Jeremy Clements Suspended Indefinitely by NASCAR

        A shocking story came out of the NASCAR Nationwide Series on Wednesday. Jeremy Clements was suspended indefinitely by NASCAR for violating NASCAR's Code of Conduct. He was found to have violated Sections 7-5 (NASCAR's Code of Conduct) and 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing) of the 2013 NASCAR rule book. According to reports, the incident happened after the driver's meeting on Saturday. A NASCAR employee came up to Clements with an MTV worker, who has been named as Marty Beckerman. They asked Clements if he would lead them to Johanna Long's transporter and he said he would. The three had simple conversations and then this is when Clements made the error in judgment. To me, it seems like the statement should be brought out, but, hey, that's why I'm not up in NASCAR's higher ranking body. 

         Here is Steve O'Donnell's, NASCAR senior vice president of racing operations, comments on the situation:

       "During the course of an interview, Jeremy Clements made an intolerable and insensitive remark. NASCAR has a Code of Conduct that’s explicitly spelled out in the 2013 NASCAR Rule Book. We fully expect our entire industry to adhere to that Code."  

         Jeremy Clements gave his apology for his actions:

       "I apologize and regret what I said to the NASCAR writer and to NASCAR, my sponsors, my fans, and my team. NASCAR has a Code of Conduct that everyone must follow and I unintentionally violated that code. I will not get into specifics of what I said but my comment to the writer was in no way meant to be disrespectful or insensitive to anyone or to be detrimental to NASCAR or the NASCAR Nationwide Series. I will do what I need to do in order to atone for my error in judgment." 

        This has turned out to be a terrible situation for a few off-hand words, but it happens sometimes. Hopefully, Jeremy Clements will be back racing in a couple of weeks and this doesn't greatly affect his reputation. I will post updates as soon as they come out and will continue to post them until no more are left.




       Update #1: Marty Beckerman gave his take on the events that happened at Daytona and what was said by Clements:

       "I was there to do a fish-out-of-water story about going to NASCAR and having a wild, crazy weekend. And, we were doing interviews with many of the drivers, and I was on the way to another interview... we were looking for [driver] Johanna Long's trailer... and the NASCAR publicist called Mr. Clements over and asked him for help finding her. He walked us toward where she was, and on the way over, I explained to him that Guy Code is rules for guys, how you treat your friends, how you treat your ladies, things like that. I was there to do a humor piece, so I asked him what would be Guy Code for race car drivers, and he blurted out [a phrase that used the n-word]."

        Beckerman went on to say that he did not want to be a part of the story, which sounds totally stupid considering he was the one who brought the story out in the first place. Now we know what brought Jeremy into hot water and hope that drivers take his suspension seriously.
        



Credits:
-Stories:
http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2013/02/27/jeremy-clements-suspended-for-conduct-violation.html
http://jalopnik.com/what-racist-remark-got-jeremy-clements-suspended-from-n-450628274
-Image:
http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2013/02/27/jeremy-clements-suspended-for-conduct-violation.html
-Story for Update:
http://www.jayski.com/nationwide/nationwide.htm#20130227-51