Clements began racing at age eight in go-karts. In 1999 he moved to four-cylinder cars at Thunder Valley Speedway and Cherokee Speedway, winning 55 feature events and two track championships over three seasons. He made his ARCA Series debut at Talladega Superspeedway in 2002 and earned his Late Model championship at Cherokee the same year.
On July 24, 2004, Clements suffered a severe injury while racing at 311 Speedway in North Carolina. A broken driveshaft pierced through his car and mangled his right hand. He was flown to Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital, where surgeons performed a nine-hour operation. The recovery stretched over a full year and required ten procedures, including grafting skin from his hip and harvesting tendons from his right foot. He did not race again until 2005. The determination he showed in returning to competition became a defining aspect of his reputation in the paddock.
Returning to competitive racing in 2005, Clements made his ARCA comeback at Chicagoland Speedway. By 2007 he had a breakthrough ARCA season, earning eight top-tens in twelve starts and claiming his only ARCA win at Nashville Superspeedway on August 11, leading 48 laps from second on the grid. He narrowly missed repeating the Nashville win in 2008, finishing second.
Clements made his Busch Series debut in 2003 at Pikes Peak International Raceway. He ran sporadically over the following years before committing to the Xfinity Series on a near-full-time basis from 2011 onward, competing as an independent without the financial backing of a major NASCAR program.
Running largely without a primary sponsor, Clements developed a reputation for consistency and racecraft on short ovals and road courses. He earned his first Xfinity top-ten in 2010 at Gateway International Raceway, where he also led laps for the first time in his career.
His most significant moment came at Road America in 2017. With two laps remaining, he and Matt Tifft made contact, and Clements emerged to take the victory — the first win for an independent Xfinity driver unaffiliated with the Cup Series since David Gilliland won at Kentucky in 2006. The milestone was widely recognized as a statement about what a small, underfunded team could achieve through experience and racecraft.
Clements earned a second career victory in the 2022 Daytona night race, winning after overtime. The triumph initially secured him a playoff berth, but a post-race inspection found an illegally modified intake manifold on the No. 51. After an appeal was filed and reviewed, the penalty was rescinded on all counts — Clements retained the win and his playoff eligibility. A subsequent L1 penalty arose from the Las Vegas race, resulting in a fine and points deduction for crew chief Mark Setzer.
He qualified for the 2021 playoffs on points alone, finishing twelfth in the standings — equaling his career-best points result — with eight top-tens despite no win.
In 2025, Clements made his 500th Xfinity Series start at Circuit of the Americas, becoming only the fourth driver in series history to reach that milestone. By June 2026, he surpassed the all-time Xfinity starts record with 548 appearances, becoming the most-started driver in the series' history.
Jeremy Clements Racing stands as one of the last true independent operations in NASCAR's second-tier series. Over more than two decades, Clements has built a record defined not by championship contention but by longevity, resilience, and two wins achieved without the resources that most competitors treat as a prerequisite. His career trajectory — from a catastrophic injury at nineteen to record-setting longevity — underscores a particular strain of determination that draws admiration across the sport.