Now that’s zero tolerance.
On Saturday afternoon, Jeremy Mayfield inexplicably traded in his near-folk-hero stock car racing status to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez as the sports world’s most notorious drug users during one of its darkest weeks.
No matter what he does during what might remain of his racing career, the soon-to-be 40-year-old will forever be known as the first Cup Series driver suspended under NASCAR’s still-new random drug-testing policy.
Now, for as long as NASCAR wishes it to be so, the five-time Cup Series race winner and current driver-owner will not be allowed to drive a race car, own a race car, or even be around a race car while it is in use during a NASCAR race weekend.
The kid with a haircut so bad it was cute came to Charlotte in the early 1990s from his hometown of Owensboro, Ky., to chase his NASCAR dream. He swept floors and worked as a fabricator, then waltzed through a few secondhand rides before rocketing up the ladder in cars owned by Cale Yarborough, Roger Penske and Ray Evernham. He won over fans by punting the un-puntable Dale Earnhardt to win at Pocono and had them cheering again when he won at Richmond during a do-or-die night to make the cut for the inaugural Chase for the Cup.
Zero tolerance.
In an instant, NASCAR was being attacked from all angles—media, drivers and drug-testing experts—for the gaping holes in its two-decades-old zero tolerance substance abuse policy. That criticism was absolutely justified. Terms such as “reasonable suspicion” and “we can test anyone at anytime” were groundbreaking when they were introduced in 1988, but in today’s more advanced OxyContin and meth-fueled age, the effectiveness of the rarely updated policy had all but vanished. Within days NASCAR chairman Brian France formed a team to investigate the problem. Five months later he announced the new random drug-testing policy that went into effect this season.
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NASCAR Suspends Sprint Cup Driver Jeremy Mayfield for Substance Abuse
“You have to have total trust in that person who is diving into that corner side-by-side with you,” Kevin Harvick said at the time. “If he’s drunk or stoned or whatever there are no guarantees that you’re coming out of the corner alive. If there’s even a hint that someone may be doing it, their ass has to be gone.”
And thus, Mayfield and two others are indeed gone. As saddened as Hunter and his fellow league officials clearly were to read Mayfield’s name, deep down they can also be proud that they have done the right thing and devised a real, tough, bitingly effective substance-abuse policy.
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