Allison Wins Again at Charlotte

Davey Allison shook off last-minute engine troubles and overpowered the field on the way to a dominating victory at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, the longest race on the Winston Cup circuit.

Ninety minutes before the race, Allison’s crew changed the engine in his Ford Thunderbird after discovering that the exhaust valve stem seals had come apart.

“The car would have been smoking like a mosquito sprayer, so we had to take it out,” Allison said. “I thought I was just going to throw up on the spot. But I talked to some of the boys in the engine shop . . . and they said this new engine was a twin to the one we had in it.”

Allison led six times for 264 of the 400 laps on the 1.5-mile layout.

The victory, worth $137,100, completed a lucrative stay at Charlotte, N.C., for Allison, who won $325,000 a week earlier for his victory in The Winston, the circuit’s all-star race.

Allison pulled away from Dale Earnhardt after a restart with 10 laps to go, built his edge to 10 car-lengths after only one lap and kept stretching it the rest of the way. Allison, who claimed the first official victory for Ford in 10 races this season, wound up 1.2 seconds ahead of Ken Schrader.