Bobby Allison started driving for the Stavola Brothers in 1986. At that time, he continued using the #22 that he had been using while driving the DiGard cars in the early part of the 80's. For 1988, the team switched to Bobby's traditional #12 (presumably because Junior Johnson had closed his #12 team, thus the number was available). When Bobby got hurt, Mike Alexander was named as the replacement driver, and the car was renumbered #84 (Alexander's traditional Late Model number).
During all this time, the Stavola Brothers were also running their #8 team with Bobby Hillin, Jr. driving.
Stavola ran both the #8 and #84 cars in 1989, but for 1990 the team had scaled back to running only the #8 (Hillin driving the Snickers car in 90). 1990 also saw Bobby Allison Racing formed. Again Alexander drove for Allison with Raybestos as the sponsor. Since the #12 was available, the team picked it up. While there were many similarities (Alexander, Buicks, number font), Bobby Allison Racing was independent from the Stavola Brothers Team.
Both team and sponsor combinations remained intact for 1991 (the year of your model pictured here), though Rick Wilson did replace Hillin in the #8. Hut Stricklin was also named the full time driver of the #12 (he had replaced Alexander mid-season in 1990).
Following the 1991 season, Buick pulled out of NASCAR. For 1992, the Stavola team went to Fords, while Allison switched to Chevrolets. Dick Trickle drove the Stavola's Snickers Thunderbird, while Stricklin remained in Allison's Raybestos Lumina (for most of the year anyway...)
For 1993, Raybestos left the Allison team and joined the Stavolas, further clouding the distinction between the two teams. Sterling Marlin was indeed the driver of the Stavola T-Bird that year. Meineke Mufflers sponsored Allison's team, which had also switched to Thunderbirds in the last few races of 1992, and Jimmy Spencer was named the driver.
In 1994 and 1995, Jeff Burton drove the Stavola cars, while Chuck Bown and Derrike Cope piloted Allison's cars.
One final link between the teams happened in 1996, as Stricklin was named the driver of the Stavola's cars. By this time, however, both the Stavola and Allison teams had fallen into the category of "also rans," and neither would see the end of the decade.
Until this model was posted, I never really gave much consideration to how closely the two teams paralleled each other. However, at least to my knowledge, they always operated separately from each other.
Now that I've written a novel, let me say that you've done a very impressive job with this model. The early 90s are a time I'm very passionate about (can you tell? lol), and I love to see cars from this era built. Even more impressive is the fact that you used the kit decals. I always found them thick and hard to work with, but your model is outstanding! Keep up the good work!
