Concord, NC —

Bobby Allen never had the biggest budget when he was racing, nor did he have the shiniest car. What he had, was sheer determination to win and a love of sprint car racing, which guided him to over four decades of success in the sport. He was another of the drivers that was truly an Outlaw long before the Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series came into being.

Allen, who originally was from Miami, Florida moved to the sprint car hot bed of Pennsylvania in the 1960’s, competed in the inaugural Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series 1978 season. He won two races with the series that year, including at the famed Eldora Speedway, his first career World of Outlaws win. He also was victorious at Warsaw Speedway in Indiana during the series debut season, en route to a third-place finish in the point standings.

During his career with the Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, Allen earned 25 A-Feature wins at 16 different tracks. He won a career-best five events with the series in 1982 and again in 1986. He finished in the Top-10 with the series in championship points in eight different seasons, despite never really focusing on the points, picking and choosing which events he would compete at, in true Outlaw fashion.

The biggest win of Allen’s career came in the 1990 Knoxville Nationals, when he won the most famed event in sprint car racing over three-time World of Outlaws champion Sammy Swindell. The upset win is still one of the most talked about in the history of the Knoxville Nationals. He also won the 1986 Eldora Nationals, along with countless races in the Central Pennsylvania area.

Allen was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Iowa in 1998

and finished his career with over 275 wins from coast-to-coast. He began racing winged super-modifieds in the early 1960’s and won his first sprint car race in 1964 at Medley Stadium in Florida. His last sprint car win came at Sharon Speedway in Ohio in 1998. He won track championships at Lincoln Speedway in Pennsylvania in 1967, as well as 1969 and 1970. He also won the track title at Susquehanna Speedway in 1969, as well as the MOSS (Midwest Outlaw Sprint Series) title in 1980.

Thoughts on the inaugural 1978 World of Outlaws season: “The first year that we raced, an ‘Outlaws’ race would be anything that paid $2,000 or more to-win. Back then, the promoter’s didn’t think they could pay that kind of money. We would go to a race and all of the drivers would show up and all of the promoters in the area would hear about it, then they would want us to race. We were bouncing back and forth and all over the place. People had never seen guys run the parts of the track that we did and run as aggressively as we did. There were just a handful of us and most of us had open trailers. We all helped each other. We’d have someone say, ‘Hey why don’t you come to our house and stay.’ We were gypsies. We did anything to get by.”

Thoughts on being an Outlaw long before the World of Outlaws was formed: “At that time, (Rick) Ferkel would travel around to certain races and I raced out of Pennsylvania, because it paid the most money. Every time there was a race in Ohio or somewhere paying more money, I would go out and run it and come back. I would go to Knoxville and Phoenix. They would give you deal money at Phoenix to go out to that race. Because I loved racing so much, I would always turn around and get back here (to Pennsylvania) to run a big show.”

Thoughts on Ted Johnson and the formation of the World of Outlaws in 1978: “I met Ted Johnson and he told us about how he would like to get a bunch of us together to go down the road and race. It sounded like a good deal and I really liked him. I tried to get a track up here (in Pennsylvania) to have us come up to race. I wanted a promoter up here to run it like they did in the old days, have posters and parades and the whole deal. I called Ted and they ran Lincoln (Speedway) and Susquehanna (Speedway). They had never seen guys like Chuck Amati and Sammy (Swindell), so they were pretty excited. Ted was the right guy to get that thing going at the beginning and did a good job with it.”

Thoughts on helping cultivate the idea of the “Kings of the Outlaws”: “They had a thing in Speed Sport about if they had a ‘King of the Outlaws’ it should be Doug Wolfgang, because he won 40 features and won more than anybody did. I said, ‘No way, it should be based off of money won.’ I called Ted Johnson and I told him we should find a way to do that and he said well how we can do that. There were only five of us traveling and he said he would keep track of who won the races that paid $2,000 or more. He talked to (Rick) Ferkel and others about this idea and it evolved from there.”

Thoughts on traveling all over the country to race: “I always wanted to travel and if a show paid more somewhere, I would go and run it. The guys in Pennsylvania always cried about the money and I said well you have to go and run another race track. I guess I showed them that I was a rebel all the time. I am from Miami, Florida and moved up here. I would go run a race track on Wednesday and if somewhere paid more money on a Friday, I would go there.”

Thoughts on racing for points and championships: “Points I didn’t like. I ran for myself and points tied you in to a certain place and you would miss certain races because you were chasing point. You would have to choose where to race. The points are so big now, that I would chase the points.”

Thoughts on the biggest challenge of the inaugural World of Outlaws season: “In the beginning, the promoters couldn’t dream of paying $2,000 to-win, but when they saw it and got the crowds and the excitement, people wanted to pay it. Then they would line up races and we were jumping from place to place. That’s the biggest challenge I think we had back then is that we were all over the place.”

Thoughts on the popularity of the World of Outlaws: “What made it so popular was that you had the home town tracks and other guys would come in there and run. People would always read about everyone in the papers, but had never seen them. Different guys drove different and when you put them all together, it would be a better show than they had ever seen before. When some of the guys came up here to run Lincoln and Susquehanna, the fans had never seen guys run the wall like that and dive into the corners and do the things that they did. Word of mouth just kept helping it get more popular.”

Thoughts on winning the 1990 Knoxville Nationals: “It probably will be the win that I remember the most, because everyone talks about it. Any big race that you win is special. I remember everyone would say, ‘Well that was the best thing ever happened, you winning that race, because (Steve) Kinser, Sammy (Swindell) or (Doug) Wolfgang didn’t win.’ They were always the big three and I was the lone ranger. That’s why I had so many fans. When I won the race there, everyone was clapping. I was just kind of like the guy living next door to you.”

Thoughts on the differences between the World of Outlaws in 1978 and the World of Outlaws today: “It’s more like NASCAR now, with the teams. The biggest change is that now it’s all business. Before it was racing and people just had a better time and looked out for each other more.”

Thoughts on his career and the sport of sprint car racing: “I loved it. I loved the people that I met. I loved the racing. The only thing I would do different better would be the help. I probably fell out of more races than anyone else, because I had kids go on the road with me, because that is all that I could hire. I had a million things happen because I didn’t have professional help. I washed the car and kept it clean, but they called me Scruffy because everything wasn’t clean. When I built a car at the beginning of the year, everything was new. As it ran along, I would put money in the motor and parts. I would do it all again. I loved it.”