Matt Mills says he doesn’t really understand what led up to being intentionally crashed by Conner Jones in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race last week at Homestead-Miami Speedway but is feeling healthy after spending two nights in the hospital.
Mills was treated during that time for smoke inhalation and had no other ailments.
“It was just a 100 percent just the smoke inhalation,” Mills said during a media availability on Friday at Martinsville Speedway. “Basically, when the flames started coming into the cockpit, I panicked and started breathing heavier and heavier, which just made everything a lot worse.
“It’s kind of the first time I’ve been in that situation where I was on fire like that, so I don’t know, I’ll try to prepare myself better for if that happens again but it was 100 percent my lungs.”
Mills and Jones were racing hard around 20th on Saturday and it led to a retaliatory crash that sent him hard into the wall, where his car caught fire. He climbed out under his own power but needed to be transported to a nearby facility after being treated in the infield care center.
“It was a couple laps after a restart, and me and a couple of other guys were racing, crossing each other over and I thought I was faster than him all day,” Mills said. “I got behind someone, and he crossed me up and slid in front of me, so I gave him a little push going down the backstretch and I slid off his bumper, which got him a little free. I understand why he maybe got a little aggravated but he wasn’t close to wrecking, didn’t hit the wall, and I heard him lift halfway down the backstraight and my spotter warned me he was going to try to wreck me.
“I tried to prepare for it, sent it off into Turn 3 as hard as I could and he sent it off even harder and so that’s why I overcorrected so easily because that’s the fastest I entered that corner all day. If you know Homestead, once you get off the bottom, there’s no grip down there so I just took off.”
NASCAR parked Jones for two laps on pit road, and after taking an additional look earlier in the week, suspended him from the race weekend at Martinsville. Jones has reached out but Mills wasn’t prepared to talk about it yet.
“He has reached out through text and trying to call me,” Mills said. “It’s been such an hectic week, you know, physically and mentally, it was exhausting just being in the hospital.
“It might sound dramatic, but just I’m getting back to reality. Calm. I’m feeling normal again but that was a lot to process and It’s been a hectic week, just getting my safety gear stuff like that all replaced. It all needed to be replaced but he has reached out. With how hectic the week has been, I don’t feel like I could have a healthy conversation with him, but I will maybe talk to him soon, but this week was about getting back to the racetrack and listening to all my doctors and everyone.
“So, when I feel like I can have a healthy conversation about it, maybe I’ll reach back out.”
Mills also didn’t want to get into whether the penalty was harsh enough for Jones.
“I’m not a vengeful person and I don’t think it should be looked at as a punishment or penalty,” Mills said. “I think Conner has talent and this should be looked as maybe as a lesson, or just something we can’t have in our sport, especially at a high-speed track.
“I’m just not a vengeful person and look at it like he needs to be punished. I just want it to be an eye opener for him and other young drivers, that we’re all racing to move up to the next level, and it’s an audition. This is an audition and that was the lesson if there has to be one.”
Mills only hopes that Jones ‘has a different perspective’ when he comes back to race next week at Phoenix. He also doesn’t understand what Jones said over the radio in his expletive laden tirade in which he referenced being raced a certain way all year.
“Yeah, I didn’t even know if that was directed towards me, or just everyone,” Mill said. “I listened to it and I didn’t know what he was talking about. My biggest problem right now in the Truck Series is that I feel like I’m not aggressive enough, especially on restarts so I didn’t know what he was talking about or if it was even directed at me.”