Mayfield's biggest battle may be one of perception

You would have thought that Manny Ramirez had somehow landed in NASCAR.

Cameramen jostled for position. Reporters hustled to file breaking news stories. Series officials arrived with stern faces. For hours last Saturday afternoon at Darlington Raceway, rumors had been spreading that NASCAR's relatively new random drug testing policy had yielded its first major bust. Little by little the information came to light -- it was a Sprint Cup driver, it wasn't someone who would start the Southern 500, and since only two drivers had failed to qualify and one of those had found a ride in another car, only one name was left remaining. And the frenzy began.

Jeremy Mayfield became the first Cup Series driver snared by NASCAR's revamped drug testing policy, for use of a substance that to this point has not been named. In the days since Saturday's announcement, the story has taken on something of a life of its own, partly due to the novelty of it, partly due to the incongruity of a race car driver being busted for an alleged drug offense, partly because of the mystery surrounding what exactly NASCAR tests for and what exactly Mayfield used. The end results are that Mayfield is indefinitely suspended from all competition as both a driver and owner, that to get reinstated he'll have to go through a program that could include substance abuse counseling, and that for a long time his name is going to be linked to a failed drug test.

'Clear violation'

NASCAR's drug policy is an extensive search to weed out any combination of substances that affect driving performance.

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For both the driver and series, it's a difficult situation. While no one in their right mind would suggest that NASCAR has a drug problem, it's completely reasonable for the sport to test for compounds that might impair judgment or motor function while driving at 160 mph. Yet as NASCAR's drug czar, Dr. David Black, will freely attest, the safety issues involved in high-speed auto racing mandate testing for a wider array of substances than any other sport. Some of those substances are legal for anyone to buy over the counter, or prescribed by physicians for legitimate medical reasons. Knowing that information, it's not crazy to think that Mayfield -- who claims the positive test stemmed from a combination of over-the-counter and prescription drugs -- could have been flagged for something he likely wouldn't have even been tested for had he competed in any other sport.

If that is the case, it doesn't make him innocent, and it doesn't mean that NASCAR's drug-testing program is too strict. There are drivers who abstain from even alcohol for days prior to a race weekend, just to make sure they suffer no ill effects. But perception can be a difficult thing to shake, and right now all we really know is that Mayfield has been caught for some kind of drug use, and in the public eye that turns him into a firesuited version of Barry Bonds.

In this day and age, the phrase "failed drug test" evokes a strong, visceral reaction from many casual sports fans -- the kind who might not follow NASCAR but saw Mayfield on the front page of their local sports sections, and whose perception of the entire sport could be colored by this one incident. People see failed drug tests, and they're conditioned to think steroids and syringes and marijuana and cocaine. And although Mayfield is something of a bit player on the Cup Series scene these days, trying to make a go of it with his own team -- if he were a baseball player, he'd be a journeyman bouncing up and down between Triple-A and the bigs -- he's still a NASCAR driver, and only 43 of those compete every weekend.

It would help on so many levels if we knew more, if NASCAR could just provide some of idea of what class of drug Mayfield was busted for. In other sports leagues, keeping this kind of stuff private isn't unusual; Major League Baseball didn't reveal that Ramirez tested positive for a female fertility drug commonly used as a steroid masking agent, a Los Angeles newspaper reported it citing unnamed sources. But other sports leagues don't test for beta blockers or certain kinds of over-the-counter medications, items that while potentially capable of impairing a driver, don't carry the connotations of cheating or illegality. Using the hard stuff is one thing; using too much antihistamine is quite another. Yet until we know the details of Mayfield's case, the public is going to lump him in with the likes of Barry and Manny and A-Rod.

But then again, this is a new world for NASCAR, which implemented its random testing policy earlier this year. Given the wide range of compounds that we now know drivers are tested for, it was an inevitability that a Cup driver would eventually get caught, and the first guy to do so would face a media nightmare. You'd hope that as we go forward, NASCAR would be able to find a way to separate the real substance abusers from the drivers taking drugs or medications that would be acceptable -- in reasonable dosages, of course -- if they didn't make their living competing at high speeds. There's Aaron Fike, arrested for shooting heroin in a parking lot. And there's Tim Richmond, busted for using too much cold medication.

Both offenses, yes, but wildly different in scope. Where on that scale does Jeremy Mayfield sit? Right now, we don't know.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.