Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 5, 1990 TAG: 9005050242
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Randy King
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
TALLADEGA, Ala. - For Bobby Allison and Neil Bonnett, that incident tells a story.
A sad story.
Two men. Two friends. Two drivers who, because of crash-related head injuries, may never steer a race car again.
Neither, of course, would dare admit that. Race car drivers are a mule-headed bunch, almost as stubborn as the concrete walls they run between every Sunday.
"Yeah, we don't give up," said Allison. "We don't know how to.
"We all want to race. I wanted to race at Pocono [Pa.]. I don't remember what happened, but I'm sure paying a huge price for it now."
Allison, 52, hasn't raced since June 19, 1988, the day his car was T-boned in the driver's side door at Pocono Raceway.
Despite nearly two years of extensive rehabilitation, during which he has made remarkable progress, Allison no longer is the same man who hopped in his car on that fateful Father's Day in Long Pond, Pa.
For Allison, the words come a tad slower, the walk is marked by a noticeable limp, the memory banks still are void of pre-Pocono 1988.
"I feel fortunate that the Good Lord has allowed me to be here," Allison said. "I have my good days and I have my bad days. But when those days come, I try extra hard.
"It's kind of ironic, but I got into racing after a garage accident. I crushed my left hand when I dropped a transmission on it. It broke the concrete under my hand, so you know what it did to my hand.
"Blood was shooting out everywhere. The doctor in Miami fixed the hand up, and nine weeks later I said that if I'm going to get hurt, it's going to be in a car.
"I didn't have to take it as far as I did," said Allison, forcing a grin.
Allison now watches as Bonnett goes through a similar experience. Bonnett still is trying to recover part of his memory after a hard lick at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway 33 days ago.
"Fortunately, Neil doesn't have any physical damage to deal with," Allison said. "But I could tell Neil was struggling to get that last 2 or 3 percent of his memory back. It's just the little things that he said that told me he was struggling.
"Two years ago, all of that would have been over my head. But since I've been through that deal of my own, I can understand things like that better."
On Friday at Talladega Superspeedway, an emotional Bonnett met the media for the first time since the crash that left him with acute amnesia.
"The doctor told me Wednesday I couldn't get into a race car for the remainder of the season . . . for a year," said Bonnett, who looked marvelous, at least on the outside.
"For me, it's tomorrow and the next day and the next day.
"You know, I've broken stuff a lot of times in my career. And I've never listened to a doctor in my life. I've got back in cars. I've never been concerned with getting hurt.
"But, you know, this deal is crazy. When Dale Earnhardt's pilot flew me home [from Darlington], I didn't know my kids from the people at Hangar 1 in Birmingham, and I walked to the car because I didn't realize it was my children. Then, my mother and daddy came to visit me and I asked them who that was.
"That got my attention. If that doctor tells me one day, two days, or a year, or never, that's the only time I'm ever going to listen."
Bonnett suffers from swelling of the brain. When the swelling goes down, recall comes much easier.
"It just takes time," said the 43-year-old driver. "If I try to make it happen, it doesn't.
"Like I said, I'm listening to doctors for a change. I never listened to 'em before, and I didn't mind walking with a limp. But I'm not going to go around not knowing who anybody is, or not knowing where I'm at or what's going on."
As in Allison's case, doctors can't predict when - or if - Bonnett will regain all of his memory.
"One of the medical mysteries that still exists is if you get a bump on the head, or when you get a whiplash injury, how long it's going to take to heal. Nervous tissue is the slowest growing and the slowest healing part of the body," said Dr. Jerry Punch, ESPN's NASCAR commentator and a physician in Bunnell, Fla.
"There's no way to predict a timetable. Neil just needs to give this thing time."
Like Allison, Bonnett is a frustrated man.
"Bobby told me, `You know everybody always comes up and says, `Boy, you sure look good.' [But] they can't see the way it is from the inside out.' "
"Worst frustration I ever had was trying to figure who my family was . . . their names . . . and if that was really my kids and my mother and daddy. I thought I'd been frustrated before, but I maxed out this time."
Allison and Bonnett both said the most difficult part is going to the race track - and watching.
"The hardest thing is seeing that car leave the pits without me in it," said Allison, who now owns his own racing team, but still hopes to drive again.
"It's tough to watch those cars go 'round and not be in one," Bonnett said. "I still want to get into race cars.
"I doubt I will come back for the race [Sunday's Winston 500].
"But I'll be watching."
Maybe forever.
by CNB