Jeremy Clements NASCAR Comeback Kid

SPARTANBURG, SC (July 7, 2005) – Everyone was raving about the kid’s future.

He had the poster boy looks of Tom Cruise in “Days of Thunder.” The talent of Jeff Gordon. And he worked the crowd like “King” Richard Petty.

Jeremy Clements’ ascent into the upper-echelon of the NASCAR ranks was moving faster than a Nextel Cup car around Talladega Superspeedway without a restrictor plate — until a “freak accident” almost removed his right hand and ended his promising career.

Now less than a year after a $200 torque arm broke under his car and sent a steel driveshaft piercing through his cockpit, the 20-year-old Spartanburg driver is ready to prove his name belongs in the same company with Cup young guns Kyle Busch and Brian Vickers.

“It was like a nightmare,” Clements said of the incident where he was struck by a 2-inch round piece of steel rotating about 143 turns a second. “But, I’ve got unfinished business. I got knocked off this horse. Now, it’s time to get back on.”

A week ago, Clements was cleared by his doctor to hop behind the wheel again.

He plans on heading out to Thunder Valley Speedway in Lawndale, N.C., on Saturday for a test session. Clements hopes to successfully reintroduce his right hand — which has undergone nine surgeries — to a specially wrapped steering wheel and take the first step in a surprising — and speedy — comeback.

‘All I heard was boom’

On July 24, 2004, Clements drove his 2,300-pound, 800-horsepower Pontiac Grand Prix down into Turn 3 of 311 Speedway in Madison, N.C., and stood on the brakes. After his carefully prepared machine, which cost about $40,000, slid through the turns, he hammered the throttle. Clements reached about 130 mph down the front straightaway as his tachometer hit 8,600 rpm.

Underneath his car, a weld broke above the torque arm — a 38-inch long thin metal tube designed to stabilize the car’s rear end. His vehicle violently jacked up and the driveshaft separated from the transmission. The spinning piece of steel tore through the paper-thin aluminum surrounding Clements’ cockpit and slammed into the right side of his body.

“All I heard was boom — it was a big explosion,”Jeremy Clements said. “My arm went numb. I looked over and it was bleeding to death.”

He climbed from the car under his own power and was rushed by ambulance to Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, N.C., where he underwent a nine-hour orthopedic surgery.

“The doctors told me I’d never race again,” Clements said. “They said if you ever have any type of movement in your hand again, you’ll be lucky. That really ticked me off. I told myself I was going to race again, no matter what it took.”

Clements spent the next three weeks in the hospital lying motionless in his bed. To make matters worse, he also caught pneumonia.

Suddenly, racing was the furthest thing from the mind of the talented youngster.

“There were a lot of times I thought I’d never race again,” Clements said. “That’s scary, because that’s all I’ve ever done and it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. I never had a backup plan.”

After about 30 trips back to Winston-Salem, Clements is no longer worried about devising a “backup plan.” He’s regained most of the feeling in his hand, which is still full of plates, screws and transplanted tendons and bones. And, he’s no longer embarrassed by the 5-inch scar on his right forearm or the 4-inch patch of transplanted skin from his stomach between his wrist and thumb.

“I had to have my hand sewn to my stomach for four weeks to regrow that skin,” Clements said, glancing at the discolored flesh he said has been reduced in size by surgery. “That hurt so badly, I couldn’t even stand up. But, this is my hand and I’m proud of it.”

Clements stormed onto the local racing scene as a teen, winning 47 World Karting Association races from 1994-1998. The third generation racer, whose grandfather, Crawford, was a Grand National crew chief and whose father, Tony, operates a successful engine shop in Spartanburg, won a pair of modified-four national titles in an eight-day span in 2001, to push his season earnings to more than $49,000.

That same year, he captured 34 checkered flags and track championships at Thunder Valley and Cherokee Superspeedway.

After completely dominating the four-cylinder ranks, Clements moved up to the world of super late models and visited Victory Lane at Cherokee in his seventh start on April 20, 2002.

He almost topped the best super late model drivers in the nation in April 2003 when he led 44 laps of a $10,000-to-win Xtreme DirtCar Series event at Cherokee before a flat right rear tire ended his day six laps shy of the checkered flag.

In October 2002, Clements strayed away from dirt for the first time and quickly mastered asphalt. He posted four top-10 finishes in his first eight ARCA starts, with the help of longtime Busch crew chief Ricky Pearson, the son of three-time Nextel Cup champion David Pearson.

He even missed his high school graduation at Dorman on May 22, 2003, and raced from 33rd to third in a 100-lap event at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Then on July 26, 2003, Clements reached the Triple-A level of NASCAR in just his six asphalt race and finished a respectable 31st in the Busch Series race at Pikes Peak, Colo.

No matter what type of car Clements drove, Pearson was always amazed at how the youngster continually found the best line around the track and adjusted to a changing car.

“Jeremy is way above-average as far as a driver’s mentality and ability to pick up on things quickly,” said Pearson, who’s won 29 Busch races and two Series titles.

The more success Clements achieved, the more “down to earth” he remained.

He modeled himself after Petty, who would remain at the track Sunday night after races until as late as midnight, making sure every fan seeking an autograph got one.

On countless nights, while other drivers buckled into their cars, Clements stood by the fence at Cherokee until every kid, who slipped anything through the small wire opening, got a hello, autograph and smile from the up-and-coming phenom.

“He’s not a smart mouth, he’s down to earth and he doesn’t think he’s better than anyone else,” said Spartanburg’s Jeff Cooke, a local racing icon, who Clements dethroned as the track champ at Cherokee in 2002. “Anybody can come out of the stands and talk to him.”

Pearson and Cooke both agree that Clements’ looks, abilities and personality are all the qualities big league sponsors are in pursuit of in the high-dollar world of racing.

“If a bigger team picks him up,” Cooke said. “He could get the job done. He’s got everything they’re looking for in a development driver. Hopefully, we’ll see him on TV in a year or two.”

Despite being labeled a can’t-miss prospect with the “total package,” Clements, who still lives at home with his parents, knows his return to racing depends on one thing — his right hand.

His index and middle fingers are still weak and he’ll probably have to undergo at least one more surgery to take out the plates and cut out some scar tissue.

Even though he’s faithfully stuck to a rigorous three-day-a-week rehabilitation schedule for the past 10 months, Clements knows the true test of how his hand has recovered won’t come until he wraps it around a 17-inch steering wheel Saturday.

Since his accident, Clements has only been to the track once — the Nextel All-Star Classic at Charlotte in May. He has yet to get behind the wheel of a racecar. But he has ventured up to Concord four times and masterfully maneuvered a 9-horsepower go-kart around a 1/4-mile road course at Charlotte Victory Lane Cart Center. However, on each trip, he’s relied heavily on his left hand to drive.

When he practices at Thunder Valley, he’ll have to also use his right hand.

He’ll attempt to grip a steering wheel with two to three inches of tape wrapped around the top, to provide more grip, since he has trouble closing his hand all the way.

“That’s going to be the big test, seeing if I can grab a steering wheel,” Clements said.

If his practice goes smoothly, Clements will begin to calculate his return to the track. He’d like it to be sometime this summer in a super late model touring series race.

“When I come back, I’m not coming back to ride around and get laps, I want to race for a win,” he said.

After that, Clements will focus on his lifelong goal — becoming a driver on one of NASCAR’s top series.

He felt he was well on his way in 2004. He was scheduled to run five Busch races late last season before his accident. During his rehabilitation, he’s made some money leasing his ARCA cars out to other aspiring racers. Clements said he could use that money to run one or two races this season and a full schedule in 2006 in an effort to gain the attention of a well-backed Busch Series team. But at this point, that’s all speculation.

For now, all Clements wants to do is get back on that horse and show he’s still possesses the talent that made him one of the most talked about up-and-comers in NASCAR circles less than 12 months ago.

“I’m basically starting over,” he said. “But my goal is to start over and be better than I was.”

Burke Noel can be reached at 562-7241 or burke.noel@shj.com