When he was 17 years old, Robbie Allison started reading the biography of his late father Davey Allison, penned by his mother and Davey’s widow, Liz. Titled “Full Circle,” Robbie dove into the book as a way to get to know his father, who died tragically when Robbie was not yet 2 years old.

When he got to the chapter of his father’s fatal helicopter crash, Robbie felt a pang of loss, an emotion he didn’t quite comprehend when he was young.

RELATED: Learn more about Davey Allison

“There I am at the end of his life, and that really took me by surprise,” he said. “I’m just getting into this story and enjoying what I’m reading, and he’s gone. I think it’s very symbolic of his life. There was so much that he had left to accomplish, and it was cut so short. I think that’s something that we all still grieve over.

“When I read that book … I felt like I experienced losing him.”

The process of getting to know their father after his death is strange for Robbie Allison and Krista Allison Sheinfeld, Allison’s children. Sometimes Robbie goes back to Hueytown, Alabama, to visit his father’s grave. He doesn’t usually tell anyone he’s going — he goes to sit and talk to his dad.

Like any son, he yearns for a father’s listening ear.

“It’s always a private event … and it’s usually kind of spur of the moment,” Robbie said. “I just decide at 11 p.m. one night I’m going to drive four hours and go down there and visit him. But it’s always during momentous times like that, when I just want to talk to him, and kind of share my own life with him.”

Like Robbie, Krista has few memories of her father; most come from photos or videos, as she was also young (3 years old) when he passed.

But one of Davey’s distinct features remains with her.

“I know Robbie and I have talked about this. We remember the way that he smelled,” she said. Both Robbie and Krista say they associate the smell of charcoal with their father.

“I do remember his voice,” she continued. “Not just from videos and from TV, but he had such a memorable voice. I do remember that so clearly and those are the memories I like to keep with me that I try not to let the TV and video memories overpower too much.”

Family members have helped paint the picture of Davey for Robbie, too. But finishing the biography was the final, sometimes painful, part in getting to know his father.

“They say there’s the five stages of grief and I went through all five of them just from reading that biography,” Robbie said. “When I got to the other side of those five steps, and grief is a lifelong process, but when I had felt like I had properly processed grieving over that loss, I was glad that I did it.

“I felt like that was something that as much as I missed out on knowing him as a dad, I felt like I missed out on grieving losing him. Being able to do that, I think, allowed me to move into my adulthood and feel like I’d gotten to know him, and I had lost him, and life goes on.”

MORE: Bobby Allison helps grandchildren build bridge back to Davey

Davey Allison’s trademark toughness was as much a part of his lore as his triumphs. Time and again, the future Hall of Famer righted himself after being knocked down.

Allison’s grit was a prominent part of his final full season in 1992, when he had his closest brush with NASCAR’s premier series championship. Allison fought through multiple injuries, twice being airlifted from tracks, yet still started every race.

RELATED: Learn more about Davey Allison

In a particularly perilous stretch from spring into summer, Allison’s mettle was tested with a flurry of severe crashes. In April, he suffered rib and lower back injuries in a crash at Bristol Motor Speedway. The following week, Allison suited up with a flak jacket and a reinforced seat to ease the pain, then fought through late-race leg cramps to win at North Wilkesboro Speedway.

In those days, the race winner was routinely brought to the press box above the grandstands to meet the media. Allison’s trip through the bleachers attracted a crowd, which waited patiently outside the track’s rickety stairs for his availability to end. Allison, still reeling from the strain of 400 laps, signed autographs for every fan in line, asking only for a chair from the speedway staff.

One month later, Allison won again at NASCAR’s All-Star Race, the first held under the lights at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The price was costly; Allison crashed after contact with Kyle Petty under the checkered flag, making heavy contact with the outside retaining wall.

Allison suffered a concussion and a bruised lung. He completed all 400 laps the following week in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte to maintain his series points lead.

The hardest hit of all came two months later at Pocono Raceway. Contact with Darrell Waltrip’s car sent Allison’s No. 28 spinning into a dramatic 11-flip blowover in the infield grass. Allison absorbed a fractured and dislocated right wrist, a broken collarbone, broken right forearm and multiple facial bruises.

“I don’t know how many licks like this our little driver can take,” Larry McReynolds, Allison’s crew chief, told reporters after the race. Remarkably, Allison’s determination to start the following week’s race at Talladega Superspeedway became known in a matter of days.

Allison underwent 4 1/2 hours of surgery on that Pocono Sunday, with plates and screws inserted to address his arm fractures. After a follow-up bone graft operation Thursday, he was released from the hospital Friday and practiced the car the next day, fitted with a special cast to assist in shifting gears. An early caution allowed Allison to give way after five green-flag laps to relief driver Bobby Hillin Jr., who filled in admirably for a third-place finish.

All this occurred while Allison battled through significant facial swelling and dark, bloodshot eyes. “I would take these sunglasses off, but it’ll remind you of Beetlejuice,” Allison quipped.

Allison stayed on the mend and in the championship hunt that season, tough to the end.

MORE: When Liz met Davey, a NASCAR love story

Sometimes when Robbie Allison goes golfing, or perhaps just when he’s missing his father, he’ll break out 1980s-style golf shoes to wear when he hits the links.

They are Davey Allison’s old golf shoes, still kept and maintained 25 years later.

They fit Robbie perfectly.

“I love that we have his stuff,” Robbie Allison says at his mother Liz’s home in Nashville, Tennessee. “Some of it means more to me than others, especially the things that we have in common like his golf shoes. Those fit me perfectly. … Those tangible things that you can wear and see and feel, those mean more to me than anything else.”

RELATED: Learn more about Davey Allison

The shoes are a tiny part to the many items the Allison family has kept over the years as a way to honor and treasure Davey’s memory and legacy following his tragic death after a helicopter crash in 1993.

The Allison collection of Davey’s possessions has grown over time, swelling with fresh material thanks to the outpouring of support from fans.

Over the years, Liz Allison, Davey’s widow, says fans will send pictures, clothing and more.

“I still get pictures,” Liz says. “People send me pictures still. Like they’ll come across, maybe they’re cleaning out their garage or something and they’ll find stuff. I actually had somebody send me a message recently and said, ‘Hey, I have an autographed hat that I’d like for the kids to have in the collection.’

“We so appreciate that people have kept all this stuff through the years, and that they would share it with us.”

A family favorite is something Robbie wears when the weather gets cooler. It’s a sweater, “clearly from the ‘80s” he says, with Bobby Allison’s 1988 Buick Regal on the front, styled in a classic 80s way that makes it almost look like graffiti.

It’s a compliment-getter whenever he wears it.

“It’s one of those things that you could wear it now and it would look like somebody had made it this year,” Robbie says. “I swear, I only get compliments from people that are like 25 and under. And they’re like, ‘Dude, that is sick, where did you get that?’ ”

Wearing that sweater, or the golf shoes, or perhaps using Davey’s old fishing rods or bows brings a sense of proximity to his father that Robbie otherwise might not experience.

He was not yet 2 years old when his father died, yet his favorite hobbies are exactly the same as his dad’s. That he can enjoy them while using his dad’s gear creates a bond between the two, even though Davey no longer is here.

“I love that we have those things in common,” Robbie says. “I love that we still have those pieces of him intact, and that we can hold onto those and I can pass those on to my kids, and it can be part of our family forever.”

MORE: Davey’s influence on Robbie Allison’s role as a dad

Twenty-eight. 28. Two-eight.

It was the number Davey Allison made famous on tracks around the country, piloting the No. 28 to all 19 of his premier series victories before passing away following a tragic helicopter crash in 1993.

For his daughter Krista Allison Sheinfeld, it’s more than a number.

RELATED: Learn more about Davey Allison

The number 28 has yet to disappear for Sheinfeld following the days, months and years since the accident on that somber summer day. In fact, it’s become something more.

“I see 28s all over the place, non-stop,” she said. “When I’m going through something, when I’m having a happy time, I just see 28s on … I look at the clock and it’s 12:28 and then I look at my phone and I’m at 28 percent. And I bought a car recently and there were two 28s in the final price tag.”

Having lost her father at a young age, the struggles that have come since haven’t always been the easiest to handle. However, the memories of her father don’t come with as much heartache as they once did.

Yet, 25 years have yet to drown out the emotions that certain days evoke for the Allison family.

“My dad’s birthday and the day that he passed, every year, are really hard for me,” Sheinfeld said. “Everyone handles things in a different way. I tend to handle things where I just want to be by myself. I don’t really want to talk about it that day and that’s just how I handle it. So those days are rough, but you get past them.”

When Sheinfeld goes back to her normal routine, she feels her father is sending her reminders in his own way.

Reminders that life moves on in the most beautiful ways.

“It’s always for me when I see those 28s. It’s almost a little sign that he’s there and he’s telling me it’s OK or that was the good choice or, ‘I’m here to help you.’ It’s kind of a gut feeling that I get from those little 28 signs everywhere,” said Sheinfeld, age 28.

MORE: Bobby Allison helps grandchildren build a bridge back to Davey

“What’s your name and are you married?”

It wasn’t a flashy pickup line, but that’s what Davey Allison said when he first met Liz Allison before a race at Summerville Speedway in South Carolina on a low-country, steamy August night.

It was so hot, Liz Allison admits she almost backed out from a friend’s invitation. But the friend, who was dating one of the competitors, promised an exciting time since some NASCAR greats were in town before their premier series race at Darlington. 

RELATED: Learn more about Davey Allison

Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace were two of the drivers expected to be on hand, so after some coaxing, Liz relented and threw on a T-shirt, some shorts and flip-flops to head out for the race.

When she got to the track, Liz was sitting in the back of a pickup truck before the races got underway when a man who was not exactly dressed for the weather conditions hopped up into the truck and uttered that line.

“I thought, ‘Wow, that’s kind of forward,’ ” Liz Allison said. “He had on black corduroys and a long-sleeved shirt. I thought, ‘Who in the world is this crazy guy with these corduroys on and this long-sleeved shirt when it’s steaming hot here in South Carolina?’

“He started talking to me, and then it was time for him to race, so they asked if he was ready to go. He said, ‘Hey, will you hold my hat for me?’ ”

Liz did not recognized the man, but after several fans came by asking about how Davey qualified at Darlington, she began to get the picture.

“When he came back over, we started talking again and I realized that he was Davey and that’s why these people were asking me where he qualified,” Liz Allison said.

“It was just a short meeting. He jumped on top of the pickup truck, we talked for a few minutes, he raced, he came back for a minute and grabbed his hat back and asked if he could have my phone number. …

“So, I thought, ‘Well now, I won’t hear from him. He won’t call.’ And he did call. He called the next day and so, that’s when I really got to know him. … That was in August and I didn’t see him again until November, so there were a lot of phone calls, and so that’s how I got to know him. We just kind of sparked this friendship over the telephone.” 

A friendship that would lead to so much more.

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A little boy driving his Matchbox cars is a scene probably played out thousands of times a day in living rooms all across the country. But when you’re Robbie Allison, son of Davey Allison, moments like these are meant to be cherished.

So it was this past Memorial Day weekend when Robbie’s son Theo was playing in front of the TV while the Coca-Cola 600 blared in the background.

“That’s the first sound that Theo started making, the ‘Rrrrrr-rrrrrr (of the cars),’ ” Robbie Allison said. “He gets glued to it. Our granddad (Bobby Allison) said that dad started making car noises when he was 9 months old. But my son was 4 months old, so I always tell my granddad … Theo’s got dad beat.”

And just like that the four generations of Allison men have shared a connection.

RELATED: Learn more about Davey Allison

For Robbie, finding those connections is invaluable.

“My son’s 18 months old now, and so I constantly think about, this was about the age I was when he passed away,” Robbie Allison said. “Just seeing my relationship with my son, and that bond, has really allowed me, internally, to get to know my own dad better in that experience. It’s a life-long journey, for sure.”

What’s just as important is spending as much time as possible with Theo, something Robbie didn’t get the opportunity to do with his own dad.

“My son and I are really attached to each other, and I try to spend every moment away from work, every moment that I can with him,” Robbie Allison said. “I see that if I get home after he falls asleep, the next day he’s that much happier to see me. You can see, at 18 months, there’s that bond. He knows who his mom is, he knows who his dad is, and he misses us when we’re gone.

“I think back on me being 23 months old and losing my dad, and thinking of what I must have gone through as a young child, as a toddler, knowing that you’re missing that role that you’ve gotten to know, and that you’ve come to rely on, and had this unexplainable bond with, and then to miss that piece,” Robbie added. “It’s weird to think about that from the outside looking in, and then take a step back and realize you’re thinking about yourself.

“It’s me that I’m kind of analyzing in that situation, and it makes me that much more motivated to be as active of a father as I can. And to just do whatever I can for my son. Give him the best life, the best father/son relationship he could possibly have.”

MORE: Treasures left behind give Robbie Allison connection to dad

Come January, Davey Allison will hold a place in NASCAR’s Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2019.

Consider that the late driver’s second home, as Allison has resided in fans’ hearts for three decades.

Bursting onto the scene full time in 1987, Allison rocketed to Rookie of the Year with two wins and a career high five poles. The son of NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Bobby Allison, it didn’t take much success to achieve fan-favorite status, but Davey over-delivered.

RELATED: Learn more about Davey Allison

Allison continued to excel into his early 30s, winning 10.6 percent of his remaining races, his star power increasing by the lap.

Allison had his career and life tragically cut short in 1993 at the age of 32, however, leaving the NASCAR family to mourn. To the fans, the loss was especially heartbreaking.

The love he and his devotees had for each other was deep and mutual.

“I think the reason fans connected so much is because he did go so out of his way and they could see it,” said Krista Allison Sheinfeld, Davey’s daughter. “They could see his genuine friendliness and his genuine care for his fans. He knew they were the reason he had a job outside of obviously his driving talent, but you don’t get very far without fans.”

Following his Hall of Fame nomination this past May, Bobby Allison said that after Davey died, “the mailman delivered 1,300,000 pieces of mail to my house in five weeks.”

1.3 million.

“The thing that most people seem to hold on to was when they met him in person,” Allison’s son, Robbie, said. “That’s the thing I hear more often than anything else is, ‘Oh, I met your dad at Pocono, I met your dad at New Hampshire, I met your dad at Talladega. He stopped. He looked me in the eye as he smiled at me. He shook my hand. He talked to me. He signed autographs for six hours after a race.’

“It was always him making time and treating everybody with humility and respect. They saw that he was genuine and he was real and he was humble, but he wouldn’t give up an inch on the track.”

With Allison set to be enshrined, fans who weren’t able to meet the down-to-earth kid from Hueytown, Alabama, before his passing will get a chance to soak in Allison’s legend.

The 19-time winner would’ve loved to see people relive his career.

“He loved the fans. Oh my god, he loved the fans,” Allison’s widow, Liz, said. “He loved the energy that they brought to the sport and loved … listen, he loved that people knew who he was. He loved that he was an Allison. He loved that he had a part of making the sport what it is today. So, I don’t think there was anything that he didn’t love about it.”

And there wasn’t anything fans didn’t love about him.

MORE: Davey Allison’s sense of humor matched his competitive drive