Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: SATURDAY, December 4, 1993 TAG: 9312040112 SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO SOURCE: Bob Zeller DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
There is the picture of Alan Kulwicki's orange-and-white Hooters hauler crossing the finish line after a slow final lap at Bristol International Raceway less than 24 hours after his death on April 1. And it's hard to forget the photograph from Talladega Speedway of the wreckage of Davey Allison's helicopter, held upright by a front-end loader.
I remember the shots of Rusty Wallace's Pontiac coming apart at Talladega in May, and Neil Bonnett's car turning upside down at the same track two months later in a frozen moment in time.
But the image that stands out above all is an obscure photograph distributed by a public relations representative in September of Bobby Allison and Stanley Smith standing together in a room at Lakeshore Rehabilitation Hospital in Birmingham, Ala.
Smith is wearing sunglasses. He is talking. Allison is listening. There is a broad smile on Allison's face and deep warmth in his eyes.
It is a picture of rejuvenation; a picture that expresses the thought that hope and goodwill can blossom despite the losses that overwhelmed the NASCAR family in 1993.
Here was Bobby Allison, nearly killed by a head injury suffered in a 1988 crash that ended his career and fresh off the loss of his second son in as many years, offering help and inspiration to a little-known racer laid low by the same fate - a near-fatal blow to the head in a racing accident.
Only weeks after the death of his beloved son, Davey, who was following in his footsteps, Bobby Allison went back to the same Birmingham hospital to visit Smith, and returned again and again to help Smith make a miraculous recovery.
It's hard to imagine a more noble, selfless act. One would think that Bobby Allison, after suffering his own brain injury and losing two sons to the same type of trauma, would shy away from another head-injury victim.
Yet there he was, giving of himself.
Smith's horrific injury in the July race at Talladega, where stock car racing seemed to reach meltdown, reminded us that the sport could exact its toll at any time.
As if the deaths of Kulwicki and Allison weren't enough, we had Bonnett - in his comeback race after three years of rehab for his own head injury - flipping and punching a hole in the catch fence. Earlier in the same race, Jimmy Horton tumbled off the track and walked away unhurt, while Smith, who seemed to have a far less violent ride in the same crash, nearly was killed.
All of this came in the wake of Davey Allison's fatal helicopter crash there less than two weeks earlier. And that was on the heels of the death of Kulwicki, NASCAR's reigning Winston Cup champion, gone in a flash when his plane fell out of the Tennessee sky for reasons still unknown.
It makes one want to set the clock back to a bright February afternoon, to a Daytona 500 with a final 50 laps that had everything, right down to that old-style Daytona finish we'd almost forgotten - a pass by Dale Jarrett at the end of the race to win it all.
But time marched on, as it had to, and in no time we faced a cold, rainy, abjectly depressing April morning at Bristol that featured a track news conference with folks we usually don't meet - sheriffs, county officials and Federal Aviation Administration investigators.
And then, as fans and participants were recovering from that tragedy, Allison's helicopter went down.
It seems incomprehensible that fate could demand more from the Kulwicki and Allison families. Gerald Kulwicki had lost a wife and a son, and now his second son. Bobby and Judy Allison had suffered through Bobby's accident and then lost another son, Clifford, in 1993. And now Davey.
Even as Dale Earnhardt, in the prime of his great career, battled his way to a sixth Winston Cup championship, the gravity of the twin tragedies was such that trophy No. 6 always will carry the memory of having been won the year Alan and Davey died.
And that's why I try to remember the photograph of Smith and Allison, because the spirit and warmth in Bobby Allison's face shows that no matter what happens, there are better days ahead.
Bob Zeller covers Winston Cup racing for this newspaper.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING