get ready to try to win the 93 championship as atlanta approached the tension mounted davey would have to finish sixth or better to become winston cup champion running sixth with less than 100 laps to go davey was caught in an accident when ernie irvin blew a tire thus gashing his title dreams as he waved to the crowd and thanks alison handled the situation like a champion we didn't get it so we'll just go back and we'll get ready for next year and we'll come out and try again it just wasn't meant to be you know that's the type of attitude and outlaw outlook he exemplified in everything he did and you know after we wrecked and it would have been easy for us to pack our stuff up throw it in the truck and said the heck with it when we put that car back out there i didn't go back to the pits i went and stood on top of the trailer and those last 50 laps watching that car ride around there with no front end and no side it just kind of kind of reflected i said you know this is kind of how our whole year has went but at least we're going out and fighting and scrapping till the last checkered flag of the last race and again i think it made a big statement about davey and our entire race team about you know that we just don't give up no matter what you throw at us we're going to keep clawing back [Music] as 1993 started hopes for another title shot began for davey and his texaco javelin crew by the richmond race weekend they already had tallied a victory and just about seemed ready to hit their stride as july began tragically it would come to a sudden end on july 13th when the helicopter davy was piloting crashed ironically at the place where he was most successful talladega super speedway leaving his loved ones only with their cherished memories [Music] i knew davey had a strong fan following that day in july when those people lined the streets and lying the interstate and the cards the letters the phone calls i had no idea the impact that he had put on people's life [Applause] he had that mischievous deal you know if he knew somebody was jumpy he'd walk up and goose him and you know or throw something at him or somebody that was afraid of a bug you know he he'd throw that kind of a bug at him that never did leave him he was that way right up until till the very end it didn't matter what davey did he did it with 100 whether it was driving a race car whether it was trying to plot to come around and goose me or whether it was sitting down eating dinner he always did it with full concentration determination and full effort [Music] he knew what he wanted to do and he did it all the doors weren't open for davey allison because of his father's he knocked a lot of them down the entire time i worked with davey i never had a doubt from him never had a an argument the best memory i've got with david allison we never had an argument [Music] well i'm proud of him for a lot of things but i think i'm most proud of him for just being the gentleman that he was if i could be remembered as a friendly person and a person who took time out for others around him that would be more than enough to satisfy me [Music] so [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: Justin Pettry

Views: 53,077

Keywords: Davey, Allison

Id: KzquR1lwyTs

Length: 52min 25sec (3145 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 21 2021