Wade’s World: It took a while, but NASCAR finally gave Bobby Allison his due – Frontstretch.com

On Oct. 23, NASCAR’s announcement that after many decades it had decided to officially award Hall of Famer Bobby Allison with the 85th victory of his long storied career was met with widespread approval — even in some cases outright cheering.

It was almost like a man who had been in prison for so many years for a crime he did not commit, to be acquitted and released.

That may be overstating the case, but in reality, the media and NASCAR fans were pleased that the sanctioning body had corrected a mistake made in 1971.

The circumstances were somewhat odd, but then, given the NASCAR legislation passed 53 years ago, perhaps not so illogical.

The ruling that overturned Allison’s win at the time was based on a competitive situation created by NASCAR. 1971 was the first year of the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. sponsorship. of NASCAR’s premier series, which was to be known as the Winston Cup Grand National Series.

At the end of the year, the sanctioning body announced that its Winston Cup races would feature cars competing in its newly formed Grand American Series, built for the smaller Detroit-built muscle cars such as Ford’s Mustang and Chevrolet’s Camaro.

“We believe the sport will benefit from fans seeing smaller cars compete against larger cars on short tracks,” was the official announcement from NASCAR.

Not everyone believes this will be the case. Especially Martinsville Speedway President Clay Earls.

“I will not allow Grand American cars in my races,” he said. “No offense to those drivers, but it’s a separate division and shouldn’t be mixed up with the Winston Cup.”

He was by no means alone.

The polarizing event came on August 6, 1971 at the Myers Brothers Memorial at Bowman-Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, one of the most legendary short tracks in NASCAR history.

It was a Grand American-Grand National combination. And as you might imagine, the smaller, faster, more nimble Grand American cars didn’t meet much resistance.

Allison, whose later career catapulted him to superstardom, led the dominance of the smaller cars with a win in the Mustang. Seven of the top 10 finishers were occupied by Grand American cars in what could easily be described as a rout.

“You know, I thought this was going to happen,” runner-up Richard Petty said. “They have an advantage on short tracks. This is obvious. After all, they race for a hobby and we race for a living.”

Apparently, NASCAR felt the same way. He refused to give the win to Allison, a decision he made because he couldn’t let a Grand American car win since it was just a show car in a Cup race.

Alison said: “Nobody told us we were just an exhibition.”

No one told anyone either.

There was no official Cup winner at Bowman-Gray. And so it will be for the next 53 years.

However unfairly Alison was treated in the minds of many, the situation escalated in a very short time. NASCAR’s separate-but-equal competition policy, as it became known, was ignored — and by the sanctioning body itself.

Little Lund raced regularly in a Grand American Camaro owned by Ronnie Hopkins. Lund won at the short tracks in Hickory, North Carolina, on August 29 and at the North Wilkesboro track on November 21.

He was not denied a Cup win in either event. The NASCAR record book clearly shows that he earned two of his five Cup victories in 1971 at the aforementioned tracks.

Then there was the case of Ray Elder, a veteran racer from the West Coast. He won the Winston Cup races at Riverside Speedway in 1971 and 1972, but because he was competing for the Winston West Championship, his wins were credited to that track.

The 1972-75 NASCAR record books list Elder’s wins as part of Winston West. But in 1976 they were properly changed to the Cup.

Given that, first, Lund easily retained credit for the Cup wins, and second, that NASCAR itself changed its record books to accommodate Elder, there’s reason to understand the concerns and questions about the dismissive attitude of Alison.

Over the years, questions have remained about the 1971 race. The thought that NASCAR was unfair to Allison (or perhaps extracted a penalty for unexplained reasons) persists.

Allison himself has said many times that he should have been awarded the Cup victory. But I can say that as many times as I’ve discussed the subject with him, he’s never been belligerent or hostile to NASCAR.

And now, 53 years later, why did NASCAR relent and give Allison this 85th win, which puts him fourth on the all-time list?

Perhaps because Bowman-Gray will be the site of the 2025 Busch Light Clash and the last thing NASCAR wanted was to be bombarded by fans and media over the aftermath of the 1971 race; certainly not the best public relations situation.

Or perhaps it felt the right thing to do was to do justice to the aging Alison, 86.

In reality, it doesn’t matter. The majority of the NASCAR fraternity, drivers, fans and media agree that the sanctioning body did the right thing.

It made right wrong. Corrects a bug.

And for that he deserves all the credit.

Steve Wade has been in journalism since 1972, when he began his newspaper career at the Martinsville (Va.) Bulletin. He spent more than 40 years in motorsports journalism, first with the Roanoke Times-World News and later as publisher and vice president of NASCAR Scene and NASCAR Illustrated.

Steve has won multiple state sports writing awards and several more from the National Motorsports Press Association for his motorsports coverage, articles and column writing. For several years, Steve was a regular guest on “NASCAR This Morning” on FOX Sports Net, and he co-authored, with Tom Higgins, the biography “Junior Johnson: Brave In Life.”

In January 2014, Steve was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame. And in 2019, he received the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s Squier-Hall Award for Excellence in Motorsports Journalism. In addition to writing for Frontstretch, Steve is also the co-host of The Scene Vault Podcast.