Davey Allison: A Star Shines Brightly, Part 2
7/09/2013
Jim Fitzgerald
Ranier, impressed with Davey Allison’s early results,
signed him to drive his No. 28 Ford Thunderbird. As the 1986 season was fast
approaching, the car and team were still without a sponsor. He hired Joey
Knuckles to be the team’s crew chief and Robert Yates to build the engines.
During Daytona Speedweeks in 1987, Ranier finally inked a deal with the Texaco company for sponsorship under their Havoline brand of motor
oil. Team, driver, crew chief, owner, and sponsor in place, it was time to put
the car on the track.
When it was time to qualify, Davey wheeled out a
Ford Thunderbird, white in the front, and moving toward the back of the car at
about a 45 degree angle, was a gold stripe, then red, then black, which would
encompass the remainder of the car. There were no logos. There were no sponsor
names. There was barely Davey’s name and a number on the car. This didn’t seem
to matter to Davey and the team however, as together they built and drove a car
that would qualify second for the 1987 Daytona 500. In his 9th
start, Davey Allison would become the first rookie ever to place a car on the
front row for the Daytona 500. The race would prove to be a bit of a
disappointment however, as an error in the pits ensured Davey would not have a
storybook day. Always one to quickly rebound, Davey went to Rockingham the
following week, put the car on the pole and finished the race in ninth place.
The early part of the 1987 season would play out
much like the first two races. Davey would score a top ten one week, and finish
no better than 20th the next. At the fourth race of the season at
Atlanta, Davey scored the first top five finish of his career. At Darlington
the following week, they finished 27th, so the team had high hopes
that the trend of up and down would continue as they headed back to Davey’s
home and best track, Talladega.
The race at Talladega began as any other. Bill
Elliott was on the pole with Bobby Allison in second to his right. In third
place was Davey Allison. On lap 22 of the event, Bobby Allison cut a right rear
tire. His car began to spin, became airborne and flew into the catch fence.
Davey could have watched it all unfold in his rearview mirror. The fence had to
be repaired, but Bobby was not injured. After a lengthy red flag to fix the
catch fence, the race was restarted with Davey in the lead. After a late
caution, NASCAR decided that due to darkness because of the red flag to fix the
fence, the race would be shortened by ten laps. On the restart, Allison was
second to Dale Earnhardt, but he was able to make the pass on the backstretch,
and would go on to lead 101 of the 178 laps to take his first career win in
only his 14th start.
Davey Allison, with his win at Talladega became
the first rookie in six years to win a race. He would put his name into the
record books again just a few weeks later at Dover when he would become the
first rookie in history to win multiple races in his inaugural season. Allison
would lead six times throughout the Budweiser 500 for a total of 212 laps. For
most of the day, Davey would trade the lead with his father. In fact, there was
a 209 lap period where the leader of the race always had the last name of
Allison. Davey took the lead for the final time with 104 laps remaining, and
never looked back.
Davey had mixed results for the rest of the
season, with the high points being three more second place finishes. He ended
the season with two wins, nine top five finishes, and one additional finish in
the top ten. While finishing 21st in the Championship standings, he
also scored five pole positions during the year, including one at Daytona in
the summer. All of this, poles, wins, and records, in only twenty-two races
that year. He also won the Rookie Of The Year title.
The 1988 season would prove to be very much like
the 1987 season, but with higher expectations. Davey finished second to his
father Bobby in the season opening race in Daytona, and they celebrated each
other together in Victory Lane. After starting and finishing the Daytona 500 in
second place, Allison fell back into the pattern of a good finish followed by a
poor one. Joey Knuckles, the crew chief, was shown the door during the season
and was replaced by the engine builder, Robert Yates. This move would be the
start of reshaping the entire organization.
Even after struggling for much of the first half
of the season, Davey still managed to score three pole positions and put
together a string of five consecutive top ten finishes, including two wins, at
Michigan and Richmond in the second half of the season. He ultimately finished
eighth in the Championship standings. The down points on the track were nothing
compared to those off the track, though. Davey and his wife, Deborah would
separate and divorce, and during a race at Pocono, Bobby Allison was involved
in a crash which would hospitalize him and end his career.
In October of 1988, Robert Yates would purchase
the entire race team from Harry Ranier, and form
Robert Yates Racing. Then in 1989, the newly renamed team and Davey would show
their prominence at the races which now required restrictor plates. Wins at the
Winston 500 at Talladega and the Pepsi 400 at Daytona solidified the No. 28
Robert Yates Racing Ford and Davey’s reputation as a threat on the big tracks.
The remainder, and the overall performance of the season, however, could be
classified as a disappointment. Davey and the team finished the season in 11th
place in points, with only seven top five finishes and thirteen top ten
finishes. Off the track, Davey would be married again, this time to Liz Mayson, and on Christmas Eve of that year, they had their
first child together, Krista Marie.
When the 1990 season began, hopes were
high and the paint job was new. The team ditched the white, gold, red and black
angled look for a new cleaner solid black paint scheme with gold
numbers. Davey opened the season with a 20th place finish in the
Daytona 500, followed by three more finishes outside of the top ten. They finally managed a third place
finish at Darlington, and then went onto the spring race at Bristol, where
Davey scored his first win of the season in a nail-biting photo finish with
Mark Martin after Robert Yates made the call not to pit on the final caution. A
few races later, at Dover, where Allison was usually comfortable, the car was
handling so bad that Davey needed a relief driver, and got some help from the newest
Alabama Gang member, Hut Stricklin. Robert Yates decided the team needed some
help, so he hired well-traveled Jake Elder, the man they called “Suitcase,”
because of his propensity to move from one team to another. Elder’s knowledge
began to pay off and the finishes got much better, and another win came at the
1990 Mello Yello 500 at Charlotte. Things were not
always great between Elder and Davey, but they were effective, and not having
to act as the crew chief freed Robert Yates’ schedule to effectively own the
team. As the 1990 season came to a close, Allison had scored two wins, but only
had five top five finishes, and was 13th in the final Championship
standings.
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