Hueytown: Home of the Alabama Gang

This quiet suburb west of Birmingham gave NASCAR one of its legendary dynasties. In the early nineteen sixties, a young driver named Bobby Allison arrived from Miami, discovered Alabama's dirt tracks, and kept winning. He brought along his brother Donnie, and friend Red Farmer soon joined them in Hueytown, calling themselves the Alabama Gang.

Over the next three decades the Gang grew to include Bobby's son Davey Allison and neighbor Neil Bonnett. Bobby himself racked up eighty-five Cup victories, three Daytona five hundreds, and the nineteen eighty-three championship. The main street through town is named Allison-Bonnett Memorial Drive, honoring members of the Allison family and Neil Bonnett. Davey died in a helicopter accident at Talladega in nineteen ninety-three. Neil Bonnett was killed practicing for the nineteen ninety-four Daytona five hundred. The losses were hard, but Hueytown still claims the Alabama Gang as its own.