Mayfield affair an embarrassment for NASCAR
Now read those three sentences again and tell me you're not hooked on what comes next.
Of all the bizarre stories that have graced our eyes this year, this is the platinum standard – or double platinum standard, or even kryptonite standard. Nothing tops it, and nothing will, not for awhile. Nothing comes close. Not Burress or Beckham, LeBron or Lesnar, not Kobe or Kung-Fu Panda. This is the one, and you may want to strap on the Kevlar before you advance.
Mayfield is a NASCAR driver (hang with us here) who tested positive for meth (ahh, I see your eyelids twitching) by NASCAR (OK, shades of baseball and football testing), fought the subsequent suspension (now it seems like Roger Clemens, sort of), even going to court to get an injunction against his suspension (now it's way like Clemens), was re-tested positive by NASCAR (OK, now we're getting into serious vendetta territory), and his stepmother was one of the people who ratted him out (see? I told you this would get weird), and then he spoke out.
Now here comes the good stuff. Wait, the good stuff? There's good stuff after this?
"She's basically a whore," Mayfield told ESPN's David Newton of Lisa Mayfield. "She shot and killed my dad."
OK, beat that.
Now Mayfield may be fully bughouse, but these are not cards one generally plays in defense of oneself, especially if the lawyer standing at one's side happens to be present and ready to interrupt at a moment's misstep.
He surely has grudges he'd like to share. His father, Terry, died two years ago of what a North Carolina medical examiner called a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, but Mayfield said his stepmother would be served with a wrongful death suit.
And then he spoke again.
"She knows what we've got on her," Mayfield said. "For her to come out and do this is pretty ballsy. Everybody that's ever known me knows I never, ever have been around her for more than 10 hours of my life. She's a gold digger. I knew that from Day 1."
And then he spoke again, claiming that NASCAR is paying his stepmother for ratting him out.
"It wouldn't take much money. She tried to get money from me," he said.
But because a step mom versus son cage match isn't enough for you in these jaded times, Mayfield gives us more, doing what we always claimed baseball's performance-enhancing drug users should have done – fight the tests.
And, ever helpful, he speaks again. He ripped NASCAR, and its chairman, Brian France.
"Brian France talking about effective drug programs is like having Al Capone talking about effective law enforcement," Mayfield said. "They're playing this high school s-, they better be ready. I'm coming after them in a big way. I'm prepared to go all the way and have the backing to do it if it takes everything I've got. I'm not going to back down for something I didn't do."
And he wants to get back to racing, presumably for NASCAR. SFGate.com