Bobby Allison Awarded 85th Cup Series Win 53 Years After The Race

Bobby Allison CI.jpg
#15 Bobby Allison battling #28 Buddy Baker in 1979 or 1980. Image: Ted Van Pelt via Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
NASCAR legend Bobby Allison has been awarded his 85th career Cup Series win - over 53 years after a controversial race that was stripped from him at Bowman Gray Stadium on the 6th of August 1971.

We know that the headline to this article looks like it would not be out of place for an April Fool's joke - except that it is 100% true. 53 years after crossing the finish line first at Bowman Gray Stadium, Bobby Allison has been awarded the win for the NASCAR Cup event. For over half a century, that famous race at the Bowman Gray Stadium has been a hot topic of conversation in the NASCAR community.

But what happened?

Throughout the late 60s and early 70s, the NASCAR Cup cars would occasionally be joined on the ovals and road courses by the smaller Grand American cars.


The Grand American car list featured entries from the likes of Ford with their new Mustangs, Chevrolet with their Camaros, AMC with their new Javelins, Mercury with the Cougars and Pontiac with the now legendary TransAm. Several Grand American cars were former SCCA Trans-Am cars. These cars were thoroughly overhauled and re-engineered to meet the NASCAR safety rules and weight limits.

The engines used to power these American pony cars were initially restricted to a 5.0-litre displacement. That limit very quickly found itself on the scrap heap when the dreadful reliability of the Grand American racers was realised. That realisation eventually led to an increase to a 6-litre maximum capacity, and this helped with the performance gap in the NASCAR cup cars as well as stabilising the reliability issues all of the teams had been having.

2011 NASCAR Hall Of Famer, Bobby Allison, made the jump to a Grand American Ford Mustang for the race meeting that would push him into the spotlight. Allison ended up beating the entire NASCAR Cup Car field and leading well over half of the laps raced, with the final total being counted at 138 out of 200. NASCAR's most successful driver in history, Richard Petty, came home second just a few seconds behind Allison.


Allison rightfully went to Victory Lane and was allowed to lift his trophy like every other winner. However, the win was not counted as an official win in the history of NASCAR with the reasoning of the Grand American cars not being NASCAR Cup Car competition.

The final decision was that there was to be no winner. No one was awarded the Cup win for that race despite it being an official part of the 1971 schedule. Despite Allison's shared dominance with Richard Petty in a Cup Car that year, he was not driving one in the mixed field, which meant that he was not credited as a Cup Series winner for that race.

53-year Wait For A Win​

In a shocking turn of events, after fifty-three years, the result has been changed, and Allison has been recognised as the official winner of the event as of October 2024. With this win now credited to him, Allison stands with 85 Cup Wins to his name, pushing him up the rankings by one position to claim fourth place of all time, displacing Darrell Walltrip.


The change in result for the 1971 contest comes at a turning point for the track as the Bowman Gray stadium circuit is returning to the Cup Series schedule for the 2025 racing season. The historic short track in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, will host an event labelled as 'The Clash' and will be the first time teams can put rubber to the tarmac in 2025.

Not only will the track be returning to the championship, but 2025 will be the first time since that controversial race In 1971 that the Bowman Gray Stadium will play a part on the Cup Series calendar.

What do you think about the overturning of the result? Was it the right decision or had it been too long? Let us know in the comments below!
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Connor Minniss
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Comments

"...displacing Daniel Walltrip."


Did you mean Darrell Waltrip?

And, FTR, it was not Winston Cup back then; the top tier was NASCAR Grand National, and they still ran at many local tracks. In the late sixties my best friend and I were at the Montgomery Speedway every Saturday night during the season, mostly local and regional events, Grand National ran there twice a year. After the race you could cross the track and mingle with the drivers and crew in the pits, no doubt the drivers would rather be back at the hotel for beer and a shower but they stayed, tired and sweaty, for autographs and photos. (In those days the speedway, a half mile oval, had no armco in T1 and T2; it was disconcerting when you first saw a car disappear over the top ...to reappear a minute later on the back straight, having driven on a farm road through a pecan orchard to get there.)
 
Maybe nitpicking, but "The Clash" also technically isn't part of the Cup championship - it's a pre-season non-points exhibition race prior to the actual season opening Daytona 500. It's had different locations and formats over the years (also held at Daytona for most of that, then most recently at the L.A. Coliseum).

Anyway, I think it's really cool that they're having it at an old school track that some of the sport's legends raced at. This and the return of North Wilkesboro for the annual "all star" race really have that "going back to roots" vibe.

I'm not sure how I feel about changing a race result over half a century later, but... good for Bobby Allison. Legendary driver, endured more than his share of pain and tragedy, and always seems like a great guy.
 
I would allow him to do some celebratory donuts at the next NASCAR race. Although, based on the photo above, I don't think he can do that anymore... But that would be cool: hand over the trophy to Allison then let him get in a car and spin his heart out!

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Thing is, Waltrip was robbed of a victory too. The North Wilkesboro race Brett Bodine won in 1990 was actually Waltrip's, as per the latter's autobiography. There was a scoring error they never apparently fixed because when Waltrip went up to whoever the top official was at the time, the person said "How many wins do you have? Look at that guy, see how happy he is with his first win..." or something to that effect, and let it be.
 
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Thing is, Waltrip was robbed of a victory too. The North Wilkesboro race Brett Bodine won in 1990 was actually Waltrip's, as per the latter's autobiography. There was a scoring error they never apparently fixed because when Waltrip went up to whoever the top official was at the time, the person said "How many wins do you have? Look at that guy, see how happy he is with his first win..." or something to that effect, and let it be.
Actually the winner was Bodine ! Watch this video and you will see that even if at the time Mr. France didn't want to bother checking, in reality Bodine's win is legit.
 
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OverTake
Premium
It's pretty wild that they changed it after all these years, but it certainly feels like the right decision. It probably would have been much more controversial if it meant taking the win from someone else - so this was really a no-risk, high-reward situation in my book, and I think it's great that they made it right even after all this time :)

See various multiclass events, such as the 2003 24 Hours of Spa when Freisinger won the race overall in an N-GT car against the faster top-class GTs or McLaren's 1995 Le Mans win in a GT1 against the WSC-class prototypes.
 

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