Jeremy Mayfield not going to Chicago race

By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor

Thursday, July 09, 2009

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Reinstated NASCAR driver/owner Jeremy Mayfield will not race this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway as part of an oral agreement with the U.S. Court of Appeals, Mayfield lawyer John Buric said Thursday morning.

Mayfield obtained an injunction July 1 from U.S. District Court in Charlotte to lift a suspension for a failed drug test that NASCAR says was positive for methamphetamines. NASCAR asked the appeals court in Richmond, Va., Wednesday to immediately lift the injunction so it can suspend Mayfield until there is a hearing on the appeal.

Buric said that since Mayfield hadn’t found sponsorship to race this week, he agreed to not go to Chicagoland – where practice starts this afternoon for the race Saturday – so he can have more time to respond to NASCAR’s request to have the injunction lifted. If he was still entertaining thoughts of going to Chicagoland, Mayfield would have had to respond to NASCAR’s motion by today. Now he has until next Wednesday.

“He couldn’t get the sponsorships anyway to race,” Buric said. “We agreed with NASCAR and reported to the court that he would not be racing this weekend, taking away the urgency of their motion, so we could properly brief it. … If you listen to the folks in the garages and you listen to the owners and you listen to the other drivers, he is a pariah at this point, and nobody is touching him right now.

“It made our decision simple to report to the court that there is no urgency, you don’t need to decide this by today, give us the standard seven days to respond.”

Buric said he expects a decision on NASCAR’s request for a stay of Judge Graham Mullen’s ruling to be made by the end of next week, which is an off weekend for the Sprint Cup teams.

There then would be a hearing on the appeal of Judge Mullen’s decision to issue the injunction, which was requested when Mayfield initially filed the lawsuit May 29.

Mayfield, who qualified for five of the first 11 races this season after starting his own team and has 433 career Sprint Cup starts, contends the May 1 drug test findings that prompted his suspension resulted from a combination of prescription drug Adderall, which is used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and over-the-counter Claritin-D allergy medicine.

Because Mayfield passed a January 2009 drug test, an expert obtained by Mayfield, Dr. Harold Schueler of the Broward County (Fla.) medical examiner’s office, theorized in court papers that Mayfield is not a chronic user. He also says in an affidavit that pseudoephedrine, an ingredient in Claritin, could convert to methamphetamine if not tested properly.

NASCAR states in its appeal that a false positive resulting from Claritin-D and Adderall is “scientifically impossible” and that there is no evidence that would make adulteration or a mixup of Mayfield’s urine samples plausible.

Mayfield has also contended that NASCAR must follow guidelines that regulate federal agencies. NASCAR denies that Aegis Laboratories, which conducts the NASCAR drug-testing program, must follow those regulations.

NASCAR contends in its appeal that Mullen failed to properly consider the sophistication and sensitivity of the Aegis Laboratories drug testing procedures used to conduct NASCAR’s tests and the fact that Schueler stated that the level of methamphetamine (48,000 nanograms per milliliter) indicates that Mayfield might be a chronic user. NASCAR also questions Mullen’s reasoning that Mayfield could be tested daily, including with a hair test, to see if he is a safety risk. NASCAR says in its appeal that “no such tests even exist.”