ELKHART LAKE, Wisc: For NASCAR Xfinity Series mainstay driver Jeremy Clements, Road America (Wisc.) will always be a special place.
But as the Xfinity Series prepares for their final road course race of the season in Saturday afternoon’s CTECH Manufacturing 180, Clements believes a second checkered flag at the 4.0-mile road course would mean so much more.
When the Spartanburg, South Carolina native earned spectacular first career victory two years ago, it launched his family-owned team into the post-season Playoffs.
But his small, underfunded organization wasn’t in a good position to make the most of the opportunity, finishing 12th in the championship standings.
This year though, should he win a race between now and Richmond (Va.) Raceway, Clements says his Clements Racing team is well-prepared
“We were not prepared honestly at the time. We weren’t running very good that year in a lot of other race,” said Clements. “NASCAR had changed the rules, changing the splitters and the spoilers entering the season, and we were still racing with the same cars and the same suspension and it did not work.
“As a small team, we’re often on an island all our own. We kept chasing our own tail. It was kind of disappointing going into the playoffs and we knew we weren’t where we needed to be in order to be competitive as a team.”
Fast forward to the present day, Clements, 34, is ready for actions to speak louder than words.
The former ARCA Menards Series winner is coming off a season-high fourth-place finish last Friday night at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway and is in the heart of his best three-race stretch of the season with finishes of 11th at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in the races leading up to Bristol.
Clements’s No. 51 Chevrolet ran in the top-10 in both of Friday’s practice sessions despite suffering a mechanical issue when the left rear truck arm mount broke where it connects to the chassis. With the fix, Clements qualified ninth Saturday morning.
“We’ve brought a (road course) car that we’ve raced twice now and got the bugs worked out of it,” added Clements. “Last year, the car we had never even raced before so we had some problems in practice,” he said. “Now if we went to the playoffs, we’d be a lot better off.
“We have a lot more speed than we did in 2017. I think we could take much more advantage of the opportunity this time around. Plus, the Roval is in (the playoffs), which would bring a whole new opportunity to it as well.
“I would definitely feel a lot better about the opportunity this season as a team with our cars, our speed, and we’re getting some better stuff. There are some exciting things happening within the team.”
An added boost for the Clements Racing team this season has been the addition of Andrew Abbott as a fulltime crew chief who works with the team every day, not just arriving at the race track on race days.
Leaving his role as fulltime crew chief at Young’s Motorsports earlier this month, Abbott is now fully invested in his Xfinity Series responsibilities where the expanded relationship is paying dividends with results.
“I haven’t really had that in the past. It can only get better from here honestly,” Clements said. “We’re getting some better components, speed-wise, to make our cars faster, so I’m definitely excited to try them out at some of the oval tracks coming up, too.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
