The Mayfields: Daytona

Throughout the 2006 season the Mayfields, Evernham Motorsports' Nextel Cup driver Jeremy and his wife, Shana, offer an insightful, irreverent and sometimes downright wacky look at the week-to-week happenings around the circuit -- and beyond.

This week, in the midst of preparing for this weekend's celebration of America's birthday and the return to restrictor-plate racing, the Mayfields are happy to remain on the East Coast.

They've got a short hop from North Carolina to Daytona Beach and Daytona International Speedway, where the dogs are welcome and a midnight walk along the shores of Lake Lloyd might reveal a Nextel Cup driver or two wetting a line before Saturday night's Pepsi 400.

This week: The calm before the [thunder] storm

	Jeremy and Shana Mayfield Credit: Autostock
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Q: Can you guys believe coming back to Daytona means we are unofficially halfway through the Nextel Cup Series' year?

Shana Mayfield: Thank God!

Jeremy Mayfield: I feel like Gomer Pyle. 'Shazam!' I can't believe it's already over with. That's how goofy I feel right now. It's like, 'What in the hell has just happened to us?'

Shana Mayfield: I do, too. Sometimes you can't wait for the year to be over, and sometimes you just want to relish every moment of it -- over and over.

This is one of those years when you just want to hurry up and get it over.

Jeremy Mayfield: Yeah, but even as bad as I think it is, sometimes.

Shana Mayfield: It's not that bad!

Jeremy Mayfield: I've got to keep it all in perspective, because I want all the race fans out there to know, seriously -- yeah, we're running badly and we're having a bad year -- but it always could be worse.

Shana Mayfield: It could always be a lot worse.

Jeremy Mayfield: I'm doing what I love to do, and I'm not being politically correct here. But you have to keep it all in perspective. I have to tell you about a funny thing I heard, recently.

We were signing autographs in Michigan, at Dodge's fan day at one of their facilities, and I heard one of the funniest things I've heard lately, and it was interesting, because it was said by a real veteran crew chief.

We were sitting there signing, and he said, 'you know what's funny? This pencil sure is lighter than a shovel, isn't it?'

I said, 'what?' But he made me think about it, and I said, 'you know what, you're right.' We could be digging ditches.

Shana Mayfield: Unh-huh.

Jeremy Mayfield: Signing autographs is not a bad thing, but it's just one part of what is really a neat way to make a living.

Shana Mayfield: I agree, and I'm not that.

Jeremy Mayfield: But you've got to be careful, because you can get all wrapped in it -- this 'running bad' deal. I'm talking about how anybody can -- not just you and I.

Q: You had a third of the season that was kinda crappy, and lately you've been better, don't you think?

Jeremy Mayfield: Yeah, right.

Shana Mayfield: But still, we've had a lot of other things going on outside of racing, too -- with real estate and other things besides racing -- that we've had a lot of stuff on our mind.

So really, knowing the season is halfway over is a good thing because we've got a lot of stuff we need to get done.

Q: Coming back to Daytona, do you feel like your season could be starting all over again?

Shana Mayfield: Yeah.

Jeremy Mayfield: Uh, I don't.

Shana Mayfield: Well, I do.

Jeremy Mayfield: Not really. We need a few more races, here -- another half of a season to get this deal where it needs to be, before we start a new season. God!

We're not quite ready to start a new one, yet. This year's already screwed up, so I would kind of like to let it run its course, let's let us get back to where we need to be and boom! We'll start off with a bang, like we need to.

I'm not saying we couldn't get in the Chase [for the Nextel Cup] -- but it just could be the biggest upset in NASCAR if we were able to do it, coming back from 35th in the championship.

I don't quite know how we're going to do that, but where there's a will, there's certainly a way and I can tell you this bunch I've got with me at Evernham's is willing.

Shana Mayfield: And [next year] everybody's going to be on the same page, which will make a difference.

Jeremy Mayfield: So I'd just like to finish the year, get better and better every week and maybe win some races and then we'll be ready to go, next year.

Q: If there were a 23-car pileup on the fifth lap of the Pepsi 400 Saturday night, how would you miss it?

Shana Mayfield: The way our luck's been going, we wouldn't [laughing].

Jeremy Mayfield: It'd be tough, but I could miss it [laughing].

Shana Mayfield: The way our luck's been this year, we'd either be the ones to cause it, or the last one to get involved in it.

Jeremy Mayfield: And we usually don't qualify too well for speedway races, so it would be hell or high water if I were to miss it. I'd have to make it through all of it.

I remember one year Delma Cowart was about three quarters of a lap behind early in the Gatorade 125, there was a big wreck and he ended up qualifying for the Daytona 500. That's about what we're going to have to do this week, maybe.

Shana Mayfield: For the most part Jeremy usually makes it through the big wrecks at Daytona, I have to say.

Jeremy Mayfield: Except one year, when Michael Waltrip wrecked on the frontstretch.

Shana Mayfield: Good God, and you t-boned him, didn't you?

Jeremy Mayfield: He was going back and forth and back and forth, and I said, 'God, I've got to wait until the last minute to make my move,' and damn, I expected him to keep going outside and he stopped.

I t-boned him so hard -- it was like the world stopped. I haven't ever hit anything that hard.

Shana Mayfield: Needless to say, we were all in the infield care center together.

Jeremy Mayfield: I love the HANS device, and where safety's gone -- don't get me wrong. But some of these guys racing today, if they ever had to experience what a lot of us have experienced in our careers, they wouldn't be as crazy as they are sometimes with their driving, you know?

If they get their neck stretched out about eight or 10 inches, they'll stop all that craziness. They won't be doing all those moves like they do in plate races, recently.

It'd be the equivalent of getting hit in the head with a sledgehammer. With a helmet on, of course -- but you'd just be sitting here and let somebody hit you upside the head with a damned 10-pound sledge.

Now, who would do that -- at least not more than once? That's the same difference as getting in one of those wrecks. It is.

Q: When Jeff Gordon has a wreck like he did when he a brake failure at Pocono, do you guys talk about it much?

Jeremy Mayfield: When I drove by it and seen it, I knew it was pretty bad.

Shana Mayfield: Jeremy came through there and you could hear it in his voice on the radio, that he was scared, when he asked, 'is he OK?' There was silence because nobody knew, at that point.

Jeremy Mayfield: When you hit like that with the left side, HANS or no HANS, you've usually hit a ton. The way that he hit, it looked to me like he had hit a ton.

Now, I've done that without soft walls, you know what I mean?

Credit: Autostock

Inside the Numbers Jeremy Mayfield's 2006 stats Race Start Finish Status Daytona 26 36 running California 21 22 running Las Vegas 24 25 running Atlanta 20 41 running Bristol 10 16 running Martinsville 23 26 engine Texas 34 31 running Phoenix 28 26 running Talladega 36 13 running Richmond 38 32 running Darlington 30 38 running Charlotte 2 15 running Dover 2 18 running Pocono 26 23 running Michigan 18 36 running Sonoma 32 22 running Average 23.1 26.2

Shana Mayfield: People always talk about it and there's a lot of concern. Back in the motorhome lot you'll hear people talking about it and how many G's there were on impact.

Jeremy Mayfield: But it was still cool that with what we've done for safety, today, he was still able to get out and walk over and look at the car immediately.

Shana Mayfield: But there's that minute where you sit there holding your breath because you knew how badly it looked when you hit -- and you just don't know [the outcome].

You can't see because it's all smoky and you don't know if he's moving or not, so it's tough.

Jeremy Mayfield: I'll tell you what soft walls have done. It's still like getting hit with that 10-pound sledgehammer, but you're able to put a piece of 10-inch foam in front of your forehead before they whack you.

That's about the difference.

Shana Mayfield: Foam wouldn't do much for a sledgehammer.

Jeremy Mayfield: I mean, not hitting you hard -- I'm talking about pulling it back like this and just letting it pop you in the head. You feel it.

There are a lot of people in public that if you were in a car running 30 miles an hour, and you spun around on ice or something and backed it into a wall -- running 30 miles an hour, now -- you don't realize how hard that that is.

So imagine doing it at 180 miles an hour, or something like that. That's pretty wild.

That's when you wake up and your head's duct-taped to a stretcher and you look around like, 'man, what's going on?' You don't know. You're just wondering how you got there.

The good thing is, if you wake up and you're thinking about it.

Q: How happy are the dogs going to be to get back on the road, after a couple weeks at home dog-fighting and hanging around the pool?

Jeremy Mayfield: They're going to be so happy. Izzy can't wait to get back in the plane and go. We're going to be so happy because we've missed them so much.

Shana Mayfield: They've been looking to see how much we've been mentioning them, but it's not the same as being out on the road and aggravating all their friends in the motorhome lot.

Jeremy Mayfield: We've been getting a lot of support for the dogs, and they know it. We get all kinds of dog treats and other stuff in the mail. I mean, everything -- and I'd like to thank everybody out there who's sent something or thought of our dogs.

Shana Mayfield: They're our family.

Jeremy Mayfield: I think they're the best-looking dogs around. Now, I don't think we can handle bringing more than two of them at once, but we might bring two different ones.

You know that Izzy and Mattie are usually the ones that come out with, and whatever you do, don't tell them we're thinking this way, but we might.

Shana Mayfield: We might bring Zoë and Ivan, the two youngest ones.

Jeremy Mayfield: We're not doing it this weekend, but one day we're going to, and they're going to put on one hell of a show.

Shana Mayfield: Pocono is having the pet show, so it might be there.

Jeremy Mayfield: Well, Zoë and Ivan aren't jet-trained yet, so that's one of the reasons why we're not sure when it will be. They might go on a car ride, first.

The other two -- Izzy and Mattie -- are jet-trained perfectly. They jump up in the plane, run into the back and each one of them jumps into their own seat. We don't ever have to do anything with them.

Shana Mayfield: But Zoë and Ivan, I don't know.

Jeremy Mayfield: Now, Izzy will fart in the plane every once in a while, but that's about it. She just gets nervous.

WORD ASSOCIATION: Daytona Beach Part II

Lake Lloyd
Jeremy Mayfield: Big bass.
Shana Mayfield: Cool stunts.

Fireworks
Jeremy Mayfield: Like to have some.
Shana Mayfield: Scares Izzy to death.

The draft
Jeremy Mayfield: What draft?
Shana Mayfield: Don't lose it.