“It never goes away” - When Bobby Allison shared his wisdom on grief with Erik Jones
Back in 2017, the late Bobby Allison sat with Erik Jones and NASCAR reporter Alan Cavanna to speak about his late sons Clifford and Davey Allison. During his conversation on NASCAR Hub with Cavanna, he also shared his grief with Jones, who had lost his father.
Jones' father, Dave, died on June 7, 2016, aged 53 years old, after a brief battle with cancer. The ex-NASCAR Cup Series driver was 20 years old at the time and was racing in the Xfinity Series. Erik Jones acknowledged the death of his father during the Menard's 250 at Michigan International Speedway that year.
As Jones and Allison spoke about losing their loved ones, the latter shared some words of wisdom with the Cup Series driver. Allison lost both his sons to accidents. Clifford died in a racing accident at Michigan in 1992 and Davey in a helicopter crash in 1993.
Cavanna asked Allison what he might like to say to Jones about "loss and living with it, and dealing with it."
Allison said,
"That it never goes away. When that happens, you have that with you the rest of your life. First, it was Clifford, a lot of people keyed so much on Davy, because he was popular, and was so successful, where Clifford was just starting when he died and Clifford died in the race car, where Davy died in a helicopter crash.
"But you have to keep going to the next deal. Time does have a healing process. It doesn't heal it all away, I don't think, but it certainly has made things ease up, made the agony ease up." (0:46-1:31)
Notably, the former Cup Series driver and the 1983 Winston Cup Series champion Bobby Allison passed away on November 9, this year. He died at the age of 86, prior to the NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship race at Phoenix.
When Erik Jones shared his feelings about the passing of his father, Dave Jones
Erik Jones entered the Xfinity Series in 2016, after winning the Camping Truck Series the year before. His future looked bright and shiny, but the death of his father changed everything. Even though he carried on racing after his father's death, the sudden death of the latter made things difficult for him, both on and off the track.
In 2017, Jones spoke about finding out about father being sick, only to lose him after a few months. The late Jones was diagnosed with cancer that spread to his brain. Although he was given about 12 months to live by doctors, he lived three months.
Speaking about his father's death for the first time, Jones said [via Fox Sports],
“All of a sudden you lose that so quickly. In three or four months, I went from having that to it was gone. I felt like I was on my own. In trying to figure all that out myself, at 20 years old I don’t have a ton of experience in the world. … To try to figure out how to do all these things was challenging, but at the end of it all, especially today, I feel like I’m more solid and know what’s going on more than ever.”
Erik Jones finished the 2024 Cup Series season in 28th place with 516 points. He claimed a Top 5 and two Top 10s and faced three DNFs in 34 races.