Jeremy Mayfield: Cup Winner, Team Owner and the 2009 Suspension

Jeremy Allen Mayfield is an American stock car driver who raced in NASCAR's top series across most of his twenties and thirties. He won several Cup races, drove for a number of well-known owners and eventually ran his own team. His NASCAR career ended after a 2009 suspension, which he disputed in the courts.

Who is Jeremy Mayfield?

Mayfield was born on 27 May 1969 and grew up in Owensboro, Kentucky. He is a former driver who later competed in late model, dirt and modified racing. His employers over the years included Gene Haas, Bill Davis, Ray Evernham and Roger Penske, as well as Cale Yarborough, Michael Kranefuss, T.W. Taylor and the Sadler family.

He started out on BMX bicycles before moving to go-karts at local short tracks. At the age of nineteen he began racing at Nashville Speedway USA, and soon afterwards he took a job as a fabricator with Sadler Brothers Racing, which later gave him a chance to drive.

A Cup winner whose best seasons ran from Pocono in 1998 to a 2000 season of poles and wins, before a suspension ended his NASCAR career.

How did Mayfield's racing career begin?

Mayfield worked his way into a seat with Sadler Brothers Racing and won Late Model Rookie of the Year at Kentucky Motor Speedway in 1987. He joined the ARCA series in 1993 and was named its Rookie of the Year that season.

His Cup debut came in the 1993 Mello Yello 500, where he started 30th in the No. 95 Ford Thunderbird owned by Earl Sadler and finished 29th. The Sadler team also used him as its sheet-metal worker, a role he resumed in 1995.

How did Mayfield's first full Cup seasons go?

In 1994 Mayfield said he hoped to win Winston Cup Rookie of the Year, and he signed to drive the Sadler No. 95. In 1995 he went back to the Sadler shop, drove four races for T.W. Taylor and then finished the year in Cale Yarborough's No. 98.

Yarborough kept him for the full 1995 season. Mayfield qualified for 27 of 31 races, had an eighth-place run at the Miller Genuine Draft 500 and finished 31st in points. The next year he added two top-five finishes and won his first career pole at the DieHard 500, and he ended that season 26th in points.

Why did Mayfield move to the Kranefuss-Haas team?

He joined the Kranefuss-Haas team for 1997 after he and John Andretti agreed in advance to swap rides. The team had eight top-ten finishes that season, including two fifth-place runs, and Mayfield finished 13th in the standings, the highest of his career at that point.

After that season Carl Haas sold his interest in the team to Penske Racing South, and the car was renumbered No. 12. Mayfield took the points lead early in 1998 and won his first Cup race at the Pocono 500. He finished seventh in the final standings that year, with one win, twelve top-five finishes, sixteen top-ten finishes and one pole.

What were Mayfield's best years at Penske?

He dropped four places in 1999 despite twelve top-ten finishes. In 2000 he won four poles and two races, one of them the most famous of his career. He bumped Dale Earnhardt out of the lead on the final turn, and then used Earnhardt's well-known catchphrase in victory lane to make the point.

The 2000 DieHard 500 pole was later the subject of an inspection problem. The car was found to have broken the rules, and NASCAR assigned a 151-point penalty that wiped out the 126 points he had earned from finishing 14th and leading a lap. He also crashed hard during practice for the Brickyard 400, suffered a concussion and missed the next two races. He finished 24th in points that year after eleven retirements, six of them in a row.

Why did Mayfield leave Penske in 2001?

Mayfield started 2001 with two third-place finishes but was released after the Protection One 400. Rumours in the garage suggested he had burned bridges with Roger Penske to sign with Ray Evernham's team. Rusty Wallace later said the two had feuded, and he gave Mayfield a contract in his lower-tier team in 2005 as a sign of regret.

Mayfield signed with Evernham Motorsports in 2002, replacing Casey Atwood. He had four top-ten finishes that first year and finished 26th in points. In 2003 he was quicker, taking pole at the Aaron's 499 and collecting twelve top-tens on his way to 19th in points.

How did Mayfield's Evernham years end?

Mayfield returned to victory lane at the 2004 Chevy Rock and Roll 400, which moved his team into the first Chase, and he finished tenth in points. He won the GFS Marketplace 400 in 2005 and finished ninth in the standings. In August 2006 Evernham released him after comments about the owner's absence from the track.

In August 2006 Evernham released him from his contract. Mayfield had learned of the decision through NASCAR's website, and he later said the team owner was not at the track often enough. Evernham confirmed that the release followed comments Mayfield had made about his absence. Bill Elliott and then Elliott Sadler drove the car for the rest of that season.

Where did Mayfield drive after leaving Evernham?

He signed with Bill Davis Racing for 2007, driving the No. 36 Toyota Camry. He ran 13 of the 32 races he attempted that year, with a best finish of 22nd at Kansas Speedway. Davis and Mayfield parted ways at the end of the season.

Later in 2007 he took over the No. 66 car for Haas CNC Racing, and he moved to the No. 70 for the 2008 season. He completed seven races in that car, with a best finish of sixteenth, before the team released him. Tony Stewart later bought into the Haas team and took over the seat.

What happened when Mayfield started his own team?

After failing to find a ride for 2009, Mayfield and his wife announced on 19 January 2009 that he would start his own team, Mayfield Motorsports. He ran the No. 41 Toyota, a number and owner points purchased from Chip Ganassi Racing, and he qualified for the Daytona 500 that year.

After ten races he had qualified for only five. The team was sold by July 2009 because of a lack of sponsorship, and its members either resigned or were laid off. Earlier, he had filled in at Dover for the injured Dario Franchitti and finished 25th.

Why was Mayfield suspended in 2009?

NASCAR suspended Mayfield indefinitely on 9 May 2009 as both an owner and a driver, saying he had violated its substance abuse policy. The testing contractor declined to name the substance at first, describing it as a drug of concern. Mayfield said the result came from a combination of a prescribed medicine and an over-the-counter medicine.

He later said he had taken two tablets of Claritin-D and the prescription drug Adderall, which he said was prescribed for attention deficit disorder, and that he had never used illegal drugs. His doctor and family backed that account, and he argued that the test result was a false positive. Critics questioned both the testing policy and NASCAR's refusal to name the substance.

How did the courts respond to the suspension?

A federal judge, Graham Mullen, granted a temporary injunction on 1 July 2009 that lifted the suspension. The judge found the likelihood of a false positive substantial, and he said the harm to Mayfield outweighed the harm to NASCAR. Even so, Mayfield missed the Coke Zero 400 and the LifeLock.com 400 because he had no sponsor.

On 15 July 2009 NASCAR said a second test, carried out at Mayfield's home on 6 July, had also been positive for methamphetamine. Mayfield said the second test was not valid and cited a negative test taken at a certified independent lab forty minutes later. On 24 July a federal appeals court reversed the injunction, which left him suspended. On 18 May 2010 Mullen dismissed Mayfield's suit, saying he had given up his right to sue NASCAR for defamation when he agreed to take part in its events.

What is Mayfield's racing record away from NASCAR?

In 2014 Mayfield raced in the KOMA Unwind Modified Madness Tour and then in a Pro Cup event at Tri-County Motor Speedway, finishing seventh of the ten cars that started. In September 2014 he announced that he would race full-time in dirt and Super Late Model racing in 2015, and in October he started a dirt late model team.

His first late model victory came at Lavonia Speedway on 26 November 2018, ending a long wait: it was his first win in any division since he took his last Cup race in 2005. He later called it the biggest win of his life. From 2023 he was a regular in the Grand National Super Series, where he won several races and titles.

By 2020 Mayfield had made peace with Ray Evernham and expressed interest in the Superstar Racing Experience, a series that Evernham and Tony Stewart had created. He never made a start in that series, which folded after the 2023 season.

Career summary by series