NASCAR insider rips Conner Jones for avoiding media questions after wrecking Matt Mills

One of the big stories out of the Homestead-Miami weekend had to do with Conner Jones intentionally wrecking Matt Mills. The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race got chippy between the two with Mills ending up in the hospital with smoke inhalation.

Conner Jones not only intentionally wrecked Matt Mills, he then went on a tirade on the radio blaming Mills for the incident. Seemingly saying that Mills hadn’t raced him clean all year and he was tired of it.

After the race, Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic tried to get comment from Jones. The 18-year-old declined on pit road. Then Bianchi asked again at the hauler. Jones declined again. That did not make the NASCAR journalist very happy.

But it wasn’t for the reasons you think.

“So I don’t care about the age, I could care less. It never crossed my mind that he’s 18 years old in that setting,” Bianchi said on The Teardown. “You’re 18 or 88 the situation demands that you be held accountable. When you intentionally wreck somebody at Homestead at the speeds you’re going and that driver, his truck ends up on fire, now that’s inexcusable. I am all for hard racing, I’m all for moving a guy on the last lap. I am not for intentionally wrecking somebody because you’re angry and putting him in the wall. Especially on a track like this.

“What Conner Jones did in the Truck Series race is inexcusable. He deserved the penalty and he should answer the bell when it comes to, why did you do that? So to decline comment once, or to say, ‘Hey, now is not the time.’ Okay, I’m going to give you a few minutes, that’s fine. But the second time after you’ve had 15, 20 minutes to go in your hauler and collect yourself, then you have every opportunity, you should be held accountable, you should answer for your actions. Especially in that moment when you know that driver got transferred to the hospital. So, to say no comment the second time, inexcusable. I know people are going to say, ‘Oh media, blah blah blah,’ I don’t care.”

Bianchi was not happy with how Conner Jones conducted himself. Race car drivers are professional athletes. Jones has to act like a professional on the track track and off.

Conner Jones did not answer when he needed to

When drivers make mistakes, they answer for them. We have seen these intentional wrecks over the years and for better or worse, drivers answer up. Conner Jones put Matt Mills in the hospital, he should talk to media about it.

If he is going to race a truck professionally, talking to media about mistakes is part of the deal. Bianchi continued his rant. He didn’t let Jones off lightly.

“When you do something like that, that’s inexcusable, reckless, and dangerous, you should be held accountable, you need to stand up and you need to answer the tough questions,” Bianchi said. “You don’t get to pick and choose when you want to answer the questions in these situations. If you do something like that, you need to answer and he didn’t answer it and that’s on him.

“And this is a pattern. This isn’t like a one-time thing where you can say, young kid, warn him. No, you go back, you talk to people, you see the races in the CARS Tour or anything else. He has a pattern of decision making and these kind of things are not uncommon and it needs to stop. You need to hope that NASCAR penalizing him two laps, this hopefully will send that message and he will get better. If not, then he’s going to have more of these moments and it’s likely going to end his career far shorter than it should.”

Mills spent two nights in the hospital. Today, he posted a video updating fans on his condition. While his voice is raspy, the driver expects to race this weekend at Martinsville.

Conner Jones did release a statement after the race. However, it received criticism for not going far enough. Admittedly, it seemed to be a standard PR message we see all the time.