Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 14, 1993                   TAG: 9307140019
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MAST AT LOSS TO UNDERSTAND A TOUGH WEEK

"This all has been just really unbelievable," said Mast, the Winston Cup driver from Rockbridge Baths.

Mast has had better weeks. NASCAR drivers learn to live with losses, and the nature of their sport keeps tragedy potentially around the next turn. Being in the pits professionally is tough enough, but even the best reflexes are not enough to handle Mast's experiences of the past three days.

Mast's Ford "was a struggle all day" in the first Winston Cup race in New Hampshire on Sunday. Then, after finishing 16th in the Skoal Thunderbird, he got an urgent phone call from Rockbridge County.

Mast's home of 18 months had been damaged by fire that morning. Only the presence of his father, who was watering outdoor plants when an electrical explosion sent flames shooting through a window, kept the empty house from becoming a total loss.

It was 24 hours later when another call increased Mast's pain. Davey Allison had been critically injured when his helicopter crashed at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. Mast learned of Allison's death Tuesday morning, not long before insurance estimators started going through his damp, smoke-fouled home.

"When I got back here Sunday night from New Hampshire I thought things were pretty bleak," Mast said. "We'd been wiped out in the flood [1985], and then we built away from the [Maury] river. This time, we didn't lose much sentimental stuff. It was mostly smoke damage, I'd say about $50,000 to $80,000. Still, it's your home.

"Then you hear about Davey's crash, and that puts what happened here in perspective. My family wasn't caught in the fire. Nobody was hurt, thankfully. I just heard a little while ago that Davey had died. . . . It's just hard to fathom what that family has been through and what they're going through."

Bobby Allison, who suffered massive head injuries in a Winston Cup career-ending crash in 1988, and his wife, Judy, have lost two racing sons in less than a year. Davey's younger brother, Clifford, died in a wreck at Michigan International Speedway in August 1992.

Bobby's injury came at Pocono. A year ago this weekend, Davey was seriously injured when his car crashed and spun before flipping 12 times at the same track - the 2.5-mile tri-oval where the circuit heads Sunday.

Allison, 32, was more than a foe to Mast, 36. And they had more in common than their basic black Thunderbirds.

"Davey was one of my better friends, as far as drivers go," Mast said. "When you're competing, well, you just don't hang out together all that much. Davey and I were as close as you can get, considering that. His wife and his two little kids [ages 3 years and 11 months] just adored him.

"Davey was a great driver, a great man. He was a very religious guy. The kind of person Davey was, I know he's gone on to a better place now."

When Mast goes to Pocono this weekend, he knows he will remember Allison's racing crash from a year earlier.

"When I go through the tunnel at Pocono and into the turn where Davey started to spin, I'll remember what happened last year when Davey wrecked," the Rockbridge County driver said. "He started to spin up ahead of me last year, and then I went past and a couple of times around after that, I looked and they had that blue tarp up around Davey's car.

"That was the same thing they did with J.D. [McDuffie, who died in a 1991 crash] at Watkins Glen. They put that drape up to keep the cameras out, and I thought, `Oh, no, it's happened to Davey, too.' He came back the next week though. Now, this."

Twice in 3 1/2 months, NASCAR has lost a star away from the asphalt jungles they roar their way through most weekends. Alan Kulwicki, the 1992 Winston Cup champion, was killed April 1 in a plane crash. Allison, who already had 19 Winston Cup victories, died piloting his own helicopter.

"That's another thing that's tough to come to grips with, the irony of it all," Mast said. "We drive cars for a living, but Alan and now Davey die in aircraft. Statistics show air travel is much safer [than auto travel], and we have to travel by air. Physically, without air travel we just couldn't make what we have to do.

"It really doesn't matter how it happened though. It's a terrible thing. Davey was just a young guy. It's hard to understand why these things happen."

Keywords:
AUTO RACING FATALITY