Article
Aug 14, 4:43 PM EDT

Mayfield May Have Lost in Evernham Split

By JENNA FRYER
AP Auto Racing Writer

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- The split between Jeremy Mayfield and car owner Ray Evernham was both ugly and overdue.

Their four-year relationship ended last week in an Iredell County courtroom, with Mayfield fighting over the final details of his severance after Evernham kicked him out of the No. 19 Dodge.

That it took a detour through the judicial system wasn't a surprise. The shocker was that it took this long.

Despite a pair of wins and two berths in the Chase for the championship, Mayfield has been miserable all season. He was mad that Evernham's expansion from two cars to three required moving key personnel from Mayfield's team into new roles and he went public with his displeasure a mere two months into the season.

That infuriated Evernham, who claimed Mayfield didn't bring his concerns to the boss first but promised he'd try to make things better.

When it didn't happen, the frustration simmered into the dog days of summer. Mayfield was mired in the very back of the Nextel Cup standings, while babyfaced teammate Kasey Kahne had four wins and a solid hold as Evernham's top driver.

And as Evernham devoted more and more time to protege Erin Crocker, Mayfield finally exploded last month in Chicago with a critical rant that took several jabs at his absentee boss.

"I haven't talked to Ray much," Mayfield said, taking pains to point out Evernham's absence at the track that day.

"We don't see Ray much. He encourages us when he is around, but we haven't seen him much lately. He used to be on top of stuff like this pretty hot and heavy, and he's letting it take its course, I guess."

Evernham had been with Crocker at an ARCA race that day, but rushed back to Chicago to deal with his disgruntled driver. Sitting side-by-side during a hastily called news conference, Mayfield backed off his remarks.

"The problem isn't Ray," he said. "It's not about one person. If you think it's about Ray, we're all (kidding) ourselves. I want to clear it all up right now that it's not one person."

But that awkward 15 minutes together hardly cleared the air. Evernham was seething inside, furious that Mayfield had taken a cheap shot at him through the media. It was clear that day that it was over between the two, and whether they could make it to the end of the season was the only lingering question.

Mayfield was muzzled from that moment on, shadowed by a team representative who took pains to prevent Mayfield from discussing anything other than on-track activity. But Mayfield was no fool, and played every angle he could.

He said all the right things in public, but privately promoted a "Where's Ray?" T-shirt that had been popping up around the garage. And he snuck in little remarks, such as his "I doubt I'm staying" declaration after his qualifying lap in Indianapolis two weeks ago.

Those four little words were just enough for Mayfield, who knew his on-guard team representative wouldn't permit him to say anything more.

Mayfield wanted out - despite a contract that ran through 2007 and had two option years beyond that - and he was going to do everything in his power to make it happen.

He got his wish last week when Evernham yanked him out of the car in favor of Bill Elliott. The move was convenient because Mayfield had dropped to 36th in the points, the first position not promised a spot in the starting field, and putting Elliott in the car for the road course race at Watkins Glen gave him a better shot at making the race.

It also bought Evernham some time to figure out how to sever ties with Mayfield, whose level of displeasure had snowballed from a minor headache into a major migraine. The two sides finally reached an agreement Friday, freeing both of them once and for all from their miserable coexistence.

But once the dust settles, it will become clear that Mayfield walked away from the best team that will have him and Evernham is the clear winner in this fight.

Mayfield should have considered himself lucky to have been with Evernham, who hired him even though Mayfield had just flamed out with powerful car owner Roger Penske. And although Mayfield made the Chase with Evernham, he was never a contender for the title.

He finished last in the field in 2004, and avoided a repeat last season only because Kurt Busch didn't compete in the final two events of the year - allowing Mayfield to move up to ninth in the final standings.

A 37-year-old Southern boy from Kentucky, Mayfield doesn't meet any of the "Young Gun" criteria car owners want these days. He may get a chance to finish the season with Robert Yates Racing, but that team will head into 2007 in a total rebuilding mode. Michael Waltrip no longer wants him for his startup organization, leaving a seat with also-ran Bill Davis Racing as his likely best offer.

Evernham, meanwhile, still has a career to build with Kahne and a dependable third driver in Scott Riggs. He's still focusing a ton of time on Crocker - and in Mayfield's defense, it probably is too much time - but he's hoping to break barriers by putting her in a Cup car in the next few years.

And he'll probably replace Mayfield with Elliott Sadler, who overrides his lack of on-track success with a tremendous off-track personality.

So Evernham will go on to win races, make millions of dollars and continue to be a central figure in NASCAR.

Mayfield, however, likely will wind up where he already is: Stuck in the back of the field.

And that, my friends, is why Jeremy is out of the car now instead of the end of the season. He knew what he was doing when he made those remarks to the media every single time.

It isn't like this is even the first time Jeremy had a public falling out with his owner. Remember the Penske thing? Seems to me this is a guy who got a second chance with EMS after what he did with Penske (and was lucky to get it) and when things weren't to his liking, he pulled the same stunts. He screwed himself big time! No owner of any caliber is going to want a guy with that kind of record, isn't prime marketing material and doesn't have an outstanding on track record. And no PR person for that matter, either.

I know some of you will be mad at me saying this, but, honestly, I don't think there would be all that much Jeremy love from a lot of you if he wasn't Kasey's team mate, anyway.

Ain't that the truth.

If anyone has met the man, I think their opinion of him would be that of a genuinely nice guy (has no baring on the business end obviously)

You are right there. My experience has shown me that there are people I like personally because of their personality and things we have in common outside of work but absolutely do NOT like working with them because their work ethic and mine are so different. Likewise there are people that I love to work with but have no urge to hang with them outside of work.

He who opens his mouth must take responsibility for it. This is cake on his face that he's gonna have to do a lot of gravelling to over come. Right now, he's make himself very un-marketable in NASCAR. Jeremy better hope he didn't just exstinguish his NASCAR career with is childish antics.

I've met Jeremy. I didn't say he didn't come across as a nice guy. What I said was there are a lot of people on here who only have an interest in Jeremy because he's a team mate of Kasey's.

I've been a Jeremy fan since he drove the 12. But he is a really a nice guy. When I met him the security was saying telling him to only sign one thing per person. Jeremy signed 3 things for me. I just think he wasn't happy with the situation and both parties weren't

another interesting read:

Taking the Blame

Jeremy Mayfield is not the best Nextel Cup driver out there.

Sure, he has talent and has enjoyed some success in his career, but he'll readily admit he's not a Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart – nor will he ever be.

What Mayfield is is always honest, up-front and willing to tell you the straight scoop. He acknowledges his faults and shortcomings, but at the same time he also does his best to be a company man, even when the company seems to have it in for him.

Such was the case for Mayfield this year at Evernham Motorsports. As bad as things were in terms of performance and results, Mayfield maintained a happy face and stayed loyal to his team, organization and boss, Ray Evernham.

Mayfield's repayment for such loyalty? He was fired.

Heading into 2005, DEI swapped Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s fifth-place finishing team from 2004 with Michael Waltrip's underperforming operation, and the move backfired terribly. But Evernham didn't learn from the DEI example and did exactly the same thing to Mayfield – and therein lies the real reason Mayfield's performance was so bad this season.

Mayfield and the No. 19 team made the Chase in each of their first two seasons, but Evernham took every crew member that had been with Mayfield the past two years – those Mayfield implicitly trusted and believed in – and shifted them to a new team with driver Scott Riggs.

That left Mayfield and new crew chief Chris Andrews with a group of role players who were relative strangers to each other. There were communication problems within the team and the crew members did not jell well, leading to Mayfield sitting a poor 34th in points this week.

"It's been a tough year just because I feel like I'm starting over," Mayfield said last month at Chicagoland, where the rift between he and Evernham came to light. "It's frustrating to explain what you need in a car and the guys aren't sure because they haven't worked with you before."

Evernham believed the team was putting in plenty of effort trying to right the ship.

"It's one of those where as hard as you try to turn things around if they're not working, sometimes you just have to make a change to get it to work and it's certainly not been because of a lack of effort," Evernham said.

Mayfield might dispute that.

The driver expressed at Chicagoland that Evernham had become, for all intents and purposes, an absentee owner. Mayfield specifically singled out the amount of time Evernham was spending focused on his Craftsman Truck Series effort with driver Erin Crocker.

"I don’t talk to Ray much," Mayfield said at the time. "We don't see Ray very much. He encourages us when he’s around, but we haven't seen him much lately. … I don’t know if he’s behind us or not."

The resulting fallout from that Friday morning interview prompted Evernham – who wasn't at Chicagoland at that time – to fly in and hold a hastily-arranged prerace press conference where he and Mayfield publicly made up.

One month later, despite Evernham saying Mayfield wasn't going anywhere, his driver was gone.

"Purely the performance of the car and the team is not where it should be to represent sponsors," Evernham told reporters last Friday. "[The No. 19 team is] out of the top 35 in points now and that was really the big trigger on making a change. We just haven't delivered as a group on what we should be doing, so we needed to make some changes."

And Mayfield became the fall guy, a great way to repay somebody who dutifully replaced Bill Elliott as the organization's No. 1 driver when Elliott slipped into semi-retirement after 2003, and who was Evernham's only entry in the Chase for the Nextel Cup each of the last two seasons.

Kasey Kahne jumped to the fore as the team's No. 1 driver this season and Riggs brought in some valuable sponsor dollars, relegating Mayfield to third-string status despite his success over the previous two seasons.

And Mayfield gladly let his teammates take the spotlight, because that's what a good team player does.

But instead of sticking with it and trying to rebuild for next year, much like Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s respective teams and organizations did after bad seasons last year, Evernham instead chose to kick Mayfield to the curb.

It was the easiest thing to do, but it wasn't the most professional thing to do. If an owner can't give his driver the right equipment or even give him his time, then the driver is not the real problem.

And then, rather than publicly thanking Mayfield for the contributions he made to the team and wishing him well in his future endeavors, Evernham tersely said of Mayfield Friday at Watkins Glen, "He has been terminated, and I honestly don't want to discuss the terms with that."

Real classy, Ray.

One can't help feel for Mayfield, what with the ignominious treatment he has suffered this year. And it's not like his is the sole underperforming team in the organization, as the suddenly slumping Kahne currently is out of the Chase (he's 11th in the standings) with four races left to qualify and Riggs is back in 22nd.

Mayfield may be back on the track this Sunday in Michigan racing in another car for another team. Rumors have him replacing Elliott Sadler in the No. 38 Ford, although that hasn't happened as of this writing. Ironically, Sadler reportedly will be Mayfield's replacement in the No. 19 Dodge.

Whether it be Sunday, later this year or with a new full-time ride next year, Mayfield ultimately will be better off being somewhere where he's wanted, where he'll get loyalty back when he gives it.

"It's been the worst year I've ever had, I can tell you that" Mayfield said. "Ever since I've been racing this is the worst I've ever run in the Cup series. That ain't good."

Neither was the way he was treated by his now ex-boss.

That's what loyalty gets you.

LOYAL??? I don't think saying what he did about Evernham to the media was very "loyal" at all!

me either.

Ha. Yeah, real classy, Ray.

:rolleyes:

Careful what you wish for
by Steve Waid
I’m fairly certain Jeremy Mayfield got what he wanted. I’m not so sure about the timing, though.

Mayfield very likely – make that definitely - wanted to end his four-year tenure with Evernham Motorsports, but perhaps he would have preferred it come at the end of the season instead of last week.

Mayfield has made no secret he’s been unhappy. He has been since Ray Evernham decided to form a third team this year and moved some of Mayfield’s important personnel into new positions.

Mayfield had at least become comfortable with his team before the switches were made. In two years, he won twice and made the Chase both seasons – although he was never in the hunt for the championship afterward.

This year, Mayfield’s performances were dismal. Despite attempts to make things better, nothing happened and the Owensboro, Ky., driver became more frustrated.

In July, Mayfield muttered his now infamous opinions about Evernham’s extended absences from the Nextel Cup garage area. Now, you just knew Evernham was going to do a boil over them and, perhaps, take severe action. It’s almost as if that’s what Mayfield wanted him to do.

When Mayfield said “I doubt I’m staying” at Indianapolis, all that was left was the announcement that he was gone.

Mayfield was terminated prior to Watkins Glen and replaced by Bill Elliott.

So, if indeed Mayfield wanted to get fired, he got his wish.

The question is, what does he do now? At present, there haven’t yet been confirmed reports of just with whom Mayfield might finish this season. Of course, that could change quickly.

Rumor has it Mayfield will join Bill Davis Racing for the 2007 season and, perhaps, that might happen sooner. Or maybe Mayfield will fill in at Robert Yates Racing. Who knows?

As unlikely as it seems, Mayfield might just be a spectator for the rest of 2006. I’m not sure that is what he intended.

This could be a case of be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.


Yeap I think he got what he wanted too.