NASCAR asked a federal judge Monday to reverse the ruling that lifted Jeremy Mayfield’s indefinite suspension for failing a random drug test.
The motion filed in U.S. District Court asked Judge Graham Mullen to reverse the injunction he issued Wednesday that cleared Mayfield to return to competition. NASCAR also filed notice of its intent to appeal to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. Denver Post
According to court documents, NASCAR says the court did not meet the standards of a preliminary injunction and did not “evaluate the likelihood of success of Mayfield’s claims.”
NASCAR also said the court didn’t consider how reliable Mayfield’s employees’ testimony was that Mayfield had not taken methamphetamines, the “sophistication and sensitivity of Aegis Laboratories’ drug testing procedures” and “the fact that Mayfield’s expert conceded that the level of methamphetamine revealed by Mayfield’s urine test indicates that Mayfield may be a chronic methamphetamine user.” Boston Herald
Mayfield, who could not find a full-time ride following his 2006 firing from Evernham Motorsports, started his own team this season and qualified for five of the first 11 races. He was randomly drug-tested May 1 at Richmond International Speedway, and suspended eight days later. He’s missed eight straight races since his suspension, and his team has not traveled to the last six events.
He’s repeatedly blamed the positive test on the combined use of Adderall for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Claritin-D for allergies, but that theory has been rejected by NASCAR’s drug testing administrator.
In seeking an emergency injunction, Mayfield’s attorney attacked NASCAR’s testing program as flawed because it doesn’t follow federal guidelines. Among their issues was Mayfield’s inability to challenge the positive result with an analysis from an independent lab.
In reinstating Mayfield, Mullen found the harm to the driver outweighed the harm to NASCAR. But NASCAR on Monday questioned why Mayfield needed the emergency injunction if he was not prepared to compete at Daytona last weekend. The Associated Press
| 
|