By Sarah Handy, Staff Writer
In this week’s edition of Throwback Thursday, Kickin’ The Tires relives when NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Jeremy Clements won his first race in the series in thrilling fashion at Elkhart Lake’s Road America in 2017.
Jeremy Clements and his family owned Jeremy Clements Racing won the Johnsonville 180 at Road America in thrilling fashion in their 256th start in the series after starting 24th on the starting grid.
Clements on fresh tires, chased down race leader Matt Tifft and attempted to pass him on the second-to-last lap of the event, but when Clements drove his No. 51 Chevrolet to the inside of Tifft, the two made contact sending them both spinning on the course.
Clements was able to recover and get his race car fired back up before Tifft. He went on to maintain the lead and capture the victory by an astounding 5.8 seconds over second-place Michael Annett.
“I don’t even know what to say, I’m just shocked. This is a car built in 2008, everything we’ve got is old and used. I just can’t believe it, is this real?” said Clements post-race.
(Photo: Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
Clements is heading into Saturday afternoon’s CTECH Manufacturing 180 with a plenty of momentum after a fourth-place finish in last Friday’s Food City 300 from Bristol Motor Speedway.
His fourth-place finish was only his third-career top-five finish in 321 Xfinity Series starts.
“I would say Road America is my favorite road course, and I’m looking forward to going back with the car we’ve been racing the last two with”, Clements told Kickin’ The Tires.
“We’ve worked some bugs out of her, so I would think we should be pretty good!”