Spirit of Hueytown alive with memories of lost sons (cont'd)

But the racing fates can be terribly cruel, almost sadistic at times. The Alabama Gang celebrated incredible triumphs -- and suffered incredible tragedies.

Bobby and Donnie suffered debilitating injuries that affect them to this day. Clifford died at Michigan, Neil at Daytona. And Davey was killed and Red was severely injured in a helicopter accident in the infield of Talladega Superspeedway.

Hueytown grieved. Hueytown never forgot.

State of emergency

The remaining members of the Alabama Gang know the chances of a native return to NASCAR glory are slim unless major changes are made.

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You can still get the Davey Allison breakfast -- two eggs, meat, grits and toast or biscuit and gravy -- delivered to your table by a polite waitress at the Hometrack Restaurant (all you can eat catfish on Friday nights), where the walls are plastered with posters and photos of the Gang in action.

There's even a mural on one wall depicting the start of a race at Talladega. But on closer inspection, there seem to be a few liberties taken by the artist.

The front row is made up of Bobby Allison and Dale Earnhardt. But to Davey's right in Row 2 is Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was an 18-year-old kid running Late Models in 1993. And the scene shows a nighttime start, with lights shining brightly above the grandstands -- even though the real Talladega has no such thing.

But in retrospection, one wonders if the artist wasn't trying to suggest what life might be like had Davey Allison's helicopter not hooked the chain-link fence in the Talladega infield 14 years ago. It's a tantalizing exercise, because so much has happened, so many events are interrelated, like dominoes stacked in a line.

If you take one away, does the chain of events stop? Or would things have transpired in a different tangent and timeline?

At the cemetery, the woman in the office says there's always a steady stream of fans who want to pay their respects to Davey Allison, particularly on race weekends. "Most come from out-of-state now," she adds.

Davey's brother, Clifford, who died 11 months earlier in a practice crash at Michigan, is also buried at Highland, but in a different section of the cemetery, closer to the plots owned by parents Bobby and Judy Allison. If you ask at the office, it's "because Davey loved hunting, they bought him a plot nearer the woods."

Neil Bonnett is buried in nearby Pleasant Grove -- and the similarities are eerie. His marker, also in the Garden of Everlasting Life, includes a bas relief sculpture, crossed checkers and the inscription: "Always a winner."

Just a few yards from Davey Allison's gravesite, the dark marble bench inscribed on the top with "In loving memory of our daddy, Robbie and Krista" is a perfect place to ponder a number of questions. The silence is only interrupted by the sound of tractor-trailers roaring past on the interstate, interspersed with the chattering of the squirrels and chirping of the birds.

How would Davey Allison have handled Dale Earnhardt's death? The Chase for the Nextel Cup? The Car of Tomorrow?

But most importantly, what would Davey Allison be like today? When he left us, his star was still on the rise. With a bushy moustache, a slender build and an infectious grin, the second-generation leader of the Alabama Gang was primed to be NASCAR's next superstar.

It's almost impossible to imagine Davey Allison now as a 46-year-old -- only slightly younger than Ward Burton -- perhaps with thinning or graying hair, a paunch, crow's feet or a mid-life crisis.

How many championships would Davey have recorded for Robert Yates Racing? Would he be the one passing Dale Earnhardt's win total? How would Davey's existence changed the careers of Ernie Irvan and Dale Jarrett? Would he have been NASCAR's veteran voice of experience?

Most of all, would he recognize Hueytown? So much has remained the same, but so much has changed.

Neil Bonnett's auto dealership no longer bears his name. Bobby Allison's shop, where Davey once swept the floors, now manufactures high-tech wheelchairs. Even Davey's beautiful mansion, with its own pond and views of the surrounding mountainside, is up for sale.

It's almost as perhaps it's time to whitewash some of the memories away, and that's literally the case on the billboard outside Allison Bonnett Memorial Park, where the white paint almost completely obscures the blue stars for each of the Alabama Gang, including the phrase "Memories of Champions."

Back at the cemetery, two dogs -- a chocolate-colored pointer and a brown and white spaniel -- appear without warning from the brush, circle the area around Davey's grave, sound a series of warning barks and growls, then disappear just as quickly into the woods.

That's obviously a signal that I've overstayed my welcome. So it's back past the steel-pipe factory, the Jet Pep station, the restaurant, the football stadium and back up Allison Bonnett Memorial Highway heading toward Birmingham.

If there are seven stages of grief, Hueytown has reached acceptance.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.