It is the time of year for Jeremy Clements.
Clements’ best chance to qualify for the Xfinity Series playoffs through a race victory has come in the form of two consecutive road course races.
The first, on August 8 at Road America, represents Clements’ annual return to the climax of his career in the Xfinity series. He won at the Wisconsin road course in dramatic fashion in 2017, beating Michael Annett and Matt Tifft for his only victory in 349 career starts.
The following week, Clements will drive his No. 51 Chevrolet in the first race of the series at the Daytona International Speedway circuit.
Consecutive road races occur when Clements is 32 points from the limit for the 12-driver playoff field. He is chasing independent driver Brandon Brown for the final spot.
Clements, 35, doesn’t mind the attention that changes its path each year when the series hits a road course, specifically the 4,048-mile Road America.
“I enjoy it,” Clements told NBC Sports. “I didn’t even grow up as a racetrack pilot. I just held on to it after doing it multiple times and I really enjoy it and feel like I can make up for the lack of speed we have on a mile and a half track against the big teams. … The road courses seem to fall into that category with what I am and enjoy. … I’m always excited about that and yes, I like the attention. I hope we can win again, man, so we can prove that it was no fluke, which I think we can definitely do. “
Clements enters Road America with six consecutive top-13 finishes, which ties him best in his career. That’s in addition to finishing 13th or better in 10 of the 13 races held since the series returned to action in May, including a third place finish at Pocono.
“I think it’s pretty good,” said Clements. “I want to be a top 10 every week. But man, we are right there, off the line, competing against the big teams. In my opinion, I want to try to be the first small and not big team that ends up right behind those guys. And if you can beat some of them, that’s an even better day. So we have done it here and there. So we have had other little problems, of course, that everyone has. ”
Clements believes he will have “a bit of an advantage” on the road courses over Brown. In nine starts at Road America, Clements has three top 10s, all in the last six starts.
Brown will only make his second start at Road America. Last year, he dropped out of lap 10 due to a suspension problem.
Earlier this month in the Indianapolis Autodrome race, Clements finished 13th and Brown finished 11th.
“We can get some points on the stage and just try to get a top 10 or better (at Road America),” said Clements. “We finished eighth there last year, obviously we’ve won there before. We can run well on Road America. “
One difference between the Jeremy Clements Racing that he won at Road America in 2017 and now is the quality of the cars he owns. When Chip Ganassi Racing closed its Xfinity program in early 2019, JCR bought some of its cars and has been deploying them ever since.
“We never had a team like that,” said Clements. “Those cars were about to race. Usually we get the chassis, and then you don’t get the good suspension or the right suspension for it, so you get a puzzle and you have half the pieces for it. So we have cars that came with everything the way they’re supposed to. “
Like almost everyone else on the field, Clements will soon have his first opportunity on the Daytona circuit without practice or pre-qualification, just like in all of the remaining races this season.
“Without practice, I really don’t know how that is going to go,” Clements said. “Especially when you have a tie, you don’t qualify and start anywhere. So entering Turn 1 at Daytona should be really interesting and I hope everyone has … some patience. “
In preparing for the Daytona race, Clements’ approach will be slightly different from that of the Indianapolis track.
This time you will have more than one Xbox game at your disposal. While larger teams had access to simulators to acclimatize with the course, Clements couldn’t even use iRacing, which didn’t have the updated course. Instead, it could only spin around in the latest version of the Forza racing series.
“They had NASCAR-style cars and only drove for a couple of hours, literally a day or two before (the race),” Clements said. “And shooting was really accurate, I was surprised. I mean, I played a lot of tracks in those kinds of games and so you get to know them. Then I knew if I could get acquainted with the clue that would help. So it really helped, the first lap in practice was fast, we were the fifth fastest. It was really cool. And I will definitely do it again for the Daytona circuit. And I’m pretty sure that iRacing has that track because it’s been around forever. ”
Regardless of how he’s preparing for the road courses, Clements doesn’t want to worry about his performance relative to Brown, who has four top-10 finishes this year and has finished 13th or better in five of the past seven races.
“I just want to do my best and not make mistakes and hopefully the mechanical gremlins will stay away because if we have one of them we will be out of the question,” said Clements. “I will just do my thing and make no mistakes, I will stay on track, I will not do anything stupid. …
“So I will do everything I do regularly and I will not really worry about that part and what happens will happen.” So we’ll hurry up and hope it’s enough. “
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