DOVER, Del. (AP) – Bobby Allison enjoys winging it when he talks about his career. For his Hall of Fame induction speech, Allison expects to be more prepared.
There are too many people to thank, too many big races to try and remember for Allison to leave anything to chance. When he’s on stage for the May 23 ceremony, Allison expects to pay tribute to everyone from his parents to fellow Hall of Famers.
He can’t wait for the big day, even if the lead up has been hectic.
“It’s been fun, but it’s been busy,” Allison said on Saturday. “The folks involved with the production have been at the house a couple of times already. I’ve got to go to several different places and talk about it. That’s been fun. Certainly, it’s an honor and a compliment.”
Allison, David Pearson and Lee Petty lead NASCAR’s second Hall of Fame class. Ned Jarrett and pioneer Bud Moore also will be inducted.
Allison was a three-time Daytona 500 winner and his 84 wins are tied for third on the career victory list.
He joked that he owed his career to tricking his mother to giving written permission for him to compete in his first race at only 17.
“I said, ‘Mom, if you give me this letter of approval, I’ll improve my grades in school,”’ he said. “She thought she was giving me permission for one week. I thought she was giving me permission for 100 years.”
His grades improved – and his career skyrocketed.
He helped put NASCAR on the map with more than his driving. It was his infamous fight with Cale Yarborough in the 1979 Daytona 500 that would serve as one of the sport’s defining moments.
“Cale went to beating on my fist with his nose,” Allison said, laughing. “Cale understands like I do that it really was a benefit to the interest of racing. It proves that we were sincere.”
NASCAR will open the doors to the racing great next week – and he knows exactly how he wants to be remembered.
“I was a little poor boy that came along and put a lot of effort, and got a lot of help from people and was able to succeed at something I really wanted to do,” Allison said. “I was a racer’s racer.”
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WHO YA GONNA CALL? Hey four-time, can you spare a dime?
Get in an accident with Jeff Gordon and you’ll be left waiting for the phone to ring. He’s not calling.
Gordon says he’s not sure when it became proper etiquette to call a driver during the week after a race-day dust up. The “call me” apology isn’t one of Gordon’s favorite unwritten rules. He knows the call isn’t as much about saying sorry as it is saying, please don’t wreck me next week.
“When I was coming up, we didn’t call one another. We didn’t say anything,” Gordon said. “We went to the next race and we either confronted it at the time or confronted it the next week or two weeks later.”
Gordon said early in his NASCAR career no one had his number. Now, it’s not uncommon for him to get a call – or text or email or tweet – from a fellow driver wanting to smooth over any lingering hard feelings for a racing incident.
“I don’t take the call, I don’t call them back,” Gordon said. “I don’t call guys.”
With one exception.
“I will tell you the only guy that I really reached out to and called was Martin Truex Jr. and that’s because I completely screwed that up,” Gordon said.
Gordon was contrite after spinning Truex last year at Sonoma. Truex was running inside the top 10 before Gordon caused him to drop back into traffic, where he was caught in a multicar accident.
“I just made a bonehead, bad move,” Gordon said.
Outside of that one time, Gordon would rather settle issues where in their proper forum – on the track.
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COMMITMENT PHOBE: Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants NASCAR’s to end its relationship with the cone at the edge of the pit road commitment line under green flag racing.
Earnhardt’s run at a top-10 finish was spoiled at Darlington Raceway after he received a pass-through penalty for hitting the cone.
Earnhardt wondered why the cone is even needed under green. Earnhardt even posed the question to NASCAR president Mike Helton.
“He said that they were keeping the rules consistent whether under green or yellow and they just figured they would leave it out there even though it’s really more important under caution,” Earnhardt said. “Hopefully, maybe, they will look at it down the road because it’s pretty much unnecessary under green flag.”
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GOOD CAUSE: Carl Edwards raised $20,400 on eBay after auctioning off his Sam Bass-painted Gibson guitar trophy for the family of Roush Fenway Racing employee Jonathan Bunting, who died last month in North Carolina.
Edwards got the guitar for winning the Nationwide Series race at Nashville Superspeedway.
In addition to the auction proceeds, Roush Fenway employees, drivers and sponsors contributed over $30,000 to the Bunting family.
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