Mayfield's confidence up after third-place finish

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. -- Jeremy Mayfield was in a mood to talk after Sunday's Pop Secret 400. Unfortunately, his audience was somewhere else.

	Credit: Autostock

"Where is everybody?" Mayfield asked, a smile on his face. He already knew the answer to that question, since Bill Elliott's crew was celebrating in Victory Lane and Matt Kenseth's team was beaming over clinching the Winston Cup championship.

With a third-place finish, Mayfield notched his seventh top-10 in the past 12 races. It's a 180-degree turnaround from earlier in the season, when he was rumored to be on his way out of the No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge.

"I think at that time, we were about as low as you could go with a race team," Mayfield said. "The team was down. I was down. Our confidence was down.

"We could either sit here and cry about it or fall off the earth or we could start pulling together as a team and get better and that's what we did."

Suddenly, what had turned into misery became fun again for the Owensboro, Ky., native.

"I've been in the relief mode for a long time now, about six months," Mayfield said. "I'm having fun now racing and finally getting back toward the front and being halfway competitive again. Any time you've got that going on, it's a lot more relief than struggling or reading on (Web sites) whether you've got a job or not."

Pop Secret 400 Matt Kenseth snags his first Winston Cup championship Play video Bill Elliott celebrates his first win of the season Play video Johnson finishes second to one of his heroes Play video  •  Results  •  Standings  •  Kenseth clinches title

Starting third, Mayfield quickly moved up on pole-sitter Ryan Newman's bumper. After Ward Burton grabbed the lead in traffic, Mayfield chased him down and took over the top spot on lap 78. He led the next 95 of the next 96 laps, but once the field shuffled around after green-flag stops, he was unable to keep up with his teammate.

"Our cars were pretty equal today," Mayfield said. "I think (Elliott) was better midway on. At the beginning of the race, we were good. We missed our chassis setup just a little bit about midway. About two runs there, we were slow, but we started coming back at the end."

Mayfield's Sunday drive capped a nearly perfect weekend. He finished fourth in Saturday's Busch Series Target House 200. It also continued the team's positive momentum heading into 2004.

"At least now we can go into next year with a lot of momentum we haven't had," Mayfield said. "I haven't had that since I've been here. This is the best I've felt since I left the No. 12 car and we were at the top of our game over there.

"Our cars are better, and we know what direction to go in."

And who would have thought that possible just a few months ago?