THE CONSEQUENCES OF DRUG TESTING IN NASCAR
Jeremy Mayfield, Jeremy Mayfield, Jeremy Mayfield! That's all we've heard in the sports news world for a good while. On May 9, 2009, Jeremy Mayfield tested positive for methamphetamines and the battle began.
Almost every week you've got steroids in MLB or something mind-blowing in the NFL; however, there are not too many times that you will catch any of these things happening in NASCAR. Of course, it's almost inevitable not to have ANY bad press. It began with Mayfield testing positive on May 9. He was suspended eight days later. He then sued NASCAR and a judge issued an injunction that released him from being suspended. He returned to racing and on July 6 he tested positive for meth again. His stepmother had also signed a statement saying that she'd personally seen him doing these drugs at least 30 times.
Mayfield has fired back at NASCAR. He has implied that some of NASCAR's employees are on drugs and accusing his stepmother of killing his father. He filed a wrongful death suit against his stepmother claiming that she was just a gold digger and his father's death was not a suicide.
NASCAR has one of the strictest and broadest drug-testing policies in America. This may be the reason we don't usually see negative press about NASCAR. Somehow Jeremy Mayfield keeps finding ways to make the news and give NASCAR's positive image a run for its money. And that's the view from here. BA