The Davey Allison story for Edge

[Outdoor Writer]

Okay, here's the incident about Davey Allison & the same model Mossberg shotgun mentioned in your ad ....

More than 30 years ago (mid to late 1980s), Buckmasters held an annual deer hunt at the Sportsman's Lodge in Alabama. I was fortunate to be invited to three of the Buckmaster Classics. The attendees were a mix of celebrities who were mostly pro sports types, outdoor writers, locals and several Buckmaster contest winners. One of the sports guys who attended every year was noted NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Davey Allison. One year I was teamed up with Davey, Craig Boddington, Jim Varney (Ernest Saves. Christmas, etc.) & two locals for the "olympics" that was held annually. Then the next year, Davey & I bunked together in the same room and became friends and sometimes talked on the phone later.

Now fast forward to Nov. 1992 and the PYROIL 500K at Phoenix International Raceway 

My oldest son's pal, Jimmie, from Durango, CO was in town that week, so I called Davey. He left three comped pit passes at the PIR office for me. We were in the pits just prior to the start of the race when I noticed Davey walking alone in front of the pits on his way for the driver introductions. I asked Keith & Jimmie if they wanted his autograph on their programs. Even thought they were both about 30 then, they were glad to get it. So we headed toward Davey. After we did our preliminary "hellos" and handshakes, he started to sign the programs. In the meantime, he asked me if I heard about our mutual friend Ben Lee dying in car wreck a short time before. He said the wreck happened in the exact same place Lee's daughter had died in a different accident a couple years earlier. As he started telling me a story about a turkey hunt he & Lee had done just prior to his death, a rather large crowd, also wanting autographs, started gathering around us. While he continued signing autographs, he went on with the tale.... 

Lee had recently bought one of the Mossberg Ultramags and wanted Davey to use it on their hunt, which he did. They were all set up with Lee doing the calling a few yards behind Davey. A gobbler suddenly appeared. Davey shot and only wounded the bird. Lee began yelling for him to shoot again. Davey yelled, "I can't see him! You shoot him." 

When he shot the first time, he wasn't expecting the shotgun to kick like it did. It drove his right thumb into his nose, breaking it and causing his eyes to water badly. Lee finished off the bird, and they headed to the nearest hospital to get Davey's nose rearranged.

At this point in telling us the story, Davey is cracking up, and so are we.

The crowd started really jostling us, so we bade goodbye and got away from it. Davey won the race that day; a few months later, he was killed when he crashed his helicopter at Tallladega Speedway. 

Here's a memory from his crew chief, Larry McReynolds. The bold part is about how he was when telling us the tale while still signing autographs for the crowd. 

"Davey was the most focused individual I've ever been around and he was focused on whatever he was doing. If we went up in the lounge of the truck and he was eating lunch, I was wasting my time trying to talk to him while he was eating lunch because his focus at that minute was eating that lunch. If he was talking to a friend about a fishing or hunting trip, I was wasting my time standing there until he got done telling his hunting or fishing tale because that's what he was focused on. "Yeah, I used to get so frustrated because it's like, 'Man, we need to talk about our race car. I don't care about deer or fish or what you're eating for lunch, we need to talk.' But, when he turned his attention to our conversation or driving that race car or working on that race car, you couldn't have asked for a more focused individual, just like all the other things that he did. "Davey was a very positive individual and he was a great role model. I think I still today try to live off of his role model because I know when he got killed, the thing that drove me and that whole race team, and it was a small race team then, was the fact of how strong a person Davey Allison was."

Now you know the rest of the story..........

[Edge]

Good story, I don't follow NASCAR but I recall the chopper accident.

I'm picking the 835  up this weekend, I need to shoot a 3.5" just to see if it's something I'd consider hunting with.

[wish2hunt]

10 hours ago, Edge said:

Good story, I don't follow NASCAR but I recall the chopper accident.

I'm picking the 835  up this weekend, I need to shoot a 3.5" just to see if it's something I'd consider hunting with.

Watch the nose. 😄

[Outdoor Writer]

12 hours ago, Edge said:

Good story, I don't follow NASCAR but I recall the chopper accident.

I'm picking the 835  up this weekend, I need to shoot a 3.5" just to see if it's something I'd consider hunting with.

I'm not much into car races either. My son Keith has always been an avid fan of NASCAR but not so much with the others like Indy types or Formula 1. Jimmie was also a fan. So that's why I had Davey get me the pit passes.  

Davey's death was sad for a lot of folks. The way he died was ironic, considering his occupation and how he tempted fate every time he climbed into #28 and hurtled around a track at more than 200 mph. Several years later at Daytona, such a fate claimed Dale Earnhardt Sr, who was also an attendee at the Buckmaster Classics. He was a lot older than Davey was at the time of his death, however. Dale was 49 & Davey was only 32, basically just about reaching the top of the sport with lots of gas still in his tank, so to speak. 

If you decide to test drive the 835 with full load 3.5s, remember this story and be ready. 😂Insert other media

[Swivelhead]

IIRC, a hot 3.5" 12 gauge turkey load is 60+ ft. lbs. of recoil.  About the equivalent of a 458 Winchester.

[Edge]

If I drop a 3.5" she'll in the 835 then hand it to the wife to shoot, I'm still testing it, right?

😁

[wish2hunt]

22 minutes ago, Edge said:

If I drop a 3.5" she'll in the 835 then hand it to the wife to shoot, I'm still testing it, right?

😁

You might need to go to ER to get your nose fixed after that.

[elkaholic]

If you've shot a 10 ga.   then the 3.5 will only hurt if you forget how to shoulder a shotgun.

[Outdoor Writer]

51 minutes ago, Edge said:

If I drop a 3.5" she'll in the 835 then hand it to the wife to shoot, I'm still testing it, right?

😁

And be prepared for a divorce. 🤣 

Shooting 3" mags w/steel shot out of my 20 ga. Citori without a recoil pad on a goose hunt in Illinois was plenty enough for this little dude. even with my heavy coat on. By the end of the third day, my shoulder & arm were a very coloroful painting of varius blacks, blues, purples, reds, yellows and reds. The only other time that happened to me was on a dove hunt near Navajoa in Mexico. On that one, I used the outfitter's 12 ga. Citori and put about 100 'cartuchos' through it each of the three days we hunted in shirtsleeves. On the third day, I folded a towel as a pad and taped it to my shoulder with duct tape. It still hurt. 🤬

[Edge]

32 minutes ago, wish2hunt said:

You might need to go to ER to get your nose fixed after that.

Neither my 45-70 or .300 H&H have a recoil pad. She'll be fine.