Inspirational Stories From Yarborough And Allison

Orlando Sentinel

Mar 27, 2008

Yarborough, the only driver in Cup history to capture three consecutive championships (1976-’78). The gritty, hard-charging driver ranks fifth on NASCAR’s all-time win list with 83 victories, and his 70 pole positions are third all-time.
Yet, the biggest thing that Yarborough is remembered for these days is his last-lap crash with Donnie Allison during the 1979 Daytona 500—the first live flag-to-flag televised NASCAR race—and the ensuing fist fight on the infield apron.
“My dad, who got killed at an early age, used to take me to races when I was a little boy,” said Yarborough. “I had to milk a cow in the morning before I went to school and plow with a mule in the afternoon.

“But I never forgot going to the races with my dad when I was a little boy, hanging on the fence at the old dirt tracks, and it never got out of my blood.”
“I had to start from scratch,” he said. “I built my first little race car when I was 15 years old and went to Sumter [S.C.] Speedway and started out on quarter-mile dirt. The car wasn’t very good. Then another car came along that was a little bit better.
Allison was celebrating in victory lane when Davey, who was killed in a helicopter crash five years later, came spraying beer on his father with a broad smile.
However, during the summer of 1988, Bobby Allison almost lost his life in a crash at Pocono, when he suffered a severe head injury after being T-boned in his driver’s side door.
That crash robbed him of one of his most precious memories.
“I should be able to tell you all about 1988,” Allison said. “I was 50 years old and won the Super Bowl of auto racing for the third time in my career with the best young man in racing second to me. How can anything be better than that? Anywhere in sports—anywhere in the world.
Allison remembered that 1979 Daytona 500. After all, he eventually got involved in the fight with Yarborough with his brother, Donnie.
“I got out of the car and started beating on my fist with his nose,” Allison said. “That’s my story and I’m still sticking to it.”

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