Davey Allison: A Star Shines Brightly, Part 3
7/10/2013
Jim Fitzgerald
At the
Daytona 500, Davey made a statement by putting the car on the pole. He led 23
laps that day, but ended up in 15th position. With three laps to go,
running just behind the leader Ernie Irvan, Dale Earnhardt, who was to the
inside of Davey, began a slow spin coming out of Turn 2. The right rear of
Earnhardt’s car would clip the left rear of Davey’s and send Davey into the
wall as Earnhardt continued his spin. There was no Green White Checkered rule
in 1991, so this late caution allowed Irvan to win the Daytona 500 at a speed
of about 60 miles per hour.
The following
week at Richmond, Davey put the car on the pole again, but finished in 12th
place, two laps behind. At Rockingham, Davey qualified third, but again would
not have the day promised, as he finished 16th. These good starts
followed by poor finishes began to wear on the team, and Davey and Jake Elder
were not seeing level on a lot of things. After crashing early in the next race
at Atlanta, and finishing 40th, Robert Yates decided it was time to
make a change above the pit box. Jake Elder was fired, and Larry McReynolds was
hired to join the team as the new crew chief.
The hiring of
McReynolds was like someone turning on a switch. The team scored a second place
finish at Darlington, a third at Bristol, a sixth at North Wilkesboro, and an
eighth at Martinsville. The team went to Charlotte for The Winston, NASCAR’s
non-points racing event for previous race winners. Allison led every lap of the
event from start to finish, in a car which would become legendary. The car’s
name was a simple number, but the team would ride it to so much success. It was
designed to run on medium to large size tracks, built for speed, and its name
was “007”, and it was nearly perfect. The week after winning The Winston,
Allison led 263 of 400 laps to win the Coca Cola 600, and it was in the “007”
car as well.
Two weeks
after winning the 600, Allison found himself in the lead in the closing laps of
the race at Sonoma, a tricky road course. On the penultimate lap, Ricky Rudd
bumped Davey Allison out of the way in the 11th turn. Rudd went onto
cross the finish line first, but he was shown the black flag instead of the
checkered flag, which was saved for when Allison hit the stripe. Allison would
be credited for the win, and Rudd would receive a penalty which would relegate
him to second place for the event. A few weeks later, “007” would strike again,
and Davey would win at Michigan after leading more than half of the laps. This
was the first time in his career that he had won more than two races in a
season, but Davey wasn’t done yet.
At Talladega
in 1991, Davey was at or near the front of the field for most of the day. When
the race was getting into the closing laps, Davey needed some help from his
fellow Ford drivers to get past the teaming Bowtie Brigade of Chevrolets.
Unfortunately no help would come, and Allison would finish in 9th
place in a car capable of winning. After he parked the car when the race was
over, Allison angrily punched the wall of his No. 28 hauler, breaking his
wrist. Never one to let an injury get in his way, he scored a top ten at
Watkins Glen, and then it was back to Michigan once again for the Champion
Spark Plug 400.
Davey again
had a car capable of winning, leading 61 laps on the day. During a late
caution, Wood Brothers driver Dale Jarrett would choose a different pit
strategy, taking fuel only, and lead the field coming to the restart. Davey was
mired back in traffic but with only a few laps to go had worked his way back
into second place. The cars ran side by side for what seemed like forever, and
at the end of it all, it was Davey Allison finishing just ten inches short of
Dale Jarrett for the win. At Dover in September of 1991, Davey was very strong.
He led the first 101 laps of the race uncontested, but then pulled his car
slowly down pit road, and then into the garage area. A broken crankshaft would
be his undoing that day.
Davey still
wasn’t done. He continued to climb in the points, and after consecutive wins
for the first time in his career at Rockingham and Phoenix, he sat in second
place in the championship standings going into the final race of the year at
Atlanta. Unfortunately, he was 156 points behind Dale Earnhardt. When Davey finished 17th that day,
he would end up third in the final standings. The year was to be considered a
success, with five wins, three poles, 12 top five finishes and 16 in the top
ten. Another bright point of the season, but not on the track, is that Liz and
Davey welcomed their second child, a son, and they named him Robert Grey.
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