He Walks The Straight And Narrow

A month later he won the Atlanta 500—but afterward was so weak he couldn't get out of the car. By then he was so skinny that "if I smiled, my pants would fall down. I went on a program then of what I call 'strength conservation.' I ate really picky—only the red meat. And then I did nothing until it was time to get in the car. Saved every bit of strength I had to drive. I stopped working in the garage all night. I just said, 'If it ain't done by evening, it ain't gettin' done.' "

Allison won five races that year—finishing second in the Winston Cup standings once again, this time to Yarborough. But he was speeding back toward full strength. Which is where he is now, and proving it. His most satisfying race this year was one he didn't win. It was the World 600 at Charlotte in May, the longest and often the most grueling race on the circuit. It was 92� that day, and the exhaust pipes on his Buick broke about halfway into the race.

"I had some doubts about his endurance before then, but not after that race," says crew chief Nelson. "When those pipes broke, the floorboard of the car got red-hot—at least 1,000 degrees. Exhaust fumes blew right in the car, which is nothing to laugh at, and he sat in that car for over 300 miles like that. He finished third. A lot of guys in cars that were running perfect had to have relief drivers."

"I am the toughest," says Allison matter-of-factly. "I am."

He's also the racingest driver out there. In the week between the Budweiser 400 at Riverside and the Gabriel 400 at Brooklyn, Mich. in June, he hopped around the country racing short tracks. One of them, on a Tuesday night in Slinger, Wis., showed what Allison is all about.

He hadn't seen Slinger Speedway since he was 17, when he spent the summer of 1955 living at Slinger with an aunt and uncle and watched the races from a hillside. What had once been a tiny dirt oval with no barriers was now a paved, banked short track—the fastest quarter-mile track in the country—with a solid concrete wall around it.

The June Slinger Nationals consist of two 75-lap races for Late Model Sportsman cars—ominous-looking swoopy beasts, mostly Camaros and Firebirds, with noses like snowplow blades and chopped so low the windshields are mere slits. The exhaust pipes exit through holes in the body just behind the front wheels, black headers that look like cannon barrels. Every time the driver backs off from the throttle, the pipes boom and belch yellow flames that light up the track in the night and cast shadows on the wall. Late Model Sportsman cars are the roots of Grand National cars, and the Slinger Speedways are the marrow of the Darlingtons and Daytonas. No Grand National driver anywhere knows his roots like Allison.

Allison's Camaro arrived late from Mississippi, so he missed practice and had to start the first heat from the 11th and last row. The car misfired for much of the race, because a spark plug wire had come loose, while Allison dodged spin after spin. He was 10th at the end.

In the second heat a chain-reaction crash on the front straight on the 51st lap commenced as Allison was coming off Turn 4, his foot to the floor and heading toward the thick of the trouble. By then the track was obscured in white smoke from locked brakes and sliding cars. Somebody's blue fender flew out of the haze as Allison disappeared into it.

The owner of the Camaro was watching from the start-finish line. "I'll tell ya," he said, "it was the best piece of driving I ever seen, Bobby gettin' through all that without hittin' anyone."