South Carolina’s Jeremy Clements Battles His Way To Fourth In Bristol

South Carolina’s Jeremy Clements Battles His Way To Fourth In Bristol

by August 17, 2019 1 comment

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Jeremy Clements kept the momentum rolling as he captured a solid fourth-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday night in the Food City 300. Now, the Spartanburg, South Carolina native looks ahead to Road America, and then he’ll try to tame Darlington Raceway.

On Friday night at Bristol, Clements kicked the evening off by qualifying in the fifth position. Early on, he fought a really tight race car, but he eventually made his way back towards the front. With just 30 laps to go, Clements was racing inside the top-10 but with a few late-race cautions and the retirement of Justin Allgaier who had been stout all night long, Clements found himself in prime contention for the win. Clements held the third position in the final laps, but John Hunter Nemechek got by, and the driver of the No. 51 RepairableVehicles.com Chevrolet had to settle for fourth.

“Well, we started off too tight there at the start, lost a lot of positions, unfortunately,” Clements said. “Got our car better. I just fought tight the whole race trying to roll the center, and unfortunately, I couldn’t get it like I needed, but we made it better for sure, so that was pretty cool. I was excited. Man, I thought we were going to get third. I was really going to be stoked. Unfortunately, the 23 (John Hunter Nemechek) moved us really good there on the last lap and about wrecked me. I’m glad we didn’t wreck.”

Clements who races for his own team has been running well all season long. In 14 of 22 races this season, he has finished inside the top-15. In fact, he entered Bristol coming off two 11th-place finishes at road courses, Watkins Glen and Mid-Ohio. Friday’s finish at Bristol marks his first top-five finish of the season and only the third in his series career. Clements says that the recent success is due to two cars that he has been racing and that the team has found a setup package that they really enjoy.

“We’ve found a package that we like, honestly” Clements said. “We’ve been running the same front springs everywhere, and it seems to be working. You always want to try and make it better, but I don’t think we’re going to right now. We’re just going to stay with what we know and try to continue to just make it a little bit better. That’s how it goes, you find something that works, and then you stick with it, and that’s what we’re doing right now.”

Clements now looks ahead to Road America next weekend. He won at the track back in 2017. Following the road course race in Wisconsin, Clements will visit his home state track, Darlington Raceway. His best finish at the Lady in Black is an eight-place effort back in 2016.

“This is probably my favorite month of the season honestly,” Clements said. “Such a lot of good tracks, road courses, Bristol, Darlington, so I love it, man. This is what it’s all about.”

Clements continued and said, “Yea, I love Darlington. It’s a fun track. It’s the Lady in Black. It’s fun, so I’m really looking forward to going there.”

The CTECH Manufacturing 180 at Road America will broadcast live on Saturday, August 24 on the NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) and the Motor Racing Network (MRN) at 3 p.m. ET.

The Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200 at Darlington Raceway will broadcast live on NBC and MRN at 4 p.m. ET on Saturday August 31.

Photo Credit: Hunter Thomas/TheFourthTurn.com

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  1. Heather
    #1 Heather 17 August, 2019, 11:34

    Proud of jcr … the only reason we watch Xfinity racing.
    Great article, we fans love the recognition they derserve and makes us proud and pumped up, thank you, hunter

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