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Fire on Fridays: No, NASCAR Won’t Set a New Precedent & Give Back Wins

This week, NASCAR historians around the world were jumping for joy at the news of Bobby Allison officially earning his 85th career NASCAR Cup Series win.

Most fans familiar with the story have long recognized Allison as an 85-time winner, but NASCAR itself officially recognized the victory, updating the record books to reflect the win. That moves Allison into sole possession of fourth on the all-time wins list, which is big because it breaks the tie he had with longtime rival Darrell Waltrip, who sits at 84 wins and moves down into fifth on the list.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Allison won the 1971 Myers Brothers 250 at Bowman Gray Stadium, but because he was driving a Grand American car instead of a Grand National car (back then NASCAR combined the two series at times for bigger fields), NASCAR disallowed the victory.

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NASCAR Recognizes Bobby Allison's 1971 Bowman Gray Win

With the announcement that Bowman Gray is returning to the NASCAR schedule to host the Busch Light Clash in 2025, it wouldn’t have been surprising if there were renewed talks about the controversy. NASCAR and Bowman Gray could’ve had the desire to rectify the situation before returning to the quarter-mile so fans wouldn’t bring it up yet again.

As my colleague Luken Glover stated, it only took 53 years, but NASCAR and Bowman Gray finally acknowledged Allison as the winner.

The awarding of Allison’s 85th win has also led viewers to renew pleas for certain races where a winner was disqualified to have those wins restored to the original winner. Such instances include wins as recently 2018 and as old as 1990.

Some of those not-victories include Regan Smith’s 2008 victory at Talladega Superspeedway, where Smith was penalized for going below the yellow line on the final lap despite evidence he may have been forced by Tony Stewart. Stewart was credited with the win, and Smith was relegated to the last car on the lead lap. The win would have been the first in Smith’s Cup career.

A similar situation occurred in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2018, this time at Daytona International Speedway. With a huge run off of turn 4, Justin Haley made a bold three-wide move below Kyle Larson and Elliott Sadler to win the race. However, his left-side tires dipped ever so slightly below the yellow line and Larson (who beat Sadler to the line) was awarded the win.

Other issues fans have called into question are Sonoma Raceway in 1991, where Ricky Rudd was black flagged from the win for spinning Davey Allison, and North Wilkesboro Speedway in 1990, where Brett Bodine won amid a scoring controversy in which Waltrip believed he should have won the race (which would be his 85th win).

At Talladega in 2016, Brennan Poole made it back to the finish line first for what would’ve been the first Xfinity win of his career. However, it was determined that the caution came out before Poole got back to the stripe, and Sadler (who was involved in the last-lap wreck that brought out the caution) was awarded the win based on when the caution came out.

There are numerous other victories some would like to see restored. If Allison got his win back, surely that means NASCAR will start righting its past wrongs … right?

Well, I hate to be the one to burst anyone’s bubble, but Allison will likely be the only driver to get a win restored — at least, the only one any time soon.

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2-Headed Monster: Are NASCAR Championships Legitimate?

Allison’s Bowman Gray victory is a very special circumstance, as it has long been dubbed The Race That Nobody Won. Allison’s victory was disallowed, yes, but second-place Richard Petty did not inherit the race win as if Allison was disqualified. Up until Wednesday, the race was the only one in NASCAR history that was recorded without a winner.

What happened to Allison was only a restoration of the official recognition of his victory. He has always been the first-place finisher of the race.

It’s different than the situations that befell Haley, Rudd, Smith, Poole, Waltrip and more. In the final results, none of those guys finished first. To go back and change those results would take time, as others’ win totals would have to change, points would have to be updated, etc.

The update to the points might be the bigger issue. Each and every race has an impact on the championship, and some are bigger than others. Drivers raced for the title based on the way the points were at the time. Sure, it might be one or three points (depending on the system utilized at the time), but such a snowball effect could drastically change that season’s points, and suddenly the drivers who finished second in the title now wish they had those races back to change their strategy of points racing.

The same is true today with the advent of playoff racing. One point could be all the difference in someone advancing through the playoffs. Should finishing results be changed in the playoff era (such as the 2020 YellaWood 500), what’s to say there’s a shift in points in the fallout of the change actually eliminated a driver who advanced? Then we’re talking about potentially altering champions.

NASCAR, like all sports, makes officiating errors — anyone who has watched at all this season would know that. Bad calls are going to happen, and some calls, no matter how upsetting they are, are bound to happen.

Yes, I’m sure there are many who want to see Smith receive that Talladega win, or Haley that Daytona victory. But the decision to recognize Allison’s 1971 triumph is a completely different situation where the winner of the race simply didn’t receive credit. It does not and will not serve as any kind of catalyst toward getting those other results changed.

The focus here should be that this decision was rectified in the first place. It was absurd that we went 53 years with no winner in racing, a sport that always has a winner. Allison deserved the credit for his 85th win, and now he’s got it.

Let’s not use this as an opportunity to try to get other results that stemmed from penalties or scoring errors changed.

About the author

Frontstretch.com

Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and secondary short track writer. He also serves as an at-track reporter and assists with social media when he can. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight-choreographer-in-training in his free time.

You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.

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RCFX1

Why did it take 53 years to make a decision on the Allison win?

Kevin in SoCal

The article explained it was because Allison was not in a Cup car, so they didn’t count it as a Cup win. Why it took until now to fix, only NASCAR knows, but we can all make guesses.

Kevin in SoCal

Greg Biffle at Kansas was another controversial win that wasn’t mentioned here.

KS

I thank you as a lifelong Allison fan and, more importantly, an almost lifelong believer in simple logical reasoning. The comments on numerous sites regarding this decision is shocking even in this day and age. To finally read someone that puts it into proper context is refreshing to say the least. This event was an outlier like no other. It simply, and logically, does not compare to ANY of the events people are commenting on. Has NOTHING to do with “so and so got screwed, blah blah blah” That list is enormous and growing. Frustrating? yes- Fair or right? No But as different as night and day from this 1971 event that thankfully has been called as it should have been.