Jeremy Clements will not race this weekend, the results of a suspension by NASCAR for the use of a racial slur. Asked by ESPN, Clements declined to repeat his comments but did acknowledge it was racial.
“Was it racial or not? Maybe not in context, but in term?” Clements replied: “Correct.”
“When you say ‘racial’ remark, it wasn’t used to describe anybody or anything,” Clements said. “So that’s all I’m going to say to that. And it really wasn’t. I was describing racing, and the word I used was incorrect and I shouldn’t have said it. It shouldn’t be used at all.”
Clements was suspended for the remark he made prior to the season opening Nationwide Series race at Daytona. The comment was said off camera by Clements in the company of an MTV reporter and NASCAR employee.
“And while we’re walking they started, he [MTV] started, asking me questions,” Clements said. “And it wasn’t recorded. We were just talking. So I said one remark about how I wouldn’t …”
He stopped short.
“I can’t say that part,” he said.
“That’s pretty much how it happened,” he continued. “And even after I said what I said, they still kept asking me questions. It didn’t seem like it was a big deal at all. I didn’t even think twice about it, like, after. I know I shouldn’t have said it. Even when I did say it, I shouldn’t have said it. But I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal.”
NASCAR contacted Clements and asked him if he made the comments to which he admitted. Clements thought he would simply be fined at first but later found out he would miss two races. Missing two races will be costly to his team, Jeremy Clements Racing.
Clements will miss the next two Nationwide series races. NASCAR will have him undergo some type of speech class.
