The Horrible Irony of Davey Allison's First NASCAR Cup Win at Talladega

• At 26, only 14 races into his NASCAR Cup career and still in his rookie season, Davey Allison won the Winston 500 at Talladega.

• With the win, Allison became the first rookie to win a Cup event in six years.

• Davey was inducted in the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2019, joining his father Bobby as one of only seven father-son duos in the hall.

It seemed only appropriate that Davey Allison, an Alabamian through and through, scored his first NASCAR Cup victory in May 1987 at Talladega Superspeedway, the giant track located 50 miles east of Birmingham.

It’s a horrible irony that Allison, son of one of the sport’s superstars and a champion in the making, lost his life at the same track six years later.

Between those days, Davey fulfilled many of the considerable expectations that shadowed him from the day he first climbed into a race car. Older son of Bobby Allison, a Hall of Famer and often considered one of the five best drivers in the history of the sport, Davey arrived in stock car racing with a hard-earned degree from the University of Bobby. He climbed in and on and under his father’s race cars virtually from the time he was able to walk, and there was little doubt, within the family and inside the sport, that he would follow Bobby along the same avenue that seemed to attract every Allison who sat behind a windshield.

At 26, only 14 races into his Cup career and still in his rookie season, Davey won the Winston 500 at Talladega, becoming the first rookie to win a Cup event in six years. And, in a circumstance that had the word “fate” written all over it, his father’s car crashed into the frontstretch fence during that race, spraying parts and pieces into the grandstand and halting the race for almost three hours. Bobby was not seriously injured, but Davey didn’t know that as he watched the wild wreck unfold in his rear-view mirror.

“When I looked up in the mirror and saw Dad going into the fence, it was the emotional low period of my life,” Davey said after the race.

Although shaken, Bobby watched the rest of the race from the top of a motorhome in the infield, witness to his son’s first victory.

It was a wild weekend at Talladega. In qualifying, Bill Elliott set a stock-car speed record of 212.809 miles per hour in winning the pole. After Allison’s car took flight during the race and came within a few strong fence sections of sailing into the grandstand, ever-increasing speeds resulted in NASCAR putting restrictor plates on engines for future events at the tour’s fastest tracks.

Davey led much of the race but saw the finish come down to a 10-lap shootout. NASCAR shortened the race from 188 laps to 178 because the long delay to repair the frontstretch fence pushed the event into near-darkness. Allison left the pits after the final caution one spot behind leader Dale Earnhardt Sr., but he passed Earnhardt, a master at Talladega, quickly and led the rest of the way.

Allison also would win at Dover, Del. that season on the way to claiming the Cup Rookie of the Year award.

The next season put father and son together in the headlines again as Bobby finished first and Davey second in an all-Allisons Daytona 500. Years later, Davey would recall the race as one of the special moments of his career.