Donnie Allison recalls drama with Cale Yarbrough over 1979 Daytona 500

“And there’s a fight between Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison! The tempers, overflowing. They are angry. They know they have lost. And what a bitter defeat.”

Those words have echoed throughout NASCAR history ever since they were spoken at the end of the 1979 Daytona 500 by Ken Squier. The sport not only lost Squier, the voice of the moment but also Cale Yarborough, the cause of the entire incident in 2023.

This legendary moment has been told a thousand times in a thousand different ways. However, Donnie Allison knows what happened. He was part of it.

On SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Allison set the record straight on the whole ordeal.

“No. No,” Allison said when asked if he was over the wreck. “You know he kept me from winning the Daytona 500. Really for the third time, I should have won it. I’m sitting in the infield wrecked in Turn 4 three-quarters of a mile from the start/finish line. You see all the stuff in the paper, there’s stuff – all the reporters got their own idea. I saw a thing in the paper yesterday from Jenna Fryer and it stated we ganged up on him. We didn’t gang up on him. I got out of the car after the wreck and we had a few choice words and Bobby showed up and Cale went over and I was standing 20-25 feet away.”

Donnie Allison breaks down legendary Daytona 500 fight

With Donnie Allison wrecked, he got out of his car. The two were not close to each other at first until Donnie’s brother Bobby showed up. Once that happened, Cale started to lose it and went after Bobby in his car.

“Cale hit Bobby through the window and I ran and grabbed Cale by the arm and said if you want to fight, I’m the guy you need to be fighting with,” Donnie explained. “By that time, Bobby got out. That’s what actually happened.

“I don’t care what reporters write, they weren’t there they listened to other people’s conversation. I’ve told this story since 1979 and if you go back and listen to what I said then and what I say now, it is exactly the same I have not changed one word in it. That’s the only thing that gets me. Cale and I talked several times after the incident. Lot of people don’t know that Bobby appealed the deal because they fined us all three $6,000 a piece and they put Bobby and I on probation.”

There are few sports moments as iconic as the 1979 Daytona 500. It would lead to NASCAR becoming the behemoth it turned into throughout the late 1980s and into the early 2000s.

All of those extra stands that were built in that time, the ones still there and the ones that have since been removed, all of the sold-out crowds, if you wanted to make it simple, you can point to one race. Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough were fierce adversaries.