Jeremy Mayfield’s NASCAR Career Changed Forever After He Tested Positive for Meth and Accused His Stepmom of Murder
Jeremy Mayfield strung together a NASCAR driving career that spans nearly two decades. However, Mayfield’s image and reputation remains marred with his numerous questionable decisions off the track. One of which completely changed his entire life.
Jeremy Mayfield’s NASCAR career
Jeremy Mayfield began his NASCAR career in 1993 and spanned nearly two decades in the business.
Mayfield competed in 433 races, which saw him capture five wins and earn 96 top 10 finishes. His shortlist of victories includes the Pocono 500 twice (1998 & 2000). Although he failed to win any of the 36 NASCAR Xfinity Series races he competed in, he had five top 10 finishes.
Although Mayfield is known for his racing career, his actions off the track have since marred his reputation.
NASCAR suspends Jeremy Mayfield after testing positive for meth
Jeremy Mayfield experienced some ups and downs throughout his nearly two-decade career as a professional driver.
The bulk of his issues came off the track as his personal life decisions put him in a troubling spot. Mayfield’s life came crumbling down in May 2009 after he received an indefinite suspension from NASCAR. The punished came following a violation of the substance abuse policy after a random drug screening at Richmond International Raceway.
He legally disputed the suspension as he stated a mixture of prescribed medication of Adderall and over the counter medicine led to a positive test result. However, a few weeks later, it was revealed by Ryan McGee of ESPN that the random drug screening resulted in Mayfield testing positive for methamphetamine.
The court documents revealed that Mayfield admitted that he took a double dosage of Claritin D and Adderall XR. However, a third drug came up positive during the urine-based test that remained unspecified because of a May 29 gag order put in place by Mecklenburg County Superior Court in North Carolina.
The case continued through the legal realm with NASCAR counter suing Mayfield’s claim that his suspension came due to amphetamines. During that stage of the case, ESPN uncovered that the drug in question was methamphetamine.
Neither NASCAR nor Mayfield’s legal team commented on the situation given the gag order in place. However, things became quite controversial once the driver’s stepmom became involved.
Accusations of murder toward his stepmom
The entire situation took a surprising turn after Jeremy Mayfield’s stepmom, Lisa Mayfield, became involved.
Lisa stated that she saw Jeremy use methamphetamines several times in 1998. The troubled NASCAR driver disputed those allegations while saying she couldn’t adopt him as an adult. She withdrew her claims after she an arrest in August 2008 for trespassing and assaulting people on his property.
The entire situation led to the court dropping Mayfield’s defamation case as he waived his right to sue after he agreed to participate in NASCAR events. NASCAR offered him a path toward a return to racing if he completed the “Road to Recovery” treatment program and submitted to drug testing with a non-WADA-approved lab.
However, things took another insane turn in early 2011 as Mayfield accused Lisa of murdering his father, Terry Mayfield, who died by suicide in 2007 from a self-inflicted gunshot. Those accusations led to a slander lawsuit, in which the two settled in February 2011, with Mayfield issuing a public apology.
“I have previously made statements to the press in which I accused Lisa Mayfield of either murdering my father, Terry Mayfield, or being involved in a conspiracy to murder him,” the statement reads. “Those statements were made in the heat of my emotional state at the time. I now retract those statements and apologize to Lisa for having made them.”
His drug issues followed him in his 2011 arrest for stolen property leading to two counts of misdemeanor possession of stolen property. He also had one count of possession of drug paraphernalia in 2014 after deputies found 1.5 grams of meth residue. The court dropped nearly all the charges against him after he agreed to a plea deal.
The entire situation played out in an ugly manner as one part of his rocky journey through his personal life.
