Eventually, family — son Jacob Allen and grandson Logan Schuchart — drew Allen back into the nomadic life of an outlaw racer.
“What happened there was I started racing Logan and Jacob around home just a little in 358s and I saw I couldn’t afford to run there,” Allen recalled. “My one sponsor, Marty Thompson, said, ‘Bob, why don’t you go to the World of Outlaws?’ I said, ‘I’ve only got two-and-a-half motors; I need more stuff.’ On paper, running two cars out of one trailer – I wrote everything down – made sense as long as I didn’t have trouble.”
Shark Racing hit the road in 2014, fielding cars for Jacob Allen and Logan Schuchart.
“First of all, and I don’t care who you are, to go run the Outlaws it takes five years for the driver to learn the tracks and the crew learning what to do at the tracks. Every year we’ve moved to the next level,” Allen said. “When Drydene started helping, that got us to where I could hire help. In the beginning, sometimes it was just me, the boys and I had one guy who was a year older than me going on the road.
“To run up front all the time, it takes experience and time. It’s a learning curve,” Allen continued. “Drydene came along at the right time. If they would have come along six years ago, we would have let them down. Now, we are right there to win races because of the experience and we’re able to buy the things we need.
“I’ve brought them along, but the boys do most of the work themselves. I take pride in sitting back and watching them work on their cars – and they work together. I can sit back and say, ‘This is what I wanted and this is what I got.’ It makes me proud of both of them. It makes me proud of the whole team.”
Allen’s role with the operation has evolved.
“The boys own everything. I’ve got it to where they own their own cars, they own their motors; I’m like the general manager of Shark Racing LLC. I don’t get a paycheck or nothing, I’m just lucky to go up and down the road,” Allen explained. “I still live in Hanover, Pa. I’ve got a garage with a little apartment. We travel 40,000 to 50,000 miles a year and up until this year I drove the truck all the time because I was the only one who had a CDL.”
Allen claims life on the road is considerably different today than during the early years of the World of Outlaws.
“It’s more like a business. It was more fun back then because at that time we all traveled like a little band of Indians,” he said. “We all stayed at the same motels and worked on our cars in the parking lots. At that time, every motel had a bar and we’d all go in there and have drinks together, laugh, we’d play cards together, etc., etc. Today, it’s all separated. We’re still friends with everybody and everybody likes to see each other do well, but it’s definitely different.”
At age 76, Allen has been racing for more than 60 years.
“I plan to do it until I just fall over, I guess,” he said when asked about retirement. “My real plan is for the boys to get two rigs going up and down the road, and I get a motor home that carries a backup car, and I go up and down the road with that. That’s my little dream plan. My retirement would basically be doing the same thing — but only showing up when I want.”