He lived with the pain
I will never forget the day I interviewed the late, great Bobby Allison
I saw where Bobby Allison died earlier this week. I had not thought of him in years.
I don’t keep up with NASCAR, except for a few of the big races. A colleague once described auto racing as “500 miles of left turns.’’
No, you could never accuse me of being a “gearhead.’’ But I have many friends who are. NASCAR fans are the most loyal fans in the sports world.
I did have a chance to interview Bobby Allison almost 30 years ago. He was a speaker at Macon’s Pine Forest Baptist Church, back when it was located in Bloomfield. He was such a nice man.
About an hour before the service, a crowd of folks gathered near the church kitchen, waiting for him to finish a late breakfast.
A young boy asked for his autograph. A family waited patiently to have its picture taken with him.
"I remember when you were racing down at Middle Georgia Raceway in Byron," a man said as he reached to shake the racing legend’s hand.
Allison nodded and smiled. The founder of the famed “Alabama Gang” had flown over the old track on his approach at the Macon Airport earlier that morning.
He had raced late-model sportsman cars at Middle Georgia in the late 1960s, battling Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough around the half-mile track. He remembered one race when King Richard was a no-show. Of Allison’s 84 career victories, it was the only time he won when Petty wasn't in the field.
Allison was considered the founder of the "Alabama Gang," a fraternity of racers from the blue-collar towns of Hueytown and Bessemer, near Birmingham. The “gang” members were Allison and his brother, Donnie, Neil Bonnett, and Red Farmer. Later, Bobby Allison’s sons – Clifford and Davey – followed the tail lights of their famous father.
In my 20 years as a sports writer, I had the opportunity to interview some of the biggest sports names on the planet – from Joe Namath to Muhammad Ali to Arnold Palmer and Hank Aaron.
I was always a little nervous about interviewing superstar athletes, especially when I was younger. But I was probably even more nervous about interviewing Allison.
I shouldn’t have been. He was down-to-earth and easygoing. Still, I knew I would have to ask him some tough questions about the grief that had consumed his life.
In a span of 18 months, racing accidents claimed the lives of his two sons, Clifford and Davey, and driver Neil Bonnett, one of his closest friends.
"I have a hard time putting my losses into real words," he said, softly. "I still cry a lot. Every once in a while I'll be at an event signing autographs or speaking. Somebody may show me a picture or make some comment. It may be out of the goodness of their heart, but it's still incredibly painful for me."