At Bristol, Mayfield's team begins to see the light

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Take a left from where the green No. 36 racecar is parked in the infield, walk to the opposite site of the garage, make a right turn at the gas pumps, and navigate the tunnel that emerges on the other side of the racetrack. Walk down the ramp, take another right, and trudge up the long hill past several parking lots to a spot well outside of Bristol Motor Speedway.

And there you will find NASCAR's version of skid row, home to huddled masses that yearn to just qualify for Nextel Cup events. It's where you find startup teams, shoestring teams, struggling teams and anyone else outside the golden realm of the top 35. All the contenders are parked below, within the confines of the half-mile concrete bowl. Outside, on this distant hilltop, are the teams longing to get there.

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Jeremy Mayfield is not used to this. After all, this is a driver who's won five races and earned two Chase berths and once punted Dale Earnhardt out of the way to reach Victory Lane. Now he watches his Bill Davis Racing crewmen make the long walk up the hill each time they need a car part, and watches his team put every effort into not winning a race, but just making it.

"It's embarrassing," he said. "It's a bad feeling. We've got to keep our confidence in ourselves and our team, keep our egos and pride in check, and just realize it's a tough sport. We chose to do this, and I chose to be a part of this team. We've just got to fight some battles and get through it."

Dismissed from Evernham Motorsports late last season after a conflict with the team owner, Mayfield landed in a first-year car with the Davis organization, a once-promising outfit that's won a Daytona 500 and is relying on an alliance with Toyota to get it back to the top. Dave Blaney, driving a No. 22 car that finished in the top 35 in owner points last season, has made every race. Mayfield, driving a No. 36 car that started the year with no points, has spent every Sunday at home.

Daytona, California, Las Vegas, Atlanta -- the result was always the same. The No. 36 car missed the show, and Mayfield spend the weekend running the bulldozer on his farm, turning laps on the sprint-car track he built in his yard, and trying not to watch the Nextel Cup race on television. Every Tuesday he drove to the shop in High Point, N.C., for a competition meeting, and tried his best to stay positive.

"He's been great. His confidence is still there," said team general manager Mike Brown. "We've still got tons of confidence in him. We knew this would be tough. Probably not quite as tough as it has been. Yogi Berra said it long ago, 90 percent of this is half mental. In some ways, that's true today. It's a fine line between being good and bad."

Then came this week, and a report from a New York radio station that Davis was shutting down the No. 36 team. Brown called it "totally fabricated," but it still made people question just how long any operation can hang on without the payoff of making a race. Amid that atmosphere of uncertainty, the No. 36 truck trundled over to Bristol and parked on the hill for the closest thing native Kentuckian Mayfield has to a home Nextel Cup race.

And strange things started to happen. Maybe it was the Car of Tomorrow, making its debut this weekend, equalizing the competitive playing field. Maybe it was the Davis team's experience in truck racing, making them adept at fine-tuning bulkier vehicles like the COT that punch a larger hole in the air. Maybe it was all that technical help from Toyota, finally paying off.

Oh, what a feeling

The new COT models for Chevy and Dodge swept the front row in qualifying, but five Toyotas made the show, including Jeremy Mayfield and A.J. Allmendinger for the first time.

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In Friday's first Nextel Cup practice session, the No. 36 car was a bullet. Mayfield led the session a few times early before finishing 15th-fastest overall and second-fastest among teams needing to make the race on speed. It was, he said, the best thing to happen to the team all year, and it bode well for Food City 500 qualifying later in the day.

"It reminds me that I can at least still drive halfway decent," he said.

Mayfield's struggles have been indicative of those suffered by the entire Toyota fleet, which entered the year with several cars with no owner points and drivers frustrated from missing multiple races. Mayfield wasn't alone; Red Bull driver A.J. Allmendinger also came to Bristol 0-for-4, while Michael Waltrip has qualified for just one event. Blaney and Dale Jarrett, with a handful of past champion's provisionals remaining, are the only Toyota drivers who don't walk a tightrope every Friday.

"We need [to make races] real bad for everybody. For our sponsors and for our morale and for the guys who've been working hard. This is how it should be every week, sitting here with at least peace of mind that we've had a good practice and we've got a shot at making the show," Brown said.

"It would be a much-needed shot in the arm for Bill Davis Racing, for the 36 team, and for Toyota. They deserve for all their teams to be getting into these races. They've certainly given us the equipment and the ability and all the support we've needed to make these races. Toyota's gotten a little bit of a bum rap in that Toyota's struggling. I think the race teams need to take responsibility for the struggles we've had, and take the necessary steps to correct that. Hopefully, we've started that process [Friday]."

But first loomed qualifying, the one hurdle the No. 36 team had not been able to clear. Mayfield went out early on an unseasonably hot Friday afternoon, and laid down a lap of 123.772 mph. It wasn't great, but it gave him a chance. The suspense ended when Reutimann's qualifying lap proved too slow, locking Mayfield into the event. Leaving the racetrack with his wife, Shana, Mayfield was stopped every 10 feet by someone offering a handshake or a hug.

"I feel like we won the race," he said. "It is just such a relief to know that we're going to get to race on Sunday. We've had some time to build some good cars, and hopefully now we have turned the corner and things are going to start working our way. I'm just really pumped up. I just can't wait to get out there and start the race on Sunday."

There was one other little benefit as well. Friday evening, transporter driver Jeff Miles fired up the No. 36 truck, drove it down the hill, and parked it in an empty slot in the infield. For one weekend, at least, Mayfield's team was off skid row.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.