His brother Donnie Allison was also a prominent driver, as were his two late sons, Clifford and Davey Allison. Bobby and Donnie's televised fistfight with Cale Yarborough at the 1979 Daytona 500 has been credited with exposing NASCAR to a nationwide audience. Allison was unusual for competing successfully with his own, low-budget team for much of his career.
Allison was born December 3, 1937, in Miami, Florida. He entered his first race as a senior at Archbishop Curley-Notre Dame High School in Miami. Since he was only 17, he had to have his parents' permission. When his mother approved, Allison assumed it was permanent, but she thought it was for only one race.[citation needed] After he graduated from high school in 1955, Allison's mother thought she would derail his racing interest by sending him to Wisconsin to work for Mercury Outboard Motors, where her brother-in-law, Jimmy Hallett, was the national sales manager. Unbeknownst to her, the owner of Mercury was Carl Kiekhaefer, who also owned race cars. Allison ended up working as a mechanic and an engine tester. While employed at Mercury, Allison worked in the boat division for 10 months, then was transferred to the racing division. During the two months he worked in the racing division for Kiekhaefer, he went to 19 races, mostly Grand National (Known as the NASCAR Cup Series as of 2020), and a few Convertible races. Every one of those races was won by a Carl Kiekhaefer car from the shop in which he worked. Kiekhaefer was a hard person to work for and several people got fired, so Allison decided to go back to Miami only after a little over two months.
In 1956, having returned to Miami, Allison started his own racing again. His parents said he couldn't race and live at home, so Allison came up with a fictitious name (Bob Sunderman) which was used only once as he finished well enough to make the Sunday paper. Allison's father saw the paper and told him that if he was going to race to do it with honor and use his own name. In 1959, Allison took his brother, Donnie, Kenny Andrews, who owned a car (whose father owned Andy Racing Wheels), and Gil Hearne, who went along as Kenny's driver, on a quest for more lucrative racing than was available in South Florida. Their searching led them to Montgomery Motor Speedway in Montgomery, Alabama, where he was told of a race that very night in Midfield, Alabama, near Birmingham. Allison entered and finished 5th in that race, which paid more than finishing second in any big race in South Florida. He went to Montgomery the next night, won the preliminary races, and finished 2nd in the feature, winning $400, having found his lucrative racing. The brothers returned home and Bobby talked his friend Red Farmer into coming back to Alabama with him. They had immediate success and soon they began answering to the name The Alabama Gang. Allison became a known driver and a top star in short-track racing, earning back-to-back Modified Special titles in 1962–63, then two consecutive NASCAR National Modified championships in 1964–65.

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