Conner Jones cruises to victory at The Battle

JACKSONVILLE, NC – Once Conner Jones took the lead in the closing laps of Saturday night’s Battle of the Stars at New River All American Speedway, he was able to drive away from the field to score the victory.

The win was Jones’ third consecutive Late Model Stock Car victory with Mike Darne Racing.  He won in the final two CARS Tour races of the 2024 season at Tri-County Motor Speedway and North Wilkesboro Speedway in October.

“Mike Darne brought me a really good piece and we unloaded really good,” Jones said in victory lane.  “I can’t thank them enough.  They’ve given me a really good piece these past few Late Model races and we’ve won three in a row so that’s really cool.  This gives me a lot more confidence in the team, that’s for sure.  Mike’s worked his butt off to get this team where it’s at and these Forrest Reynolds cars, they’re something.”

Ryley Music methodically raced his way to a runner-up position after spending much of the race running mid-pack.  He finally cracked the top-10 on lap 80, and then made his way to second with 11 laps to go.

“We had a really good racecar,” Music said.  “We were probably just a little tight off but other than that, really good racecar.  We ran the 44 down late.  He might have been slowing down late because he had such a good lead but who knows?  The 42 having the flat right front on that cone killed us.  I had to take the bottom and lost two rows.  He had a flat and we were taking the green and I wasn’t taking the risk, then he pulled off.  That messed us up.  Just an awesome racecar.  Can’t thank Phil Warren enough.”

Local driver Rusty Daniels finished in third while Treyten Lapcevich and Thomas Beane rounded out the top five.

The first half of the 131-lap race was frantic with four lead changes in the first 10 laps.  Throughout much of the opening stint, nearly every track position changed until a handful of drivers were able to drive away from the field.  As the race progressed and the field tightened up, a flurry of late-race incidents sidelined several contenders.

First, with 44 laps to go, a flat tire caused Chris Chapman to spin.  That was followed by an incident involving Lapcevich and Gerald Benton with 39 to go.  On the ensuing restart, Michael Fose missed a shift which caused several cars to stack up behind him, with Riley Neal being the primary victim of the crash.  On the following restart, Lapcevich and Dylan Ward would tangle on the backstretch.

Once the string of incidents ended and the race resumed, Jones was able to check out from the field, consistently running fast lap times and opening a gap that was as large as five seconds at one point in the final laps.

Jones joins Josh Berry (2021) and Brenden Queen (2023) as winners of the Battle of the Stars.  Connor Hall and Bobby McCarty have also visited victory lane at New River All American Speedway in the zMAX CARS Tour.

Battle of the Stars – Unofficial Results

1. #44 – Conner Jones
2. #47 – Ryley Music
3. #16 – Rusty Daniels
4. #77 – Treyten Lapcevich
5. #01 – Thomas Beane
6. #04 – Ronnie Bassett, Jr.
7. #7 – Tristan McKee
8. #54F – Michael Fose
9. #15 – Clay Jones
10. #81 – Sam Butler
11. #84 – Blaise Brinkley
12. #77K – Darren Krantz, Jr.
13. #44A – Dylan Newsome
14. #1 – Andrew Grady
15. #19 – Chris Burns
16. #7W – Dylan Ward
17. #51C – Chris Chapman
18. #50 – Riley Neal
19. #51 – Gerald Benton
20. #42 – Chris Horton, Jr.