Jeremy Clements ties NASCAR O’Reilly starts record at Pocono

Next Saturday in San Diego, Jeremy Clements will make his 548th start in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. In doing so, he will set the record for the most starts in NASCAR’s second tier.

Clements tied the current record of 547 when he finished 16th in Saturday’s MillerTech Battery 250 at Pocono Raceway, joining Kenny Wallace at the top. Wallace, the 1991 series runner-up, last raced in 2015 with nine career victories.

The duo are among just four drivers with at least 500 starts in O’Reilly. Jason Keller has 520 between 1991 and 2010, while 2000 champion Jeff Green has 535 from 1990 until 2020.

Longevity in any motorsport is difficult enough to attain, but to do so in O’Reilly is an especially unique case. It is promoted as a developmental level for those aspiring to reach the Cup Series, meaning drivers aren’t keen on sticking around for too long. There are also limits on how many O’Reilly races a Cup driver can race annually (for 2026, this number is ten), so running a “full season” in O’Reilly would take more than three years. While the series’ lineage goes as far back as 1950, NASCAR only begins stat tracking from the inaugural season as the Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series in 1982.

Still, O’Reilly doesn’t have a time limit. If a driver can’t find an opportunity to race in Cup permanently, they are more than free to commit to the second-highest tier and stay there. Unlike the other three in the 500-start club, Clements has never competed at the Cup level.

Wallace gave kudos from Berlin Raceway, where he was competing in a Modified race. Beloved by many for his affable and funny personality, Wallace also works as a NASCAR analyst.

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“Your team has done something that is incredibly hard to do: 547 O’Reilly Auto Parts starts. I might add, I’ve been in about 347 Cup races in there too for a total of 904 NASCAR starts,” Wallace remarked. “Jeremy Clements and your whole team, I love you guys. You are the epitome of O’Reilly racing. You’re doing it right because you’re doing it old school, family. You don’t got the $6 millin a year and for that, my friend, I admire you. Congratulations.”

Clements made his début in what was then the Busch Series at Pikes Peak in 2003. He raced a limited start for much of the 2000s with several backmarker teams before bringing his family team up to the Nationwide Series in 2011. Having run every race since, he easily racked up the starts.

Jeremy Clements Racing is not a weekly contender, but its owner has been methodical in growing the programme as the 2010s progressed. This culminated in his maiden victory at Road America in 2017, then a second win at Daytona in 2022 (though the latter did not count for the playoffs after he was penalised for an illegal part). Entering Pocono, Clements was 19th in points with a best finish of fifth at Talladega.

Clements would finish 16th, a solid day at the office. He even led for a brief spell on Lap 72.

Once he gets the starts record in Coronado, he has no plans of stopping and could hit 600 and beyond. Unlike Wallace when he hit 547, Clements is a decade younger at 41 while being an owner-driver means he can compete as long as he can afford it.

“It’s incredible now that we’re here. I’ve always worked hard and never given up,” said Clements. “I didn’t start racing in this series to break this record, but it’s pretty cool for such a small team to accomplish this milestone. It’s truly a blessing.”

JGM races with three manufacturers

Manufacturer loyalty runs deep among NASCAR’s top teams. Joe Gibbs Racing is Toyota’s flagship team, much like Hendrick Motorsports and JR Motorsports for Chevrolet or Team Penske for Ford. Smaller operations also tend to commit to a brand because it means they can form technical alliances, similar to how Clements works with Haas Factory Team as Chevrolets.

When a team doesn’t have OEM support or a partnership with another outfit, they’re left to fight with whatever they have. Joey Gase Motorsports was that team on Saturday as all of their cars represented each of the three marques: Gase himself drove the #55 Ford Mustang, Carson Ware was in the #35 Chevrolet Camaro, and Natalie Decker piloted the #53 Toyota Supra.

It goes without saying that teams try to avoid this fate, but when it’s their only way to field multiple cars at a time, they’ll do what they can. Rick Ware Racing infamously rotated between Toyota, Chevy, and Ford in the Cup Series during the late 2010s and early 2020s before becoming a full-time Ford and now-Chevy operation.

MBM Motorsports has a long history of racing with every brand in O’Reilly, even unusually fielding Dodge Challengers until 2019 (Dodge had ended its NASCAR division after 2012, but the steel-bodied cars were legal until composite bodies were introduced). However, MBM typically only fielded two to three cars at most with two sharing the same brand.

The last Cup race with one team and three OEMs was the 1978 Delaware 500 at Dover: Negre Racing fielded the #25 Chevrolet while Ferrel Harris was in the #61 Chrysler and team owner Ed Negre piloted the #8 Dodge.

In-Season Challenge bracket set

The head-to-head NASCAR In-Season Challenge is back for a second year. Ty Gibbs will look to defend his title, a road that begins with him as the fifth seed going up against 28th-seeded Austin Dillon.

The format remains the same: 32 drivers are split into pairs, and whoever finishes higher of the two advances to the next round. The first race will be at Sonoma Raceway on 28 June, followed by Chicagoland Speedway (5 July), EchoPark Speedway (12 July), and North Wilkesboro Speedway (19 July). Indianapolis Motor Speedway will serve as the final event on 26 July.

Each of the five tracks offers a different style of racing from each other, meaning driver versatility will be important. Sonoma is a road course, Chicago is an intermediate oval, Atlanta has superspeedway-like racing, and North Wilkesboro is a short track.

Ryan Preece isn’t too pleased with his seeding as he’ll have to go up against Shane van Gisbergen to start. Although Preece is a better oval driver, SVG is NASCAR’s top road racer so Preece joked that he expects to be eliminated right away in Sonoma.

The first-round matchups are as follows:

• #1 Tyler Reddick vs. #32 Alex Bowman
• #2 Denny Hamlin vs. #31 Ty Dillon
• #3 Ryan Blaney vs. #30 Josh Berry
• #4 Chase Elliott vs. #29 Noah Gragson
• #5 Ty Gibbs vs. #28 Austin Dillon
• #6 Kyle Larson vs. #27 Riley Herbst
• #7 Chris Buescher vs. #26 John Hunter Nemechek
• #8 Daniel Suárez vs. #25 Todd Gilliland
• #9 Carson Hocevar vs. #24 Zane Smith
• #10 Christopher Bell vs. #23 Ross Chastain
• #11 William Byron vs. #22 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
• #12 Chase Briscoe vs. #21 A.J. Allmendinger
• #13 Bubba Wallace vs. #20 Michael McDowell
• #14 Shane van Gisbergen vs. #19 Ryan Preece
• #15 Erik Jones vs. #18 Joey Logano
• #16 Austin Cindric vs. #17 Brad Keselowski

2026 MillerTech Battery 250 – Results