Of the nearly 2,800 NASCAR Cup Series races held over 76 years, only one has been listed in the record books without a winner.
Until now.
On Wednesday, NASCAR adjusted its records to address what many experts and fans have considered a long-overdue injustice: Officially recognizing Hall of Famer Bobby Allison as the winner of the 1971 Myers Brothers Memorial at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C.
The dispute began 53 years ago over the car Allison used in that race. He got the prize money but never got the actual credit.
Now, the victory moves Allison, who has for decades argued he has 85 career victories, into sole possession of fourth place on NASCAR’s all-time wins list. Darrell Waltrip (84 wins) is now fifth instead of tied for fourth.
99.96% of all Cup races ever run have been won by someone
Not 100% because on this day in 1971, Bobby Allison won a race at Bowman-Gray in a car from the GrandAm Series that was supposed to be a field filler
Since then, the race is the only one not acknowledged to have a winner pic.twitter.com/74ePACdeQ7
— nascarman (@nascarman_rr) August 6, 2023
NASCAR chairman and CEO Jim France, along with senior advisor Mike Helton, visited the 86-year-old Allison on Wednesday to inform him of the news before NASCAR returns to Bowman Gray for its season-opening “Clash” exhibition race in February.
“For 53 years, the Myers Brothers Memorial was the only race run by NASCAR that did not have an official winner,” France said in a statement. “As we began preparations for the upcoming Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, the topic of that August 6, 1971 race returned to the forefront. We felt it was the right thing to officially recognize Bobby’s win and honor him as an 85-time NASCAR Cup Series winner. We are grateful for Bobby’s lifetime contributions to NASCAR.”
Allison won the race without any controversy, leading the final 138 laps to beat Richard Petty. He was given the trophy in victory lane.
@NASCAR Don’t you think it’s time to finally recognize Bobby Allison’s 85th win at @BGSRacing Bowman Gray Stadium. Here’s the photo of BA with Lorene Myers (Bobby Myers’ widow & @chocolatemyers3 mom) and Arlene Myers. pic.twitter.com/ghDTbiDymT
— caronmyers (@caronmyers) December 1, 2020
But the car Allison drove later came into dispute, because that year the Cup Series ran six “combination” races — a mix of Cup cars and what were known as smaller “Grand American” cars, which were lighter and more nimble.
Allison’s Grand American car, a Mustang, beat Petty’s Cup car, a Plymouth. In 2017, the veteran motorsports writer Al Pearce penned a story in which he quoted Petty as saying the win should not count.
“Bobby won, but shouldn’t have gotten credit for it,” Petty told Pearce. “The cars weren’t the same; those cars were too different. I shouldn’t have gotten credit, but Bobby shouldn’t have, either. That was a Cup race, and he wasn’t in a Cup car.”
But here’s where it gets sticky: NASCAR did count two combination race victories later that season for driver Tiny Lund, which have long been part of Lund’s career total. Additionally, the 1971 race has counted toward Allison’s career total of top-five finishes — just not his career victory total, even though he’s listed as the winner on the NASCAR-owned Racing Reference website.
In his story, Pearce described one point of contention as whether drivers were told a Grand American car victory would not count as a Cup win. He interviewed three drivers from the race who said that was never mentioned as a stipulation.
“I really hope that someday somebody will say, ‘Whoa, wait a minute; this is a true mistake,’” Allison told Pearce in the 2017 story. “Somebody will say, ‘How can we have a race without an official winner?’ I got the money and the trophy, and I’ve been told the race was in the record book for a year or two, then it wasn’t.’
“If NASCAR is a major sport, then Bowman Gray was a major race. And how can you have a major race without a winner?”
Now, at long last, it does.
(Photo: Greg Lovett / USA Today)
