NASCAR: Jeremy Mayfield resisted drug test Monday

By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor
Thursday, July 09, 2009
NASCAR owner/driver Jeremy Mayfield has only competed in five Sprint Cup Series races this season. (Mark Sluder / NASCAR Scene)

NASCAR owner/driver Jeremy Mayfield has only competed in five Sprint Cup Series races this season.

Mark Sluder
NASCAR Scene

NASCAR driver/owner Jeremy Mayfield, who obtained an injunction from U.S. District Court to lift a suspension for a failed drug test that NASCAR says was positive for methamphetamines, submitted to a NASCAR drug test Monday but did not provide a sample to NASCAR’s technicians for seven hours.

The delay was a sign that Mayfield was trying to avoid the test, NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Wednesday night, but Mayfield attorney John Buric said it was just the result of confusion over where the laboratory was.

Mayfield was called at 1:18 p.m. Monday and told he had two hours to get to a NASCAR-specified laboratory to give a sample – two hours being the standard for NASCAR tests not conducted at the race track, Poston said. Mayfield claimed he couldn’t find the lab and then went to a laboratory not acceptable to Aegis Laboratories, which oversees NASCAR’s drug tests.

Buric said the original NASCAR phone call went to Mayfield’s voice mail and he then was told more than an hour after the initial call to go to a laboratory about an hour away. He was then told with less than 30 minutes prior to the 3:18 p.m. deadline to go to a closer lab but didn’t get good directions and was at a loss about what to do. Buric said neither he nor Mayfield could not get hold of the contact at the laboratory to get accurate directions.

“I said [to Mayfield], ‘They are going to try to turn this into a positive result and try to accuse you for delaying, failing to abide by the drug-policy procedures. Go to your own lab and provide a urine sample so we have a safe sample,’” Buric said.

NASCAR sent technicians and a NASCAR security official to Mayfield’s home, and they were able to get a sample at about 8:20 p.m., about an hour after they arrived, Poston said. If Mayfield did not give a sample Monday, he would have been considered to have failed the test and been suspended, Poston said.

Aegis Laboratories' chief executive officer, Dr. David Black, whose company administers the NASCAR drug-testing program, said the more time a person has between notification and giving a sample, the more time a person can consume fluids to dilute the urine sample to make the drug concentration dip or use a product to try to get past the drug test.

“It’s apparent this was an attempt to delay and avoid doing a test within the prescribed time,” Poston said. “Ultimately, we got a sample from him, but it was after an extraordinary amount of delay and avoidance on his part.”

Buric said the delay at Mayfield’s home was caused by NASCAR telling the technicians that they had to directly observe Mayfield providing the urine sample with his pants down and shirt up to make sure the sample was his. When NASCAR tests at the track, drivers are allowed to use a bathroom stall.

“I think [that] was outrageous, and I think it’s intentional,” Buric said. “Jeremy smartly said, ‘I’m not going to give them the opportunity to try to yet again ruin me, so he did the direct observe.’ … The agency has the discretion to require the donor to provide the sample while being directly observed.

“That’s the collector’s discretion, not NASCAR gets to direct the collector to do that.”

Buric said NASCAR went beyond the bounds of the test with its actions Monday.

“It’s more, ‘I am God, hear me roar. I make the rules up as I go along. I get to do what I want to do. I can make you do what you’re not required to do,’” Buric said. “It was intentional harassment. What was the purpose of sending NASCAR security detail? … Why make him be observed peeing in a cup? Ask NASCAR how many other people have you made do that?”

Black said that procedure was used because of Mayfield’s history.

“We do not under normal, random collections directly observe, but under reasonable suspicion or follow-up testing, it is a practice to observe the collection,” Black said.

Black said it could be possible to have test results by Friday, depending on what is found. He said if it is found to be positive, he would take direction from the attorney and the courts on how to proceed with the testing of a second, so-called B sample. NASCAR believes Aegis should test the B sample, while Mayfield contends an independent laboratory should test the B sample.

NASCAR does have the right to test Mayfield. When issuing the injunction to lift the suspension, U.S. District Judge Graham Mullen ruled July 1 that “Mayfield will have to comply with whatever drug-testing requirements are imposed right away on him and continue to do so.”

NASCAR is appealing Mullen’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., seeking to have the injunction lifted so it can put Mayfield back on suspension for the May 1 test the driver allegedly failed.

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.”
 

Mentioned Drivers: Jeremy Mayfield

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