By T.J. Buffenbarger
(October 5, 2025) — Bobby Allen was a figure in the sport of sprint car racing that didn’t just transcend generations. He linked eras of the sport when Outlaw sprint car racing rocketed towards being the top echelon of the sport.
The existence of galivanting around the country to take on the biggest paying sprint car racing today was because of people like Allen. Having the foresight to move from Florida to Pennsylvania because big things were happening in racing up there, then to branch out as others traveled from place to place in search of the next big event.
Allen was one of the first national drivers I learned to recognize growing up. My Dad often spoke of going to a big weekend race at Crystal Motor Speedway in Crystal, Michigan in the late 70’s, and one of the hallmarks of that being a big race was Allen towing from Pennsylvania to participate.
Accomplishments in racing are just fraction of Allen’s legacy. Skill, resourcefulness, with plenty of mischief mixed in made the man nicknamed “Scruffy” a larger than life figure my entire life in the sport. Crazy stories engines being built in hotel rooms, Allen’s appearance from working on his own equipment, and still building most of his own equipment out of necessity in an era where store bought equipment was becoming more commonplace added to the aura that surrounded him.
I’m not the only Gen-Xer that grew up in the sport and made sure I had the VCR at the ready to record the episode of American Sports Cavalcade where Allen won the Nationals. In a time where there where live televised winged sprint car races on dirt were not a thing, many of us who could not be there wore that tape out while those that were still recall that night the same way they could walking out of the Marion County Fairgrounds that night.
Downstairs in my office there are very few mementos. No shelves a die cast cars, t-shirts, or other trinkets exist in that space. All that is present is few clippings, photos, awards, and a copy of National Speed Sport News I had Allen sign following his 1990 Knoxville Nationals win after an All Star Circuit of Champions program at Limaland Motorsports Park.
I can remember clearly getting that paper signed that night, Allen flipping the paper over to look at the headline and shaking his head. It was easy to pick up that the victory was still sinking in, seeing his name on the cover of Speed Sport as the winner of the biggest event in Sprint Car Racing.
While not being present at that Nationals in 1990, I did get to see him win the Brad Doty Classic one year later, which is from what I can recall the biggest race I saw him win in person.
Allen’s legacy will continue to influence the sport with the pair of Shark Racing entries. Another moment where I can remember exactly where I was when Allen’s name came up was talking to Brett Mann about how Allen had hatched a plan to put Logan Schuchart and Jacob Allen in World of Outlaws entries on the road, collecting tow money for two entries while working out of a single trailer while they built up the program. I dismissed the idea until the Shark Racing entries appeared in Florida a year later.
The idea felt crazy at the time, and there were moments as the team was barely making it up and down the road it seemed crazy. There is no way those young men at the point in their careers they are today without Allen’s guidance of how to get up and down the road on less than a shoestring budget.
We should have recognized that Allen had already been the teacher of many others. People like his brother Joey Allen, Tim Kuhn, Mann, and others were all connected to Allen in various ways, and those are just a handful I could think of late on a Sunday evening.
Shark Racing going from those rough formative years to seeing Schuchart win the Eldora Million felt like a second opportunity to see the sport of sprint car racing evolve from barely getting up and down the road to blossoming into something greater.
During that assent Allen was there every step of the way, just a little slower around the pit area than in the late 70’s.
While it might be tempting to say there will never be someone like Bobby Allen again in our sport. The truth is every driver that pounds up and down the road to big cities and small towns across sprint car racing has a little bit of that same resourcefulness in them, and the stories will live on as long as there are people pounding up and down those roads to do so.