Bobby Allison, founder of racing’s “Alabama Gang” and a NASCAR Hall of Famer, died Saturday. He was 86.

NASCAR released a statement from Allison’s family that said he died at home in Mooresville, North Carolina. A cause of death wasn’t given, but Allison had been in declining health for years.

Allison moved to fourth on NASCAR’s Cup Series victory list last month when chairman Jim France recognized him as the winner of the Meyers Brothers Memorial at Bowman Gray Stadium in North Carolina in 1971. The sanctioning body updated its record books to reflect the decision, giving Allison 85 wins and moving him out of a tie with Darrell Waltrip.

France and longtime NASCAR executive Mike Helton presented Allison with a plaque commemorating the victory. With it, Allison trails only fellow Hall of Famers Richard Petty (200), David Pearson (105) and Jeff Gordon (93) in Cup wins.

Allison was inducted into NASCAR’s second Hall of Fame class, in 2011. He was the 1983 NASCAR champion, finished second in the series title race five times, and a three-time winner of the Daytona 500.

He helped put NASCAR on the map with more than his driving. His infamous fight with Cale Yarborough in the closing laps of the 1979 Daytona 500 served as one of the sport’s defining moments.

“Cale went to beating on my fist with his nose,” Allison has said repeatedly, often using that phrase to describe the fight. “Cale understands like I do that it really was a benefit to the interest of racing. It proves that we were sincere.”

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AP Sports Writer Mark Long contributed to this report.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki volcano spewed towering columns of hot ash high into the air Saturday, days after a huge eruption killed nine people and injured dozens of others.

Activity at the volcano on the remote island of Flores, in East Nusa Tenggara province, has increased since Monday’s initial eruption. On Thursday, authorities expanded the danger zone as the volcano erupted again.

INDONESIA’S NEW CAPITAL ISN’T READY YET. THE PRESIDENT IS CELEBRATING INDEPENDENCE DAY THERE ANYWAY

Friday’s activity saw the largest column of ash so far recorded at 6.2 miles high, Hadi Wijaya, the head of the Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation, told a news conference.

Wijaya said volcanic materials, including smoldering rocks, lava, and hot, thumb-size fragments of gravel and ash, were thrown up to 5 miles from the crater on Friday.

There were no casualties reported from the latest eruption as the 5,197-foot volcano shot billowing columns of ash at least three times Saturday, rising up to 5.6 miles, the volcano monitoring agency said.

Authorities increased Lewotobi Laki Laki’s alert status to the highest level since Monday, and expanded the danger zone on Thursday to a radius of 5 miles on the northwest and southwest sides of the mountain slope.

“We are still evaluating how far the (danger zone) radius should be expanded,” Wijaya said. Hot clouds of ash “are currently spreading in all directions.”

The volcanic activity has damaged schools and thousands of houses and buildings, including convents, churches and a seminary on the majority-Catholic island.

Craters left by rocks falling from the eruptions measured up to 43 feet wide and 16 feet deep, experts found.

Authorities have warned the thousands of people who fled the area not to return home, as the government planned to evacuate about 16,000 residents out of the danger zone. The series of eruptions throughout the week have already affected more than 10,000 people in 14 villages, with more than half moving into makeshift emergency shelters.

A total of 2,384 houses and public facilities were damaged or had collapsed after tons of volcanic material hit the buildings, said Kanesius Didimus, head of a local disaster management agency. It also destroyed a main road connecting East Flores district where the mountain is located to neighboring Larantuka district.

Rescue workers, police and soldiers searched devastated areas to ensure all residents had been moved out from the danger zone. Logistic and relief supplies were provided to about 10,700 displaced people in eight evacuation sites as of Saturday.

The National Disaster Management Agency said residents of the hardest-hit villages would be relocated within six months, and each family waiting to be rehoused would be compensated 500,000 rupiah ($32) per month.

About 6,500 people were evacuated in January after Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki began erupting, spewing thick clouds and forcing the government to close the island’s Fransiskus Xaverius Seda Airport. No casualties or major damage were reported, but the airport has remained closed due to seismic activity.

Three other airports in neighboring districts of Ende, Larantuka and Bajawa have been closed since Monday after Indonesia’s Air Navigation issued a safety warning due to volcanic ash.

Lewotobi Laki Laki is one of a pair of stratovolcanoes in the East Flores district of East Nusa Tenggara province, known locally as the husband-and-wife mountains. “Laki laki” means man, while its mate is Lewotobi Perempuan, or woman. It’s one of the 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago of 280 million people. The country is prone to earthquakes, landslides and volcanic activity because it sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.

About 80 people are still missing and people are angry at the government after the deadliest deluge in decades.

Thousands of people have demonstrated in Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to protest the authorities’ handling of one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades and call for accountability.

Large crowds gathered in the central part of the city on Saturday night, with some clashing with riot police in front of Valencia’s city hall. Police were filmed using batons to beat back protesters who were marching towards the seat of the regional government.

In Spain, regional governments are charged with handling civilian protection and can ask for extra resources from the national government in Madrid.

The current regional leader is Carlos Mazon of the conservative Popular Party, who is facing calls for resignation after his administration failed to issue flood alerts to citizens until after the water was filling people’s homes.

Mazon has defended his handling of the crisis, arguing that the magnitude of the crisis was unforeseeable and that authorities in Madrid failed to notify his administration adequately and on time.

But Spain’s weather agency issued a red alert, the highest level of warning, for bad weather at approximately 7:30am local time (06:30GMT) on Tuesday morning, more than 12 hours earlier than Mazon’s administration finally sent out alerts to people’s cellphones.

The regional leader is also facing heavy criticism due to what people viewed as a slow and unorganised response to the natural disaster, which has killed at least 220 people as of Saturday.

In many of the hardest-hit areas on Valencia’s southern outskirts, volunteers were the first to help people, with the government taking days to fully mobilise the thousands of police forces and soldiers who were sent to assist the flood-stricken.

“You killed us!” some of the protesters wrote on their protest banners on Saturday, with others chanting for Mazon’s resignation and some leaving muddied boots outside the council building to show their fury.

“We want to show our indignation and anger over the poor management of this disaster which has affected so many people,” said Anna Oliver, president of Accio Cultural del Pais Valenciano, one of about 30 groups that organised the protest, according to the Reuters news agency.

There were also protests in Valencia earlier this week, and people threw mud and chanted “murderers” when King Felipe and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited a suburb of the city.

At least 212 of the deaths were recorded in the eastern Valencia region, and nearly 80 people are still believed to be missing in the deadliest deluge in a European country since floods in Portugal in 1967 killed about 500.