No sooner had Susan McClamrock decided she needed a quiet Memorial Day than her phone went off.
McClamrock’s son, Private First Class James McClamrock, had been chosen by Nationwide to be represented on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Chevrolet in the 2017 Coca-Cola 600. It is part of NASCAR’s “600 Miles of Remembrance,” where the names of fallen military members are featured on the car’s windshield.
“I needed to allow other people, my friends, to be able to grieve,” McClamrock told RACER about being low-key. “Sometimes when you go to the parades and different things because James was killed in action, they always honor him and some of my friends have not had that. In my heart, I said it’ll be okay to just be quiet this year. We’ll grill out as a family, and we’ll get through the day.”
Nationwide had other plans. Saturday afternoon, the McClamrock family – James’ parents Susan and Mark; widow Shannah; brothers Harrison and Barnes, and wife Libby; sisters Caroline and Kathryn, and husband David and their younger daughter; and Uncle Robert – received a VIP experience.
It started with a full tour of Hendrick Motorsports – chassis shop to the engine department, seeing the body of the cars and into the actual race shop. Then, a private tour of the Heritage Center, home of Rick Hendrick’s personal car collection and man cave. The day ended with a trip to Earnhardt Jr.’s property where the Western town on “Dirty Mo Acres” was theirs to enjoy.
McClamrock couldn’t help but chuckle at how Nationwide took her from nothing to NASCAR. But as she sat outside of the saloon watching her family mill about, the emotions behind the reason for it all took over.
“I had no idea all the things they had set into motion for us to do and see and come together as a family because it’s very difficult for us this weekend,” McClamrock said. “That’s one thing people don’t understand; it is very bittersweet. Like, this is all fun, but you realize, you paid a price for it, and a price that is so high. But at the same time, you have to put that spirit away and say [James] is so worthy to be recognized and have his name out there.”
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James McClamrock was always friends with the underdog. If you were the kid sitting alone in the cafeteria, James would sit with you. He was that type of student, son, and brother. Someone who, even though he was the class clown and active athlete, would do anything for you. Even share his birthday.
James was 11 when his brother Harrison was born. McClamrock remembers she could have delivered on either November 16th or 17th. The 17th was James’ birthday. When asked, James said that’s when he wanted his brother born.
“Little did we ever consider that at one point in time James would be killed and Harrison would be left,” McClamrock said.
Several things led James, a native of Concord, North Carolina, to the military. As a TSA agent who screened baggage at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, James not only spent time inspecting belongings but interacting with soldiers. One, in particular, changed everything.
“The guy was in his 20s, and James said, welcome home,” McClamrock recalled, “and he replied, I’ve come home from war to bury my wife. James said that was an aspect he had never considered because usually, people die in war, they don’t come home to bury their wife.”
James enlisted in the Army in 2009 and was a rifleman with the 25th Infantry in Wahiawa, Hawaii as well as a radio team operator. On September 7, 2010, just a few months into his first tour during Operation New Dawn, James and one other soldier were killed after an Iraqi soldier opened fire at Balad Air Base near the city of Tuz Khormato.
James was just 22.
His death hit the family hard, but they vowed to move forward together. Shannah has since remarried and is expecting a child, but is still very close to the McClamrocks. They are thrilled about this new chapter for her. McClamrock says the two text and go on vacation.
Barnes was 13 at the time and shut himself in a room for almost a year, losing 100 pounds. He received his GED in one try after dropping out of school because he couldn’t handle the stress of seeing others move on.
“He said, how can everyone just move on with life and I’m stuck here?” McClamrock said.
She vividly remembers the pain on Harrison’s face when he told her he would never have another birthday.
“Instead we said let’s think about this – James has a death day and that day will kill us every year, but on his birth, we celebrate his life,” she said. “We’re never going to look at that as negative. We go to the cemetery where James is buried; we take balloons, we take a picture. Harrison lets go of a balloon to release to heaven. We go to Logan’s for dinner because that was James’s favorite place and we order nachos and we all each part of the nachos. That’s our celebration every November 17, no matter where we are. We’re just that kind of family.”
Eric Smith, the senior vice president of Nationwide Commercial Insurance, explained the McClamrocks were nominated by a member of the company’s Military Associate Resource Group. It is one of the programs Nationwide has for the military in addition to priding itself on employing veterans.
When it came to going above and beyond with the McClamrocks’ trip, Smith said that’s the Nationwide culture.
“We’re a mutual company, we don’t have shareholders, our policyholders own our company, and so we have a passion for community involvement, for supporting our country,” Smith told RACER. “We’re a US-based company, so we don’t go outside of that, and that culture bleeds through in activities like this … When we recognize families, it gets done in a big way.”
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The fountain scattered with coins outside the 48/88 shop had caught the eye of McClamrock’s niece. So before leaving for the next stop, she brought out a coin for them to add.
“We’ll throw one in and wish for Dale Jr. to win,” she said.
Hendrick Motorsports was where the day started as the family went behind the scenes of every building on the campus. Curiosity was at an all-time high and prompted questions like cost, what the tolerance levels are for parts of the car, if you can fix it and keep racing. When the tour guide explained about the cost of spark plugs and how they are recycled, the family eagerly gathered around to take home a race-used one from Earnhardt’s car.
When it came to Hendrick’s personal car collection, the younger family members were as excited about the candy stand as the adults were to see the assorted Corvettes, Camaros and other vehicles sitting in a large garage modeled to look like a town. Everyone seemed speechless at the man cave, decorated with guitars, racing helmets, and trophies, even signed footballs.
“Dirty Mo Acres” featured dinner while the family enjoyed time going through the bank, jail and hotel. In the saloon darts were thrown, pool played, and pinball filled the air. A trip through the woods for the car graveyard was made for those who wanted to see it.
After Mark McClamrock, James’s father, thanked Nationwide for what it was doing for his family, the company made it known how much the weekend and their son’s sacrifice meant to them. When Shannah and Susan were presented with die-cast cars of the paint scheme Earnhardt is running with James’ name, Susan couldn’t help but begin to cry.
“I was worried about getting a picture of the car …” she uttered.
“It would be that they understand their son is not forgotten and that his sacrifice of the ultimate gift anybody can give was remembered,” Smith said of what he hopes the family takes away from the weekend. “We can never bring her son back but we can let her know he was valued, appreciated, and more people know his story.”
Sunday was the culmination of the trip and the hardest day for the McClamrock family. At Charlotte Motor Speedway, they made their way through the garage, pit stalls and team hauler. Then came the time to finally meet Earnhardt.
“It’s a real honor to have him on the car,” Earnhardt said earlier in the weekend. “It’s real meaningful for all the drivers and the teams … We often thank the troops and send them messages and celebrate the military in many different ways, but it’s rare when you really select an individual that you focus on. It’s a great program that I think we have unique to our sport and something I really enjoy seeing unfold throughout the weekend.”
After hugs and handshakes, gifts were exchanged. Earnhardt presented the family with a mini windshield banner with James McClamrock’s name on it. Susan McClamrock gifted Earnhardt a shadow box with some of James’ belongings, including dog tags and his uniform name patch. Then she pulled out a challenge coin, which the family had made after his death to give to his fellow soldiers and others.
The one McClamrock gave Earnhardt was the last one in her collection. Her hope all week was that Earnhardt would be able to carry it with him during the race.
“This will be riding with me tonight,” Earnhardt said, to which the family cheered.
For the race, James McClamrock’s parents and widow will be atop the 88 pit box. The rest of the family will watch from the Nationwide hospitality area. But as they do, and as they pull hard for Earnhardt to win the Coca-Cola 600, they will still be fighting a never-ending pain.
“It’s a hard weekend,” Susan McClamrock said. “You see all the sales and ‘Happy Memorial Day,’ and I’m quick to say, there’s nothing happy about this – this is not a holiday. It’s an observance … I know it’s the first day the beach opens, the pool opens, and I know everyone grills, that’s great because you need those memories with your family, but if you just stop, you can go to the fallen database, and look up a soldier. Stop for a minute and read that to your kids. Explain to them men and woman are fighting and dying to protect our freedoms.
“Take a moment to really observe it for what it is. Not because you’re getting a buy one, get one free mattress … One of my good friends, (country singer) Rockie Lynne, he said the cost of freedom is buried in the ground, and when you know someone who is buried in the ground, who has died preserving those rights, you get the picture. Memorial Day is a difficult day.”