Mayfield working on 'big' sponsor deal, seeking ride

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Jeremy Mayfield, who says he's "80 percent there" on getting a major sponsorship deal that might enable him to once again drive in the Sprint Cup Series, isn't on the entry list for Sunday's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.

But that doesn't mean he won't be at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend.

The latest

An independent drug test on Jeremy Mayfield was negative for methamphetamines, contradicting the results of a NASCAR test taken 40 minutes earlier, the driver claimed in court documents filed Tuesday.

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Mayfield spoke by phone Tuesday morning, prior to meeting his legal team to discuss his ongoing court battle over NASCAR suspending him from competition as either an owner or a driver as of May 9, due to a positive result for methamphetamine in a random drug test taken May 1 at Richmond International Raceway.

"I'd like to come to Indy just to come watch, and to try to get a ride," Mayfield said. "We're working on sponsorship deals as we speak and I'm telling you, if this works out, it's going to be big.

"And what's funny is, it could be big in all kinds of different ways, and all I needed was [NASCAR's] support, and to work with me on this. They could have had races sponsored and tracks sponsored and I could have been with one of their big teams with a big sponsor and I guess they don't want that, because I didn't need them to get it."

NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said that he is "unfamiliar with the possible sponsor opportunity" that Mayfield references.

Yet, Mayfield's description of the company he's talking to was vivid.

"Sounds like a union, doesn't it?" Mayfield said. "Imagine if they got involved, and they're behind me 200 percent right now. America's not about a dictatorship no more and it never was."

Since early May, Mayfield's experienced a wide range of emotions, but he said he was sure of one thing Tuesday, as he contemplated whether or not he'd make a trip to Indianapolis.

"It's not doing anybody any good -- none of this," Mayfield said. "I can't figure out one angle of this whole thing that's helping NASCAR. What [NASCAR] is saying is doing nothing but hurting the sport."

The latest step in the ongoing case came Tuesday evening, when Mayfield's attorneys filed the results of his latest negative drug tests, which were conducted the afternoon and late evening of July 6.

On July 1, U.S. District Court Judge Graham Mullen in Charlotte, N.C., granted Mayfield an injunction to NASCAR's suspension that would have allowed Mayfield on the race track, beginning July 4 at Daytona International Speedway.

Mayfield didn't show at Daytona, citing a lack of time to prepare one of his own cars. He decided instead to pursue getting something in place to race at Chicagoland Speedway on July 11. That event also came and went without Mayfield. Indy is scheduled next.

But late Monday afternoon NASCAR issued a statement that said, in the aftermath of a second positive test -- taken at Mayfield's North Carolina home on the evening of July 6, for what NASCAR's drug program administrator, Aegis Sciences Corp., called methamphetamine -- "we would not allow him to compete at this stage." (Continued)