Mayfield's Map to...

Each week throughout the season, Jeremy Mayfield will share his memories of that weekend's racetrack -- and the happenings around it.

This week: Texas

Then and now

I was at Texas for the first race. I ran the one (1997) where we had to wait for qualifying because the track was soft and mushy with water coming up out of the track and everything else.

But I've watched a lot of changes happen there for the good and it's a great racetrack. I love racing there.

	Inside the Numbers Jeremy Mayfield at Texas Year Start Finish 2004 21 34 2003 27 25 2002 7 18 2001 14 22 2000 31 6 1999 27 5 1998 1 23 1997 20 32 Jeremy Mayfield •   Order Jeremy's gear •   Jeremy's official website

The fans are just unbelievable. They're cool. It's a whole different world when you go to Texas, man. There are a lot of great places around there to eat -- the malls are great. There are hobby shops everywhere.

I love Texas. It's cool.

Doing Dallas

I've never been down into Dallas to see where JFK was killed, or anything. We've been through Dallas a couple times, but I've never really done a lot of sightseeing.

We've just gone cruising along and found different places we wanted to go to and stuff like that. Texas is just good to see. Just being there, you see all kinds of stuff that's just amazing.

I've never seen Dealey Plaza, but I'd like to.

Cattle driving

The Stockyards in Fort Worth -- that's the place I was talking about. We definitely go there. It's a great place to eat with good entertainment.

There's usually always somebody famous from the country music world playing the fiddle or picking the guitar; singing some good ol' slow songs. But it's a great place to see.

I recognize those country singers a little bit, though I'm more into a little faster moving than that. I was from Nashville for a while. I went down there and I got to know a lot of people in the country music business.

John Michael and me

John Michael Montgomery was a great friend. He and I kind of hung out together before he made it to the big time and moved on to bigger and better things. I just got to know a lot of people down there.

It's a great community and not a sport, obviously, but it's kind of like our sport in that everybody's pretty tight and they pull together.

Favorite Texas memory

Mayfield's Map To...Jeremy Mayfield on the great food and country music in Texas Sign up for TrackPass now BUY YOUR NEXTEL DRIVER PHONE

I got the pole there one time and that's one of my greatest memories. Another one would be that I've had several good runs there. Then, it's not really a great memory but it's a cool memory.

Watching my guys last year when we fell out of the race. We got in a wreck early and went back out and took a wrecked racecar and it ran just as fast as the leader did, then.

It showed a lot of encouragement and a lot of strength in our race team and I thought that was pretty cool.

Going for two

We're going to Texas twice this year and I love it. I mean, I said it's crazy, but it's a good crazy -- because it's cool. It's a great place to go.

Isn't there a rumor out there that they were trying to get a third race -- or a fourth race? I'm not really sure what it was -- but I'm glad all that's over with and I'm glad we're going to Texas twice.

It is funny that you said that because I love going there and it's an awesome place. I'm not knocking any other racetracks but I'm glad to see that they did get another race because I think everybody enjoys it and I'm looking forward to going back there a second time.