Resignation delivered: Bobby Jones ready to call it a career after comeback victory at New Smyrna Speedway

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. – On Oct. 29, 2023, Bobby Jones wasn’t sure if he would ever drive a race car again. One day earlier, Jones was competing in a 602 Modified race during the season finale at Mahoning Valley Speedway in Leighton, Pennsylvania, when a violent crash changed his outlook on racing and nearly the rest of his life. “It was on a restart. Cars got out of shape, and one came across and caught me,” Jones explained. “That’s how it is. It just works that way sometimes. I was just the guy that was in the way. “I climbed the other car. I think it might have been his right front I hit. It picked me up and put me up over top of him in the air and I landed in the top part of the wall and the bottom of the fence. I took that part of it out. The gentleman underneath me, he went into it as well and we just destroyed the whole fence. It was in pieces.” RELATED: Watch every lap of the World Series of Asphalt on FloRacing The 51-year-old Jones was transported to a local hospital where it was discovered he had fractured his T12 vertebrae in two places. No surgery was needed, but the injury did require a lot of bed rest while the fractures healed. Jones was suddenly faced with a potential reality he had not experienced since he was a child, a reality without racing. [caption id="attachment_420445" align="aligncenter" width="1300"] Bobby Jones, driver of the No. 12 602 Modified, leads the field during Night 4 of the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway on Feb. 12, 2024. (Photo: Adam Fenwick/NASCAR)[/caption] “That happened and I said, ‘I’m done. No more racing. I’m done now. I don’t need to go back,’” Jones said. “Well, three months of sitting in bed and doing nothing, I thought a lot about it. Then I started working on the car when I was able, which was like my rehabilitation, which helped me a lot. “The doctor wanted me, at a point, to start doing things. So I started doing little things during the day while I was home and I got better a lot faster I think.” As Jones began to feel better while work progressed on repairing his damaged race car, he began to look at the schedule for the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway. One season prior, Jones made his second trip to New Smyrna Beach, Florida, to compete in the annual stock car racing extravaganza. He ended up leaving frustrated and disappointed. “We got here and we unloaded for first practice, and I was second on the board,” Jones said. “I felt really good about the car. We were fast. I went out for our timed practice, and we burned the motor up. We were done for the couple nights. We rebuilt the motor and put a crank and bearings in it. We raced the last two nights, but we were down on power. We wiped the cam out, but we didn’t know it at the time. “All summer I raced, and I said we were going to come back and we were going to redeem ourselves. I planned to run that race and it was going to be that race and maybe I’d do a couple of races throughout the year to go off into the sunset and end my career." That was all before Jones was injured in the crash at Mahoning Valley, which put into question his plans for the World Series of Asphalt a few months later. Roughly a week before the start of the event on Feb. 9, Jones finally made the decision to load up his race car and head to New Smyrna from his home in Palmerton, Pennsylvania. “It was a big decision to be here. I’d say up until probably about a week ago I wasn’t 100 percent sure I was I was going to be able to,” Jones said. “I was weighing how I felt and should I or shouldn’t I. We were working on the car. We needed to keep working on the car because that car had to be fixed anyway. It wound up being ready. “I decided that I was OK. I had full clearance from doctors. They told me straight up there ain’t nothing different than there was before I broke it. I was actually waiting for them to tell me that, oh, you’re a little bit worse off now so I would have made the decision not to race.” Fast-forward to Monday, and Jones was starting sixth in the second 602 Modified race of the week. By the fourth circuit Jones had made his way to second and was chasing Ray Fattaruso for the lead. [caption id="attachment_420444" align="aligncenter" width="1300"] Bobby Jones poses in Victory Lane following a victory in the 602 Modified class on Night 4 of the 2024 World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway on February 12, 2024. (Photo: Adam Glanzman/NASCAR)[/caption] A restart with 15 laps left gave Jones the opportunity he needed. He powered around the outside of Fattaruso to take the lead coming out of Turn 4 and survived one final restart to secure a trip to Victory Lane during the World Series of Asphalt. It was something that only a few months prior seemed unlikely at best. “It was a big decision to be here,” Jones said. “There was so much emotion there for me.” RELATED: Results from every night of the 2024 World Series of Asphalt After climbing from his race car and dancing on the roof of his car, Jones made a declaration: He was putting in his resignation. He won’t say he’s retiring; Jones knows better. Instead, he’s putting in his resignation with the intent of stepping away from racing. But even he knows there is a chance that won’t stick. “I don’t want to say retire. I want to say I’m handing in my resignation because I can get another job somewhere else,” Jones said. “I don’t know how it’s going to go to step back away from racing and not do it. It’s all I do right now. So I’m going to try. We’re going to try hard because I’d like to take a break. “I don’t want to be that guy that says I’m retired, I’m done, and I won’t ever get in the car. I don’t know what the future is for me, whether or not I can handle not racing. I’ve done this since I was 18 years old, so I’m leaving it open because I don’t know if I can. I want to, but I’m not sure if I can. “This is what I do, I don’t know anything else.” If Jones never straps in a race car again after leaving New Smyrna this week, he’ll be at peace with it. His return from injury and subsequent World Series of Asphalt victory was the storybook ending for which he was looking. “I’m very happy actually,” Jones said. “I did what I needed to do. It’s the final checkmark.”