The Dale Jr. Download - 384 - Jeremy Mayfield - Blackballed?

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

Jeremy Mayfield is still indefinitely suspended from NASCAR. Today he sits down with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mike Davis to share his story about the drug test that changed his NASCAR career, and life.The year was 2009, and Mayfield was a race-winner in NASCAR. May 1, 2009 he was called to perform a random drug test at Richmond Raceway. The test, and the result eight days later, would become one of the sport's biggest controversies of the era, and play out publicly and in the U.S. Court system. To this day, Mayfield denies any drug use. He contends that the positive test was a result of a combination of prescribed Adderall and over-the-counter Claritin-D. He was the first driver to trip a positive test under NASCAR's new substance abuse policy.Mayfield refused to play-ball and decided to fight America's largest motorsports sanctioning bodies. He not only contested the result, but questioned the head of NASCAR's drug lab, Aegis' Dr. David Black. The battle between NASCAR and Mayfield was all over the news and played out for years in the courts.Trouble seemed to follow Mayfield after the test and suspension. There was a July drug test in 2009 that resulted in a lengthy delay between the time of the call to test and Mayfield reporting. The Kentucky native opens up about what his lawyers were telling him to do and why the delay happened. That test, by NASCAR's lab, showed positive for high levels of methamphetamines. Mayfield says his independent tests, taken just hours later, showed no trace of the drug.In 2011, Mayfield's personal shop and house were the subject of a warrant and a raid by law enforcement. He details what happened from his vantage point when the SWAT teams arrived with machine guns and broke down the doors of his home. The raid resulted in a string of felony charges for stolen items and a charge for possession of meth. Mayfield denies the meth that was found and tells his take on the baggie they discovered in his safe.Mayfield still believes that all of the drug tests that tested positive were false or were a part of a greater conspiracy. He claims that a personal feud with NASCAR's Brian France was the root of much of his troubles.Now, this might not be "the' story, but it is "his" story. The Download gives the former racer a chance to share his account of the fascinating story..DIRTY AIRBefore Jeremy came to the table, the DJD crew talks about: The World 600 and why it shouldn't be named anything else. Chase Briscoe's Hail Mary full of crash. The new Dirty Mo Media podcast, Speed Street, with Indycar driver Conor Daly and Joey Mulinaro. ASKJR Presented by XfinityHannah Newhouse brings it with fan questions from Twitter and the live YouTube chat. The Snake Pit at the Indy 500. Dale's anxiety of having two aggressive JR Motorsports driver gunning for a win. The Roval wouldn't be here if the racing was as good as the 600 a few years ago. Dale going to a World of Outlaws race? Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a presentation of Dirtymo Media. Our athletes, they do not have a baseball bat in their hand, a football or basketball. They have 3,550-pound race cars with over 800 horsepower driving off into most corners in over 200 miles an hour. If I believe I'm innocent or anything, I'm going to fight for it. And Jeremy is fighting for it. You've got to give him kudos for that. You've got to give NASCAR kudos for standing up and saying, this is our policy. We're fighting it.

Hey, everybody. glad you tuned in to the Dale Jr. Download episode 384. I'm Dellenhart Jr. My co-host, Mike. How you doing, Mike? Doing well. How are you? Doing good.

Doing good. We had an awesome, awesome weekend. We're going to talk about it. Matthew's here. Hannah's here. Everybody's in the studio. The Bojangles studio is rocking this morning. Yes, it is.

Smells so good. Does it? Cajun biscuits. Yes. I love it. It's like my favorite thing now when I walk in here is the smell. Now that you've made a few, you're all about it. It is.

We got an incredible guest today. Matthew thinks that, you know, people, Matthew's opinion is that people that listen to this show maybe thought that we'd never do this, but Jerry Mayfield is going to be on the show. I was at a little dirt track, local dirt track that the kids run those little outlaws. Yeah, Milbridge. Yeah, something like Milbridge. Okay. Not Milbridge.

Is that how you call it? Is that not how it's Millbridge. Oh, I'm sorry. I mispronounced it. You said Milbridge. Milbridge. Boy. Very country of them.

I don't know if it's country or not. If Millbridge was up in New Hampshire, it would be Milbridge. Yes. If it was a modified track. Yeah. They'd call it Milbridge. I was at a, it was somewhere on toward Denver, North Carolina, and I saw him. And I was like, dude, how's it going?

And took a picture, posted on Instagram or somewhere. And asked him, I said, man, you know, we've been talking about having you come on the show. I'd do it. Come on. Call me. All right. So we did it. We did it.

Yeah. And he's coming on. he had a crazy story obviously a lot of people may be familiar some of you maybe maybe not because it was quite a while ago back around 2009 he was

suspended from NASCAR for positive drug tests multiple tests and it was a very public battle between him and NASCAR over innocence and guilt and then beyond that

Mike he gets in more trouble with the law there was a raid on his home over some stolen property and some more drug possession, which was another battle for him where he fought against what would be his plea deal and how he would plead guilty to the charges, right? And we'll have him explain that to us. But in all of these situations, like he stubbornly fought against allegations against him. to the end. I mean, like, at no cost, that was the hill he was going to die on.

And that is one of the things that always perplexed me. Wait a second. Like, is there no, is there no way to get a pathway back to where everybody's on the same page here? Or are we just going down like this? I never thought we would have him on the show. So I never considered what we would ask him. And now in the past week, we're sitting here going, oh, wait, Mayfield's really going to be on the show. How are we going to approach us?

I'll tell you what, man. It's a fascinating story. If I'm wrong, tell me. But was he not the first one to fail a drug test? Like when NASCAR came out with this big drug testing policy, random drug test, I think he was like the first one to fail it. It's possible. He's going to reference Tim Richmond's experience and Tim failed a few drug tests.

He's going to reference some similarities between his situation and Tim's that he believes exist. I think he will anyways. I've done a right. We've all done quite a bit of research on this one to be ready and prepared, but we have to also remember that this was more than 10 years ago. Jeremy is absolutely, you know, beyond all of these challenges and trying to move forward with his life. And we're going to talk about, you know, we're going to cover the whole thing. Right. And this is going to be a two-part podcast because there's so much with the controversial timeline of his drug test failures and all the other things.

But we certainly want to know about his. bring, right? His start in NASCAR and also what he's got going on now, what he's been trying to do with his life since. So there is a lot there, and I'm looking forward to getting into that. We'll have him in the show here in a bit. We had a big weekend of racing. Some say it's the most important day or the biggest day in motorsports

in the year where they had the Monaco Grand Prix, which was pretty – I didn't get to see the whole thing because we had to get to work on our IndyCar broadcast. but the start of that race with the rain and the hesitation delays, I was listening to the broadcasters. They were really critical of race control about, you know, not starting that race. We got all this, you know, we got the extreme tires and all the ability to run in the rain. And they waited until it was raining a little bit too hard.

But eventually, the race gets started. And I really have no idea how that finished because I didn't get to watch. But anyways. Do we have a winner, Hannah? Yeah, I think it was Perez, wasn't it? So my point, I guess, is that it is a big. big, massive day for motorsports. It's, and I think that

no one series, it's kind of cool because no one series really claims the day is their own. It's everybody kind of celebrating just racing cars, right? You have the Indy car, the Indy 500, which I was at, and then the World 600 later

that night. I know it's the Coca-Cola 600, but I begged Marcus to change the name to the world, back to the World 600 presented by Coca-Cola, because I mean, the world, the world 600, that sounds pretty damn official. I mean, the world 600? Yeah, some of us never quit calling at that, though.

Yeah, I know that. I don't know why they went away from such a, it's not only an iconic and historic name for that race, but it's also like, what is bigger than the world? Galaxy 500, Galaxy 600. Why would you give up, why would you give up your ownership of that? They had a stronghold on the world, and then they gave it up for a few bucks. Come on what? For a couple, you know, cans of soda.

Make it right, Coca-Cola. Make it right. Don't you want the world? Coca-Cola, do the right thing. We're offering you the world. It's like in, what's the movie? The world is your own. What is that?

Why am I drawing a blank? You built your staircase. Scarface. Scarface, yeah. Yeah, the world is yours, Marcus. Just make it. You just got to accept it. Well, I kind of wish I would have went to that.

I was going to go. I told Marcus I was coming. And then I got to do into math. And by time I got off the air after the IndyCar race and got home, I was about 100 laps into the world 600. But I'm on my phone tweeting, having some fun down in the basement. Josh Berry came by because I hadn't seen him since he won Charlotte today before. Awesome win for him.

And we're just having some fun watching an amazing race. I mean, that World 600 was the best World 600 I'd ever seen. It was awesome. I don't know about that. No, it was. It was up there in the top five, best World 600s ever. You just like to say World 600. You gather in that?

Yeah. So, anyways, we're having some fun, and I forgot that, and you started tweeting back at me, and I forgot that you were in a suite because y'all had the Dirty Mo experience. Oh, man, ultimate experience. Yeah, the Dirty Mo media. Ultimate experience. You know, we had a blast. We had 62 people buy tickets.

It was a sellout. We did a shop tour on Saturday the day before, obviously, and then at the race. We have been blessed between Vegas and in Charlotte, the World 600. We've done two ultimate experiences, and the races have been absolutely insane for them. And so this one was like I were, I said, this is going to be the one where the race is just going to kind of be, you know, mediocre at best. And we'll be okay because we're living in the lap of luxury here. We got all you can eat, food and drink. We're in AC.

It's going to be fine. But then the race delivered big time, man. It was so cool. And I'm so happy about the success of that race because Marcus and more specifically or more predominantly NASCAR got beat up over. And we did a lot of the, we did we did some swinging. Yeah. Over the Texas race, the All-Star race.

And so down deep in my core, I am a fan and a fan. They love her the sport, right? And so it was good to see it have an awesome evening like that and such a, such an important race. I mean, I'm not a big fan of the phrase, but this is one of the crown jewels, as they call it. And so it was a fun night watching that on TV. The broadcast was fun. Jamie Murray and Mike Joy and Clint did a good job. And anyhow, can we just give a shout out to Austin Dillon for having the biggest balls out there when he went

down there between five, going from fifth to first. I mean, seeing that in person was something to behold. Now, I know they didn't all make it, right? I know they wanted them up on the front. However, that was a racing move right there. And I don't know how he pulled it off all the way through three and four. Now, this was obviously on a green-white, checkered restart there at the end that they ended up restarting again because they wrecked about 10 cars.

That race had the vibe of like some of the best All-Star Winston, you know, that we'd had there. Remember one hot night and all that? I mean, it kind of had that kind of feeling of like, man, this is like a, like a 10 lap dash to the end and they're just doing whatever they. Because after 600 miles, these guys are exhausted a little physically, but mostly mentally. To have anything left in the tank to even make a move like Austin did says a lot about these guys and how talented they are, but also how mentally tough they are, how in shape they are,

physically and mentally. Because a lot of times you get down to that moment in the race, you're really just like, get me the hell out of here. I am done. Because I'm serious, man, their bodies and minds are conditioned for 400, 500-mile races. And when you get into that final 100 miles at 600-mile race, you feel it. You realize, like, God, this is like the race that's never going to end.

And you're just taxed, right? emotionally and mentally. And to have anything left to try to make a move or go for something or see a hole and seize that opportunity was pretty impressive, man, that those guys had anything left to give us. What about Chase Briscoe and Kyle Larson? I mean, like, even that race right there, he caught him and then lost it going for it at the end. I mean, like, you could feel the heartbreak just in that moment, right?

I saw that before somewhere. Where was that? It was that a dirt Bristol like, come on, Briscoe? What the hell, dude? I mean, he's canceling himself out of these races. What the hell? He had it. Boy, he had what?

He had nothing. He had it. Are you serious? He caught him. He had it. It was there. Why does he keep wrecking himself? It was awesome.

Maybe it's hard. Maybe this racing is enough. I would have liked him to have not spun out so he could have continued to try to pass Kyle Larson. That would have been awesome. But no, he had to go in the corner and back himself in the wall. Put on a show for a second. Could have put on a show for an hour or for 30 minutes.

That would have been nice. If that's how it had been, it would have still been a fantastic race, right? I just want to say to Briscoe, to Mr. Briscoe, to Chase, I would just like to tell him, dude, don't wreck. Don't. Freaking wreck yourself. This is twice now. I mean, I'm a big fan of his, and I just want to see him succeed.

And damn, I was so disappointed. Yeah. I texted you this. It's worth mentioning here about to reiterate how good the race was, is that in the ultimate experience, we had somebody in the suite that was attending their first ever race. Not only were they attending their first ever race, but they were not a race fan. They were a self-professed baseball fan and hockey fan, but they did not care much for racing. But they were there with a friend. A friend brought them in. And she was all in after the race. And I was just thinking, think about this for a second. We just, the 600-mile race, which if we're all being honest, We sort of, we're skeptic, you know, we're looking forward to it being over, right? Like Kevin Harvick said, I'm just glad when it's over. And but then here it is, the 600 was a race that hooked a new fan. So I think that's worth mentioning. Also, did you want to even mention the fact that you were tweeting after the Indy 500

and then you went and tweeted a congratulations to Connor Daley? Yeah. You still don't feel bad. Do you want to apologize? No. I feel like there's an apology, you owe. No. No. No, no apology. You feel good. Yes. Feel good about your tweet.

Perfectly fine. This guy. Hey, nobody, I never, I'm not in y'all's little circle. You are in the circle. You're like, hey, just keep me informed. We inform you. You're not in you didn't inform me nothing. Like, hell I didn't. What did you tell me? I said, we're going to announce this on Tuesday. We're going to announce a new podcast on Tuesday.

Well, you're making some many podcasts. I don't know which one you're talking about? You knew that one. Yes, you did. I got so much going on, man. I can't remember comments that you say. He texts me yesterday. He goes, hold up.

Were you firing shots at me from the suite on Twitter? Were you firing shots from your ultimate experience? And I'm like, yes, I was. Thank you for noticing. Yes. Announcement, announcement. I sub-tweeted everything. I quote tweeted everything he did.

And I just put announcement. Like he was, like spoiler alert. That's what it should have said. Spoiler alert. The brake rotors look hot. He was annoyed. He was annoyed. Well, to be honest with you, I didn't send those all at once.

The Wi-Fi. Listen, if I may just say one thing, we're still at a racetrack in 2020, and there's no cell service or Wi-Fi. There was at Indy. Hey. It was phenomenal at Indy. It's so ridiculous, man. Hey. It's so annoying.

We're all over the place here, but I got to say for, I got to let you know that. I was at Indy running a 300,000 plus people running around doing our work, and I didn't have Wi-Fi, but I had, I had 5G and was posting Instagram stories, videos, right? Pumping videos up, and it was flawless. Must be amazing. And I'm like, my goodness. Why can't we have that? Why can't we have nice things in NASCAR?

I mean, I really, is, we've only been saying this for over a decade. now. I mean, it's just I don't get me on a soapbox I'm going to start to complain. That's what he's really mad about. He's not mad about the tweet. It's really the internet service that he didn't have. Tell us good at keeping secrets. I was never mad at the tweet. I just said to Matthew and we were in the time, I'm like,

this, this freaking guy just went out and said, congratulations Connor Daly on your new Dirty Mo Media podcast and your sixth place finish in the Indy 500. I'm like, well then my favorite part, right, is you quote tweet it, or whoever runs

dirty mode media, quote tweets it, and goes announcement, and then you reply to it and said, don't draw attention to it. It's me. Mike. I tweeted. I said, well, there goes that announcement. And you said, don't draw attention to it. Mike, no. The guy with a million

followers said, don't draw attention to it. 2.5% Oh, is that how many you got? There's a flexion. Correct. Did you catch that? Well, you weren't even halfway there. Yeah, well, by all I mean, he was just trying to fly under the radar with that tweet.

Good at keeping suit. Hey, listen, it's fine. It was fine. 2.5 million, 5 to 40% of them were bots. Oh, I'm sure of that. I think that we could all say that. I think, yeah. So I was so excited watching, when Conner's up there leading, I was sitting there thinking to myself,

Mike Davis is probably loving this. Losing it. Because we are about to have a N2 500 winning podcast host. Yeah, yeah. And so my mind was just rolling. And so when the race is over immediately, I was like wanting to brag about the idea that Dirty Mo Media has this incredible catch. Well, yeah, so we should probably say what it is, right?

And then Hannah, we'll get to dirty air. Eventually, it's fine. I think it's already dirty. Yeah, this is dirty. We are taking in Speed Street, which is a podcast hosted by Connor Daly and Joey Mullenaro. Joey also, I've been a fan of his for a long time, not a race car driver, but he's a social media influencer and comedian, and he does impersonations. And if you're an Alibati, if you're an SEC football fan, you've seen Joey's work, for sure. He does amazing Nick Sabin and Ed Ordron.

But he's also an indie guy, lifelong Indianapolis citizen and has just a diehard indie car fan. and so he and Connor have been doing this podcast. I love Connor Daily. I love his personality. I loved him in the moment I was watching a video, and he was walking through Gasoline Alley, and they said, hey, Connor, could you describe what it's like going through Gasoline Alley?

And he said, it's sort of like George Washington crossing the Potomac. I imagine that's what it would have been like. That's what Gasoline Alley's like. And I'm like, God, we need to get him on our platform. And so we have Speed Street that we're bringing in. they've done 25, they did amazing content during the last two weeks at Indy, by the way. So I'm excited about it. Connor, we've got an IndyCar podcast on Dirty Mo Media to join the Dale Junior download and

door bumper clear and our other podcast. So we're looking forward to having that and we'll continue to grow it. But that's Connor Daily, man. He's part of the family now. That's right. It's going to be cool, man. We're, Mike, your vision of expanding Dirty Mo Media and offering a lot more, you know, unique experiences and content is happening, man.

So thrilled with all that. We're going to get Connor and Joey on here on a Zoom. Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. All right, so we fired up the Zoom, and just like that, Magic, Connor and Joey are here. Guys, first off, how are you feeling after,

how's the ND500 hangover going? so far it's Tuesday well uh i'll take that first off uh i need more sleep i'm not going to lie uh we hit the throttle pretty aggressively in the race uh but also then the night after uh because i mean it was an incredible month and um you know that the the race is so special uh that why not celebrate and it was a decent day for us in particular so we uh yeah it's been a long month but uh Yeah, I'm ready to go again in Detroit this weekend. That's right. Joey. Man, what an honor to be here.

Honor to talk to you guys. Yeah, I've been battling anxiety for about four days now. So, you know, not only the hangover, but the anxiety of, wow, what really went down. It's been a long weekend, but a great weekend. And I miss it already, man. It's like when Christmas is over when you're a kid, it's a sad time. But, hey, we'll be back at it again in 330 days or so. Joey, when Connor took the lead in the Indianapolis 500, what did you do?

Well, sorry, Connor. I was actually standing in line for my pregnant wife's chicken tenders at the Indianapolis Murder Speedway. But you know what? But you know what? I was standing there and I was following on my phone and listened to your radio and it was a little delayed, obviously, no internet there. And all of a sudden, I hear this incredible cheer. and the first thing came in my mind is I said my man CD definitely just

went to the front right there so I let out a fist pump and a nice cheer in line and I was with you in spirit Connor so you know you we'd seen that reaction from from the fans at Indy before

when you've taken the lead there and on the broadcast everybody was talking about how in the past you had led a lot of laps and so we were all curious as to how I know that taking the lead and giving the fans what they're there for is foremost, you know,

at the front of your mind, but you're also thinking about putting yourself in a better position to finish the race fuel mileage-wise and all those things. So talk about maybe what was going through your mind when you had the opportunity to lead, but also hanging on to the strategy that you had for the race. Well, it's interesting. Last year, you know, in the restart where we kind of cycled forward, you know, I restarted like third and I just, I didn't really know what was going through my head other than like, well, I have to get to the lead. And so I passed all the guys to get the lead.

And I was like, wait a second. Now I have to save fuel. And so this year, it was funny. You know, I got left hanging out in front by myself all, you know, all that whole stint last year. And so this time, you know, I could have passed Dixon on the first lap after the restart, but I just sat there this time. So I was like, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to actually save fuel now and do what, you know, is what everyone else is probably thinking that I won't do because they just probably think that I want to go to the lead

for some odd reason, but I'm actually here to try to win the race. So I learned a little bit from last year, stayed kind of behind Dixon for a few laps, but I knew that, like Scott's obviously a very smart guy, probably one of the smartest. And so our spotters were communicating on a little bit of, you know, hey, let's swap around a little bit, save some fuel, help each other, because it was still early on in the race.

And, you know, and we did that. for a little bit. But Scott was actually so fast that after a while, he could just lead. And I was flat out behind him just trying to stay with them. They had a lot of juice and they were, they were running real quick laps. And I think honestly, it worked out fine because we kept ourselves there the whole day. And, you know, that was obviously last year we ran into some issues, of course, that everyone knows. But, you know, this year we were, once we were there, we stayed there. And that's the goal of that race, right? You got to be there until the last 30 laps, the last stint, and, you know, we put ourselves in a position to be successful.

And I really do think we probably, you know, deserve to be in the top three there at the end, but everything has to be perfect in that race. Absolutely everything. You have to nail it every single pit stop, every single lap. And, you know, we lost a little bit of time on the last stop, but these things happened. We had incredible stops all day long. The team did such a great job. And, you know, in the end, there's nothing to complain about because we had a, we had a

a great day. We have you guys. I don't too much juice. We have you guys here for the announcement of Speed Street joining the Durymo Media brand. And just so first off, tell everybody what Speed Street is. Why did you guys want to get together and how did y'all get together to form this podcast? Well, I mean, honestly, Joey, and I'll let him chime in here on this too, but Joey sent me a text kind of end of last year. and I've been wanting to do a podcast for a while because, like, I like talking about motor racing, surprise.

But I, you know, and I'm a big fan of really all of our areas of the sport, right? I've tried to do some mass car race. I've racing. I've racing the truck series, Xfinity series. Like, I've done midger racing. I try to diversify my portfolio, sports cars, all that stuff. And I appreciate all of it. And I like the differences in every area of the sport.

And, but it's always like, I talked to a couple of my friends. I was like, you know, who? Who would be a good, you know, person to talk about this with? And honestly, when Joey sent me that text, he's like, hey, have you ever started thinking about starting a podcast? And I was like, well, actually, yeah. And it kind of just made sense. So, you know, he's obviously got a lot of experience with the interwebs and, you know, producing some pretty great content. So it worked out perfectly.

And we just kind of sat down and just started, you know, talking about racing. Yeah, I was, I thought there was no way. and heck that somebody hadn't gotten to him yet. Me and Connor have been buddies for a while now. And so I was just sitting there around the campfire and talking about racing with my father-in-law one night. And Connors then came up and I was like, you know, I'm a firearm and a text.

And I thought for sure that, you know, somebody, some way, some place, he was already working on one, what have you. And it was a blessing for me. He's like, I want to, but no, I haven't done anything with it. And so we sat down, figured out, Honestly, the toughest part for us was figuring out what to call it. We were good to sit down and talk about racing and have fun and joke about it and everything like that.

But it took us about three months to land on Speed Street. So, yeah, me and Connor, I mean, we've always had, you know, good chemistry, been buddies for a while, known each other for a while, indie kids, obviously. So we're like, hey, let's take this passion, this love that we have, and being these native Indiana-born boys, and let's put it to something fun. And I think we've done that so far. I think Dirty Mo Media fans are going to love these guys. And, you know, it was exciting.

Connor, watching you race on Sunday, man, I had such a pride. And we hadn't even announced this yet, right? I had such a pride. And then Dale felt the same thing. So I hope that Dirty Mo fans really embrace this. And obviously, we get into the IndyCar series, which is important to me. And I told Jordan Taylor, we were in the suite at the World 600, right? and I told Jordan Taylor about Connor and he goes,

there's not a more perfect person for Dirty Mo Media than Connor Daily, right? And I'm not even sure why he said that or what he meant by that. I took it as a compliment, so you should too, Connor. I do because Jordan is a hilarious human being and is on this planet for all the right reasons, driving fast and making people laugh. And I, you know, I couldn't agree more. I really, you know, I respect what you guys are doing. And I love, you know, who you guys have talked to.

And, you know, I actually, I spoke to Rick Mears after you guys interviewed him. I, I, I, we were at the premiere of that, the four-time winners, um, movie that they showed, uh, before just a couple weeks ago. And I said, hey, man, like, I really enjoyed your interview on, on Dale Jr.'s show. And, uh, and he was like, oh, yeah, it was, it was great. So, I mean, I like, I obviously think Rick is one of the greatest of all time. And, you know, you're, I think your interview with him was something that I had not heard. heard really, I guess, that deep of a conversation with Rick, and I learned a lot myself. So, but also you like to have a good time, and we can respect the heck out of that.

So let me, let me know exactly, like, if I'm going to listen to a show, like, tell me, tell me what kind of content you guys are creating and what people can expect when they hear you. So I would say overall, I mean, we're going to cover Indy car, right? We're going to have a lot of, because obviously I have some firsthand information about what's going on in the race weekends. And honestly, I think our fans, they enjoy that kind of next level. And I'm pretty honest. And, you know, my team sometimes hates me for being as honest as I am, but I'm still employed.

So that's good. But I just, I like to paint a picture because there's so many drivers that give, you know, the response of, well, the car was great, really proud of the bit now Chevrolet and thanks to everyone for working on the pits. You know what I mean? but like what happened on like lap three? Like how were the tires wearing out on this stint? Why was that happening?

You know, what did the guys think of this? What's the, what's the, you know, does Alexander Rossi hate someone for hitting him in one corner, but he didn't say it on the internet? You know what I mean? So there's a lot of different things that, you know, that take place that I think our fans really appreciate. A lot of people have told me at the track.

They're like, hey, we've learned a lot more about IndyCar just by listening. And so that, and that's cool as well. But I also like to make sure that, you know, anyone who's an IndyCar fan might actually like to hear what we think about what happened in the Formula One race over the weekend or what happened in the cup race, right? I think there's a lot there and there's a lot of news across all fronts that I think is fun to talk about. And honestly, like everyone's got an opinion on it. And we like to get, you know, get the people involved as well, answer a lot of questions from folks to listen. And then honestly, our favorite segment, I think at the end is at the end of every show, we do a, we call it the Ricky,

trade way a random Indy 500 driver of the week and we just go deep into randomly Googling like an Indy 500 field and look for a name that we've never heard of. So I think that's great because I learned something new myself. We found out a guy last on the last show, his name was Spider Webb and he raced in the 1934 Indy 500 or something like that. So there's a lot of like stuff that I did not know that now I'm learning and that it's just kind of something entertaining for, you know, for people that I think appreciate motorsport. He comes from a racing family, racing background, heavy in his roots. He's been a part of it his whole life. He's a current driver, as we know. But I'm kind of the opposite. I did not grow up in racing family. I did not have this background. And so I'm more of a newcomer to the series of IndyCar, the sport itself.

But I fell in love with Hard Quicks. I have this nice mix of people who maybe are intimidated by motorsport because it's not, you know, their traditional sport that they grew up with. They can look and say, oh, well, Joey, I can relate to him. because now he fell in love with it. And then obviously you're getting the expertise from Connor daily. And then I kind of look at it as like, you know, on the show itself, you know, I'm kind of the strategist or the spotter.

And Connor is obviously the driver, right? I'm lofted him up for him and let him give his expertise and his info. And then I tried to just, you know, keep the conversation going and directing the traffic there and having fun with it. So, hey, we just, we like to not take ourselves too seriously, talk about what we're passionate about. and have a lot of fun doing it. So hopefully you enjoy it. Hopefully you have some laughs with us. Joey, have you been to the creek inside the racetrack at Indy to get a brick yet?

I have not. I camped out there for the month, and I forgot my scuba gear, so I did not make it down there this year. But I'm waiting for the day that counter daily. I'm waiting for the day that counter daily, and he's getting close. Each year we're getting closer and closer. I'm waiting for the year that he's drinking the middle across the yard of bricks. then I'll go out there with them and I'm sure the rest of Indianapolis and have a great old time doing that.

All right. Well, I can point you to a location in the creek where there are some bricks. It's about 12 inches down deep into the soil, but they are some full, unbusted, unbroken, unbroken. My wife wanted to go get one race day morning. I was like, I don't think this is a good idea. It's supposed to something you're supposed to do in the middle of the week when nobody's watching. But anyhow, man, we are so pumped to have you guys as part of it. of the family. Conor, I've admired you for a long time, man, and just the personality that you

are. I think you two guys are going to make a great team for us. You're going to fit right in. Folks are going to love, you know, the content that you're already bringing, and hopefully we can get you to any wider audience, and we'll have a great time, man. So we're glad to celebrate you guys and welcome to the party. I appreciate that, man. And also, Dale, what did you think of the race over the weekend? I'd like to hear your opinion on the Andy 500. Dude, it was awesome. I got to watch the whole race from the pit box right past Dixon's pit stall. So I saw him make his final stop, which was a pretty cool moment, knowing that he's in the position he was in at the time. And then watching it all kind of play

out the way it did at the end was really excited. I mean, I was entertained from start to finish. My wife was there for her first 80,500, and she got to see the cars going to term one on the first lap right down there. I mean, where our location is, it's like 30 feet from the surface of the racetrack. And so just being able to see that, the people, the size of the crowd, the snake pit, we went and got, you know, got into all that. So, but the race, I mean, the race for me is, is entertaining no matter how it plays out. If you're listening, you know, and I think Diffy and the guys in the boot do a good job of kind of telling you what the drivers are trying to accomplish. A lot of people, if they're not really paying attention, might just, you know,

you're just seeing these cars just go around and around and around. But if you know the strategies, what other drivers are trying to achieve with their pit strategy or their fuel strategy, how they're trying to set themselves up for the end of the race, it builds an anticipation that keeps you kind of plugged in the entire day. And then you have you and Ferrucci and other guys that are sort of these wildcats or these wild cards or fan favorites or whatever have, you know, you've got these interesting characters that are sort of moving into the top 10, as opposed to like a Dixon and guys like that,

that gives you some vested interest in our underdog or a great feel-good story that might happen. So all that was there. All of those ingredients were there on race day. And, you know, it still had a pretty dramatic finish, you know, when we got down to it with that green white checkered. Going down into term one side by side for the last lap was pretty incredible to have that play out the way it did.

I was wondering, though, when you're on the outside going into term one, last lap of the N2500, how do you lift? I know you have to, right? I know that you really don't have any choice, but tell us from inside the cockpit, it, Connor, like, why that guy on the outside just can't barrel it off in there? Well, I mean, I did. I pass someone on the outside on that same restart, so I don't know what was going on there. I actually had an interesting conversation with Juan Pablo Montoya, who's obviously, you know,

one in everything he's ever done in multiple Indy 500 champion, and he was teammates with Pattoe, and obviously Patto's, you know, an incredible driver, race winner and all that stuff. and Montoya, he was like, I can't believe that he lifted because nothing else matters other than the Indy 500. And, you know, he got a lot of points for the championship, but like, it's true. You really only come to the Indy 500 to win. If you don't get the points out of it, well, then it still doesn't, it's, I still don't get it. Because I'm certainly not lifting in that scenario. I mean, you probably only have one chance to make that move.

but realistically if pato's the champion in the end of the year and that was the reason why you know maybe maybe maybe we'll all look silly but uh but yeah it was the outside was tough this year for sure i think uh the the new there's a new sealer on the track provided some a bit of a different experience really all month long it was the most technically difficult race i've ever done in my life when it comes to working on the tools that we had inside the car the tire wear and we saw that with a lot of like single car accidents too people losing it in turn to the wind was crazy. And so realistically, yes, there's a chance that something can go wrong, but it is for the Indy 500. So I know I had to go for it on the outside to try to make up at least one or, you know, one or two more spots. But I guess we'll never know what it was going to be like if he stayed flat.

All right. Well, we're going to let you guys go. Thanks, Joey. Thanks, Connor, for coming on. Give us some bit of your time. I know you guys are trying to get some rest as you're building up for another race weekend coming here in Detroit. So good luck, man.

You got some, you know, we were already fans, but you got even more fans, bigger fans here with your Dirtymo Media family. Look forward to seeing what you do this weekend, what you guys create for us. We appreciate you guys, man. Thank you so much for the chance. Thanks to help. Mike, Matthew. Can't wait to be working with y'all. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Awesome, man. Speed Street. All those fans are going to be excited to see some of that content coming out. Mike, when can we expect to see our first episode? As soon as they deliver us one. Okay. That's it.

You know, with Connor and everything, I want to make sure that his priorities are still with racing. For sure. These guys are going to deliver, they do so much content and so much great stuff that I'll let them do their own schedule. And when they have new episodes, we'll post them. Awesome, man. That's going to be a lot of fun. I still love it, but it just ain't the same. Did you follow any of the debacle of Connor's Hot Tub getting a little bit?

So they hadn't figured out who it was, and they thought it was Grosjean, because the day before the race, he wouldn't put an inflatable woman in the pool, and then admitted to it. So they were like, he's been doing it. Rossi just tweeted a picture of his Amazon cart, and he goes, for everyone that thought there was 400,000 bead, there was actually $1.75 million, and it's his Amazon cart. Yes.

That's so funny. So it was Rossi that owned up to it. That's awesome. All right, we are live for Ask Junior on YouTube. Hi, Ask Junior on YouTube. Hi, everybody. Hey, yeah, way to go, Mike. You take it away.

Go ahead. No, no, you go. You do it. You finish your text. You do it. I was just sitting in an exclamation point. Somebody had a great comment or text to me. So, you want to do it?

No. It's not as Mike. I mean, that could be a new segment here. Hey, everybody. I am Dale Jr., doing all the heavy lifting here on the Asger portion of our show. And Hannah's got some questions that you guys sent in to Xfinity Racing on Twitter. And let's get them going, Hannah.

Yeah, you guys were awesome sending in a lot of different questions this week. The first one, and we kind of talked about it here in the open, was, you know, your experience at Indy this weekend for the 500. So Steve asks, if 25-year-old Dale Jr. was at the Indy 500, would he be wanting to be on track or in the snake pit? Oh, on track, probably. So, yeah, I think when you're younger, you know, you're kind of, you're bulletproof and feel like that you can do anything. And, you know, you're not worried about dangers or crashing or injury or anything.

So you just, you know, all that stuff is not even a thought. As you get older now and you start crashing, get injured, you know, bang yourself up a little bit. then you start realizing, you know, just how delicate life is. And so, yeah, the younger me would have definitely wanted to be on the racetrack. And as soon as you stand there and watch those guys go by, I mean, even walking around in the garage and looking at the cars, you want to drive one. You don't feel that way until you're right up next to the car and you're like, oh, man, this would be awesome. I don't know why I never did this. and I think when you're younger you can definitely take the abuse a little bit better than you can when you're older in terms of the crashes and so forth.

So I don't know why it is, but the older you get, the harder it is to recover kind of like hangovers, you know. They hurt more the older you get. But it's pretty awesome to be able to get that close to those cars. It's pretty awesome to be able to get on the peacock pit box. we're literally 30 feet from the racing surface and the cars are going by in the term one. And it definitely makes you wonder, you know, what you might be able to do out there one day when you were younger. This next one comes from Michael Kelly. It says we've seen Justin Allgaier and Josh Berry race each other very hard at certain points on this season so far, especially on Saturday.

What type of advice have you given them on racing teammates hard? So I was sitting there literally I was not able to watch the race. And so I was looking at Twitter. I was looking at the NASCAR app as far as what lap they were on. I mean, as they're counting down 20 to go, 15 to go, 10 to go, I'm sitting there watching the race on the NASCAR app. And I was in a tent for a production meeting for NBC for the NB500 broadcast. and I'm sitting next to Tony Mayoff, who works on my brand team,

and I'm also on a text with LaTart, Jeff Burton, and Rick Allen, and they're watching the race and texting, and their texts are like, they're very descriptive. They're kind of like, oh, that was a close one. You know, I'm like, what do you mean? What's close? What's going on? You know, and so I was cussing at them for being the way they're,

are but uh... in the way they are why do you have to be i know i was so i was like oh this sucks and i saw a clip of the seven car getting loose and in the wall and the the eight brushes him as he goes by and uh i looked at tony mayoff and i said these m fers are going to ruin this and they've got a 13 second lead and they are going to wreck each other or ruin the opportunity for either one of them to win, right? They're going to get damage or a flat, and sure enough, the seven gets a flat.

Luckily, the race was so spread out, he was able to get back on the racetrack and still finishing the top ten. But in my mind, I'm thinking, why are y'all doing this to each other? This is unnecessary. But I would never, I would probably say that to them if I could have got to them in that moment, right? So I'm not going to say, man, I don't, I don't get in their, I don't get in their business tell them how to race. But after a day or two, I calm down and I'm like, you know what, you got to let them go at it. And it was a heck of a show. They, they both showcased how much

they're willing to risk to win a race like that. And, you know, I don't know that I've ever had, I don't know that I've ever had a good result when I've told a driver that he needs to calm down or back it down. And typically, whenever I've tried to give that advice to the driver, it backfires or they lose a little bit of that edge or whatever. And you just never want to do that. You never want to get a driver to take the edge off. And you've got to trust them, right? You've got to trust that they're professionals. They're good.

They're good enough to be able to take those type of risk. and come out on the other end okay and boy they really got close to to that moment where they crossed that line of of risking it all and costing both of them a chance so that was hard to watch I'm a promise you I don't ever I've never I get so nervous watching as an owner I've never felt that way as a driver watching as an owner watching as an owner is the most uncomfortable thing. I get sick to my stomach. This has happened so many times when our cars are racing for a championship years ago,

Byron and Redick and those guys racing for championships down at Homestead, I want to vomit as that race is happening. Now, when we win and it's over, you flip this 180-degree emotion from like nearly wanting to throw up to almost being in tears because you're so happy that it happened. and it's crazy to rubber band that way, you know, emotionally, it's really, it's really a hell of a thing. But I never felt those emotions as a driver. I mean, I had disappointment and in elation, but as an owner, it's all in your gut. Everything happens right here, you know, in your heart.

And, boy, it's tough. So that was a rough experience for me Saturday. But you don't get to celebrate the wins if you don't put yourself in that situation. or put yourself in that moment and give yourself that opportunity. Well, to continue kind of off of that and the good racing that we saw, Charlotte, Josh Seda actually made a good comment here in the YouTube chat. He said he was listening to the morning drive on Series XM, and they had made the comment of if we had the racing that we saw this weekend at Charlotte

five years ago, that we probably would never have the roval. Do you agree with that? Yeah, 100%. I mean, if they've got a great product, they would have never messed with it. I think they had to do the roval to try to. to save the speedway or give the speedway some sort of purpose because of the racing on the oval was awful and there was a lot of reasons for that but i think you know they made this when they paved charlotte typically when they pave a racetrack or any road really they use

the uh they use a combination of the you know blacktop tar and crushed uh gravel or granite uh if If it's more coastal, it might be crushed seashell. Whatever, you know, whatever is the most abundant material of that type in the geographical area, they're going to use, and whatever is the cheapest, right, because they're going to crush this up and mix it into the asphalt blacktop tar and lay down this pavement. That's how they paved racetracks, just like you have paved a highway. but they have you know the technology's improved over decades and what they've started to do is i believe

they use rubber polymers is what it's called so instead of this you know crushed granite or crushed seashell they're actually mixing rubber little granular little balls of rubber into this mix right and so it is very durable long lasting almost twice the life of a typical, you know, pavement operation. But it also is like real grippy because, you know, it's rubber and you're going to run a, you're going to run a race car around there on top of that surface with a rubber tire, so it's rubber on rubber. So it's really grippy.

So that's why the bottom of that track was so dominant and there was no groove up high and the track never widened and wore out and aged because it was made of a completely different material when they paved it. but over time finally 15 years later we finally seem to have with the help of the resin that they applied in the higher grooves we have a really really good racetrack right now very bumpy very rough very imperfect they should probably embrace that as long as they possibly can they'll likely have to do some patchwork and that'll be fine but for the most part I hope that this you know this is what Charlotte looks like when we go race there for for many many years to come and I don't think that ever go away from the roval. I think that that is here to stay. Even with how exciting that race was this past weekend, I still think that they're going to try.

They put too much into it. It seems to have a good reaction for fans. They seem to enjoy the roval, and I believe it will be around for a while. All right, and this last question was submitted by our good friends over at the World of Outlaws. they said, when are we going to see Dale Jr. at a World of Outlaw Race?

I saw that. I'm ready to go. I think that for me, I just need somebody to, I need, I go. I like going to a racetrack, but it's hard for me to go to a track without a purpose. I know that race fans, and I'm a race fan, I know that race fans go to the racetrack, and they don't need to be attached to a team. or a broadcast crew or anything like that but I've been going to a racetrack with a job and a reason to be there for so long it feels really really strange for me when I go to a track and

just and I'm just a spectator but it's I can do it but I feel in the way is that if that makes any sense I feel like I'm I don't know where I belong and so I think it'd be fun I've talked I I mean, I've talked to a couple teams about going to the Chilli Bowl if I could work, right? If they give me a purpose and a reason to be there. Because then I would feel like I was earning my place, right, if that makes any sense. But, yeah, I'd love to go to a world outlaw's race and experience that. I'd probably be hooked. I mean, I've watched it for years off and on.

Yeah, so let's go. Perfect. That is it for this week's Ask Junior. All right, everybody. Thank you, Hannah. Appreciate everybody sending in your questions to Xfinity Racing on Twitter. Anyways, thanks Xfinity for everything they do for us here at the Bojangles Studio and the Dale Jr. Download and for Dirty Mo Media. But also, thanks for everything they do for NASCAR. They've been a proud of your partner of NASCAR for years.

And I'm a customer using their XFINITY X-Fi internet. It's fast, reliable. Never lets me down, Mike. That's true. I want to keep encouraging people to send their questions to ask Junior to add Xfinity racing on Twitter. All right, it's time for our guest segment presented to you by Ally. Ally does so much for this podcast. Been a great partner of mine, a great ally of mine.

Ally is an ally, Mike. We got a great guest for you today. Jeremy Mayfield, come to the show. We've talked about getting Jeremy on for years, but really never had any kind of contact with him, didn't know how to get a hold of him. Saw him out at a dirt track. a couple months ago and asked me if we wanted to do it and said yeah so here he is after doing some research uh we know he's out there and he's out there and what do you mean by out there well he's

still communicating uh with media and so forth he's done some other podcasts and things like that so uh we know he's going to come in here got to tell his side of the story he's got a crazy story man i mean you know everybody everybody i think everybody knows this story but uh pretty profound what he went through. Everybody knows the story. I think. I think everybody has an opinion. I don't think anybody's going to really change their opinion. I don't think that Jeremy even cares to try to change people's opinions. But we at least get to have a conversation with him and just kind of hear what he has to say. So that's what this is about. All right, man. So let's just get right to it. Is Jeremy here, Matthew? Let's get him in the room. Jeremy Mayfield on the Dale Jr. download.

NASCAR says it found methamphetamines in a test sample taken from Mayfield on July 6. And saying he's going to fight this to the finish, and he fiercely denies these claims. He says she saw Mayfield use meth many times over the past seven years, saying he doesn't trust NASCAR or its drug testing company. It was the question everyone wanted to answer. What was the substance that Jeremy Mayfield tested positive for, and Ryan McGee broke the story today. And, of course, Jeremy's contention is that a combination of Claritin D, an Adderall led to a false positive. Now, according to the sources you've spoken with the evidence, authorities on this matter. Is this possible?

A judge issued a temporary injunction on Wednesday that lifted Jeremy Mayfield's drug suspension saying he is free to race. NASCAR, spiking drug tests? That's what Jeremy Mayfield and his attorney said. If I was sitting here guilty, first of all, I wouldn't be fighting it. Because I know it's going to be a tough fight no matter what happens. It's the latest round in what's become a very public battle over Mayfield's racing career. NASCAR has said they will test Mayfield if the attempt to qualify for a race, but it's

Mayfield said you'll gladly submit to the test. They came to his home yesterday with a search warrant looking for starting property. They said they found it along drugs and it was 50 guns. Jeremy Mayfield tested positive test. Why would NASCAR do that? Why were not? I really don't know.

I'm asking me. Why would NASCAR do something? Our sport. For some, you got a magic card belief. The NASCAR would go to these lengths to indict one driver. It probably would be hard. But when it all comes out, you'll believe it. NASCAR claims Jeremy Mayfield has failed another drug test.

Now, Ryan, just to clarify, what you're saying is that it is possible but unlikely. Yes. You know, Mayfield is contesting what NASCAR found on this July 6 test that has now come back for meth, that's Fed of the CEO into this, he's contending the actual substance abuse policy, the test, how NASCAR conducts this test. And so it has just really gotten ugly. And I don't know how this thing is going to end, but it's going to take a while. And it sounds like Jeremy's ready to go down.

There he is. You don't seem to age. You look the same as you did back in 2000. I haven't been doing anything to age. Not doing much. But, yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Yeah. I think everybody here looks the same. You look to say. It's trying. I don't think so. I feel like you're going to eventually fall off a cliff. Yeah, really. Yeah.

So, man, how you been doing? Not too bad. How about you? Things are good, staying busy. Yeah. Working a lot. Yeah, I've been trying to run my dirt car a little bit, you know, just playing around that.

I was wondering. And like you see me at Millbridgeman, helping good friends of ours out there, the Bradshaw's, and helping them get racing and get started. You still drive? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. I want to drive more, but, you know, that goes. I'm just trying to, I got building a new car and trying to get it already.

And, you know, just, I'm going to probably run by, like, probably four or five races this year, you know. Where at? Like Gaffney, Livonia, Georgia, and just down that area. What do you in Charlotte, you know? Wide dirt cars. I don't know. I just like them.

You know, I always wanted to, after I got out of racing, you know, cup race and all that stuff, just go dirt racing, you know, and just have fun and go back like it used to be and just, you know, slide around and have fun. And I think the dirt lay models are pretty neat as far as, you know, the way they work and all the suspension and all that stuff and just trying to want to make that one of my goals to, get in there and start winning races in the dirt late model you know i saw about five or six years

ago that you're messing with a modified right so you ran a little bit of modified what all i guess since since you got out of cup racing what all have you done behind the wheel uh the modified deal and i've run a couple late model races and stuff like that i like the jennymed stop no just uh like the super or the pro late models i ran in jenerstown last year for a guy named mark smith up there But the funnest thing I've done in my whole career is probably the modified. Really? I love that thing, man. Whose car was that?

It wanted to some guys that started the J-2 thing, you know, when we done that. What is it the J-2 thing? You know, Jeremy, the second time around, basically, you know, just whatever it was. You know, we just come up with some kind of deal, you know, they did. So it was a lot of fun, but that's probably the best, you know, the most fun I've had, really. Kind of like chance to. In my whole career. Well, happy.

So you just, but you only ran how many races? We run a couple years, you know, in the Smart Series, whatever it was. and then I think they're still running, but then those guys just kind of, you know, how it goes. They went away and then couldn't afford to keep running. Yeah. Okay. Do you still got it? Are you good?

No, I don't still have it. Oh, yeah, me, got it? I thought you're talking about to modify. No, no, do you got it in terms of the, you know, can you get it done? I feel like I can. I'm not sure when that point comes where you can't get it done, you know, whatever it is. I think, you know, you probably feel the same way. You feel I can get it done any time, but I'm not sure where I'm at as far as being good or whatever,

especially in the dirt cars or whatever, but, you know, I'm having fun. and I like doing it, so. So I feel like I can. How long, when did you start driving dirt cars? Probably a couple years ago, three or four years ago. Have you won? We won one race so far. And I need to more.

It is, man. It's really tough. And that's something that keeps me going, you know, is I want to win so bad and get to where I know and understand the cars where I can start winning, you know, winning races. And, you know, it's like starting all over again, pretty much anything you did. Where did you win? At Livonia, Georgia.

And was it a, was it? Did you have them covered or did it go right down to the end? How did you win it? We had them covered that day, so that made a lot easier on me. But I tell you, it's a tough deal. No matter what you run it this day and time, it's always, it just seems to me like it's just the whole competition part of every series you're running in is tough, you know. So where do you keep your car? I got a shop in Bayle, North Carolina.

Where's that? What town's that? I never heard that. I know, it's right below Hickory, North Carolina. Below Hickory? Yeah, about 20 minutes. Okay. So close?

Yeah, it's close. About 40 minutes from here. So tell me about your shop. What's there? Pretty much, just about, you know, some old race stuff and stuff like that. Like what?

Let's see. I got a couple of old late models. Like my first late model I've ever had. Really? Yeah, I got it. You got the first one that you run at Nashville? No, this before then. This was in 1980s or 87.

You got it. I got it. What's it looked like? Don't look good right now. We're going to restore and make you look better. And I got a couple of my dirt cars, you know, the stuff I've been working on there. And that's pretty much it.

And got three pigs, four pigs. four pigs actually so I've got some pigs outside just for having fun I just kind of rescued them and now I'm a pig farmer I guess but that was random as hell I know

I know how that works like that works right how does that work well I mean I've got four Buffalo just randomly that's right now it just happens I didn't want that

but it just happened right yeah Clint Boyer had a pig and uh yeah but it ended up on the on the plate right real yeah I'm not like they're supposed to be like um

what you could pop Pellie pigs, you know, but they've turned out to be, they look like wild boar now. So they've gotten big. I'm not sure what they were to start with, but they've gotten pretty big. They start tearing up stuff eventually, don't they? Yeah, they're not bad. They're pretty cool. They're laid back, you know, but they got the tusk and all that stuff, you know.

Yeah, if you see it, it looks like a wild boar. Yeah. So, they will. No, I know. I know. Oh, yeah. So, um, would you say, don't piss a pig off. If he's got tusk, it might get you.

Right, he'll chase you, that's for sure. Yeah. So. I always get my buddies out there. I'm like, hey, come here and check his pig out. You know, and I got one name Eddie. And actually, it was supposed to be in a female. It was Betty when we first started.

Then we found out as male because it's hard to tell different. So I said, well, it was called, what's close to Betty, Eddie? So we call him Eddie now, but you, you know, you get somebody out there like this. You make these certain little sounds and it kind of gets him stirred up, you know, and he'll chase you, of course, a lot. But I like people who out there and getting muddies and a lot of your chase. Is that where you spend most of your time as to shop? Yeah, pretty much every day.

You run a business out of there? Not really. We're just, you know, just kind of doing my own deal right now. So I'm still kind of searching for what I want to do. And I got some things in the works that we're going to do out of there, you know, but nothing's kind of came through, you know, quite a year. I know over the years, like just doing some research, you, you were in and out of different types of businesses or trying to create businesses.

Right. You were stripping wire or something. Precious metals. Right. What was all that? That was a fun deal. You know, we did pretty good at it. We were just, it's back when copper and all that stuff was going really good.

And I was even doing that when I was racing, you know, kind of doing the peddling with it. So, yeah, I got into it in a big way. You had a guy come in and had some money that, you know, pretty much back the program. And we were buying copper from the government, you know, like 100,000 pounds at a time and even more than that. And then bring it back to the shop, you know, that we had it delivered. And then we strip it, you know, then sell it as a good copper. So it's pretty good business. Yeah.

And you were doing like cars, buying bulk used cars. Yep, buying cars. Stripping them. Yep, stripping those. And then selling the good parts. Yeah, recycling them and selling some good stuff. than, you know, smashing the other parts of it. Interesting.

That's kind of what I've always done, just kind of, you know, piddling everything, a little bit of everything. So nothing straight up solid yet, you know, where I'm really enjoying it and I really like it, but I've kind of been in and out a lot of things like that. So I saw the other day, you might have been you, but somebody was selling one of them miniature dirt wedge cars that you built because you built like a handful of them at one time.

You had a little, like me or a couple of the drivers, you built a little dirt track on your property, and you built these cars. And they were like a quarter scale, dirt-waged outlaw. Right. Right. How many of them did you build? We probably build like 10, something like that total.

You know, and then I just kind of got out of it. And then I want to turn it into a series, you know. I know. So with Millbridge going like it's going and the outlaw carts and all that, it struck me like, I wonder why Jeremy didn't try to get this fire back up. Because, I mean, you know, there'd be some people that would buy these things. Right. If you could put a series together.

Yep. And I thought about that, seriously. And there's a guy that now that are, I guess the series that's out there now that's actually doing that. Right. But it's in the Midwest, right? No, they race some in Gaffney and Georgia and place like that. They've been around here, but not, you know, like in Harris Speedway, they run there. But every time I see them, I'm thinking, man, I should have done that, you know.

You should have. You still can? Yeah, I'd like to. Because you made them carts. We designed them, built them, right? Yeah, I sure did. And it's, I figured that's a good way to get, you know, the next step up. You know, for a driver who's running Millbridge or something like that, you know, they can jump into

a little quarter scale or half scale late model and race those, you know, and I just figured that'd be another little stepping stone. Was that you that had that one for sale on the internet other day? No, it wasn't me, but I like to see which one you're talking about. It was pretty cool. It had that, it had the 19 on it or something. Oh, yeah. It had some, I could tell it was one of yours because it had some of the things from your cup car on it.

Right, yep. Have you sold them then? Yeah. You sold some. He got it. I sold them. Yeah. You sold them all.

Yeah. And I got it. It's weird because somebody will always come along and, you know, no matter what you got, and won't buy it. So somebody still ask about it. like me yeah right I won't want them but uh no I just didn't end up selling them just I got wasn't messing with them anymore right just figured I get rid of them so yeah I was thinking I was like man that's see that'd be something you could get into because uh Jimmy Ellage you know

bought QR QRC or whatever it's called right he bought that business and then the phantom guy started building carts as well so there's different types of chassis uh and that's right up your alley man yeah it's stuff but it's it's as big as it's ever been at millbridge and around here yeah I can't believe how big millbridge has gotten And, you know, all the carters out there and all the outlaw racers now, I guess you call it. But, yeah, I'd like still do it. Maybe we can get together and do it together or something. Yeah, that's where I saw you, though, about a month ago.

We was out at the dirt track somewhere. What track was that? That was Mountain Creek. Yeah, Mountain Creek. I always forget the name that place. Yeah. And I saw you out there and I was like, hey, man, you want to come on to my show? And you're like, yeah.

Let's do it. I really appreciate that, too, you know, coming down and you come down and talk to me. And I haven't seen anybody. You know, I've just been kind of like weird. I've been out and about, but just, you know, I haven't seen all the guys I've raced with and, you know, been a part of forever. Yeah. It was good seeing you. It was good to see you, too.

And you look good, man. Well, thank you. You've been taking care of yourself. Yep. So, I know that when I go out and about, I don't see many guys out there, but, you know, when you kind of got shut down, you weren't going to the racetrack anymore. I'm doing some, you know, listening to some other podcasts you've done over the years and stuff. It was like the, it was like you're, all your. Relationships, all your friendships, most of them, except for the ones in your inner circle came to an end.

Right. I mean, what was that like? That's probably the toughest part of all of it, you know, and now that you said it like that, that's pretty much what happened. You know, like everything just stopped, you know, and as you can imagine, you know, you got your race team here and all of your stuff. And just imagine if today or tomorrow would just come to a dead stop. And then, you know, it was like they just put a wall up where you couldn't see out nowhere, you know. and everybody you knew and all your employees and all this stuff were gone and here you said, you know, and no podcast going on or nothing.

And that's kind of what it was. You know, that's the hardest part is I didn't get a, I didn't get a chance to say by or anything, you know, or even say anything to anybody. You just kind of just come to screeching hog, you know. And other than that, that's probably the hardest part to deal with, you know, just by not being around and not, you know, doing something I've done every day in my life since I was born pretty much, you know. You're right.

you had kind of like been out of sight and then you showed back up, I think, at SRX race. Was that right? Yeah, that was Nashville last year. So what led to that? And I'm curious if you were concerned about how you would be received when you come back in a very much public way, right? Right. Yeah, that was probably, I don't know why, but it just seemed like that was one of my hardest things to get through. And one was because Ray and I, you know, the relationship we had and everything else.

But we kind of amended that, you know, last year or before that, you know, we talked and said, okay, let's put all this behind us and forget about it. It's gone too far. And, you know, he apologized me and I apologized to him. So we felt like we're on the back on the neutral grounds, you know. And he actually invited us to come to the race, and Nashville was one of them. How did y'all get to the making amends partly? Did you reach out to him? Did he reach out to you?

Did you all run into each other? No, it's kind of weird. I think Twitter is what started, you know, back and forth on Twitter. And I ended up calling him, you know, and he called me back. And we just, you know, started talking again. So you did call it. Twitter, you know, notwithstanding, but you eventually placed a phone call to him and he answered. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Or if he didn't, he called me back. So we ended up talking. And, you know, and we, you know, the thing about Ray and I, we had a kind of a weird relationship. You know, it started off bad. And then we got really good, you know, throughout the years and then ended up bad, you know. And to be able to talk and, you know, both of us kept that behind us. And they didn't go to, like you said, SRX racing, and as one of his guests, you know, that was pretty cool, you know, and so I've kind of, you know, just left all that behind and trying to move forward from there.

But it was certainly a tough deal, you know, showing up and not knowing, you know, the first time I've seen him forever in anybody, really. But I seen Bill and Bobby Albany and everybody, you know. How were you walking in there thinking, you know? I didn't know what to think, you know, because, you know, one of the things is that I haven't changed, like, as a person. And I know they haven't, but I was perceived in a deal. different way, you know, after all that, you know. And so I didn't know what to expect, but as soon as I seen Bill Elliott, you know, and Chase and all those guys, you know, everybody was just like, just like the old days, you know, just like normal, just like you and I'm, you know, when I

seen you and we started talking. But I wasn't sure, you know, going into it, I was like, this could go, you know, good, bad or ugly or something, you know, who knows, you know, but it was a good feeling. I have to ask, I mean, everybody listening is going to want to know, do you think you'll get an opportunity or an invite to drive in that series? I want to, you know, I'd like to. I think that would be like the most easiest route for you to have any, you know, be back in any type of competition. And I'm sure the fans or people that would love to see you out there. Right.

And that's something I'd like to do. You know, I thought, you know, talk to Ray about it. Yeah, I was going to say, I'm sure you asked Ray, like, hey, what's the deal? Right. And then Hawke came on, you know, and I said something to him about it. And then, you know, I know they got to do what they got to do for whatever purposes or however that all goes down over there. But we'll certainly love to do it. I feel like that would have been a good way to, you know, if I'm only to.

end my career in racing that'd be a good way to do it you know yeah exactly you know so man we'll just dive right into it you went through uh some very very difficult things uh at a at a at a point in your career when you were trying to get your own team started NASCAR said you failed a test going into richmond we went i went down that timeline hadn't hadn't really thought or dug into that since i remember remember it happening right and so uh digging into all the all this and watching every i mean i don't i don't remember i didn't know that it was so so so drug out and so many back and forth there's there was the media would go to nascar the media would go back to you the media would go back nascar and then in the courts it was one would make a move

the next one would make a move y'all would make a move naskar would make a move and this was going on and on and on and on for a long long time right eventually naskar said you felt a second drug test you were at that time then trying to go get your own independent test done as well i know this is over 10 years ago i know that i know all the details and all the information probably aren't fresh on your mind i know you've probably wanted to put this behind you and forget about it which i don't blame you uh i mean nobody knows for sure right but you and a couple other people in this in this whole thing and i'm and we're not here to you know to to debate the facts or or or get some sort of of new confession or anything like that.

I mean, right. The one thing, though, that sticks out to me when I read all this stuff, everything you went through, the raid, past the raid, everything, was how even today you are stern and strict in your belief of how this went down and your truths have not wavered from the very first moment. And you, there were some times, though, like you were, like I ain't doing road to recovery because I didn't do nothing. Right.

I ain't doing that because I didn't do nothing. You know, you were against, like they were like, hey, you know, well, you could end this. If you would just do what we say, you're like, well, then I would be admitting guilt. I'm not guilty, right? Right. You had that stance throughout the whole thing and you lost everything. You gave, you, did you know, and looking back on it, like you, you died on that hill. Your career died on that hill and you were hard-headed.

Yeah. You know, and I wonder now, like, as you look back on it, like, what would you have done differently? Or would you have done it? Are you glad that you were that staunch in your beliefs? And, like, you put up, you went up against the man. You know what I mean? You were pretty much fighting a losing battle because they could have gone. They could have went and went and win as hard as they wanted to go.

as long as they wanted to go. If they were wrong, they were never going to admit it, right? Right, right. If that was the case. But, like, what do you feel about it now in terms of how hardheaded you were about your position and how you stuck to your guns there? Well, you know, when you say hardheaded, I do feel like I was hard-ed in a lot of ways on that, you know, and but it's what I believe in.

You know, I mean, that's what I believe, you know, and, you know, I told them day one, I mean, this is how simple it could have been. or I was taking Adderall. I didn't know Adderall was a bad thing. You know, I didn't know, and I didn't know that we could not take it because there was no list and there wasn't it. Nobody, they just said when you start taking something, as you remember, I'm sure the meeting we had, then let us know when they tested, you know, if we got tested.

So that's what I did, you know, and I was thinking that at the time that, okay, I got a doctor's prescription here. Everything's right. Everything's supposed to be like it is. And all of a sudden, you know, they say I'm positive on their drug test. Well, you know, I'm going through the procedure just like they said. I'm taking Adderall and I take Claritin D and, you know, every once in a while, not very many. And that's what it was, you know, and I was hoping that they would say what they should have said is,

okay, we don't want you taking Adderall anymore or Claritin D or whatever it was, which was on my physical every year, you know, I took that, you know, and it didn't work out that way and I couldn't understand it. You know, I was like, well, why wouldn't, you know, I feel like I've done everything right? Why wouldn't you just say, Jeremy, we don't want you taking it anymore? And I wouldn't, I would not take it. I don't take it now, you know? Just for that reason, I stopped taking into probably a month.

or two after that, you know, after it all went down and, uh, because it wasn't doing anything for me, you know, and, um, supposedly I was, according to Dr. Black was getting, you know, pumped up for qualifying or whatever he said it was, but stimulated or whatever, but that's not the case at all, you know, so the way I looked at it was, okay, either I can sit here and, and, and go to rehab, whatever they want me to do, the road of recovery, over taking a, uh, uh, something my doctor prescribed me, you know, it just didn't make sense to me, you know, and then I thought, well, the justice system, I didn't want to, I didn't want to, want to fight it first of all we went we went sit down with them and said hey you know this

down with who with nascar i think uh steve old don't know dr black and a couple of you know everybody that was involved and uh we said we don't want to go through this you know we just just tell us what you want us to do you know well and dr black was turning on well you need to go to road recovery and this that and the other and and at the time when i asked first of well let's back up a little bit when i at first when he first talked to dr black about it he he said you know because darby called me told me i was suspended i need to get with dr black to basically see how quick I could get back. Because my concern was I need to get back racing, what I got to do here, you know?

And so at that point in time, Dr. Black said, well, I finally talked to him. He hadn't even tested me yet. You know, I got suspended and all that from Darby now. But when I first talked to Dr. Black, which right after I got tested, which was Richmond. And he basically told me then before he even checked anything that, you know, because I called him, and he called me back. And he said, told him what I was taking like I was supposed to, like anybody, like he told us to. and immediately he said,

oh, that's not good. The person in your age shouldn't be taking Adderall. You know, I said, okay, I won't take it anymore. You know, no big deal, none whatsoever. And I said, and I was taking my cleric and deed. You know, I'm with it. Just letting you know that. And he said, oh, now we've got a problem.

And this was Sunday night, and my sample hadn't even made it to the lab yet. You know, and he's already got a problem with it. So I knew right then that it wasn't going to be easy, and it was probably going to be a huge problem, but I didn't know it was going to be that bad. That's why, you know, when I decided to fight it was because I felt like I was doing the right thing and I didn't, you know, and I can sleep at night now, you know, not, you know, or I felt better if he just said, hey, we're going to assess you and make sure that you don't have a problem and we'll go from there, you know, I didn't even get that option. My option was from him was after, you know, it was positive, it was just downhill from there, you know.

Yeah. Can we say, say who is specifically Dr. Black is he, was he the one that, did he work for NASCAR, did he, was he licensed from NASCAR to? to administer tests. Right. He was licensed from NASCAR to administer the test. But also, you know, that's another problem we had, was he owned the lab. He owned Agis Labs. He worked for NASCAR, do all the testing for everybody.

Okay. And my particular case, you know, he hadn't been testing himself personally, hadn't been back there in the lab testing anybody's, you know, samples. My case, he did. He jumps back in and runs mine through himself. and then that's when it came up positive. On the first one. The first one.

I'm sure the second one too. And so you're saying he was in there? Yeah, he's the one that did the testing and not only as he did the testing, but now if you do have a positive test, you've got to go through him to get back into the road recovery. And forgive me for backing up a little bit because we were trying to remember. I mean, the whole drug testing program that NASCAR instituted was still relatively new, right? Like was it a year or were we a year or two years? Not even a year into it.

So it's still relatively new. And I'm trying to remember like did they hand you guys a list of banned substances? There was none of that. So like you guys kind of went in doing random drug tests but not knowing anything else. Is that right? Right. So you, you know, they said, you know, they said that, you know, if you do if you're, if you're taking anything over the counter, the way it's supposed to be taken, you'll be fine.

But it was so, to be clear, like in my position, it was so vague, you were scared to do anything. You were scared to take any cold medication or any, you weren't, because you didn't know, you didn't have a clear list, and you didn't know when you were going to get asked to test, because it was a random thing, they'd just call you in, and it'd be you and six or seven other drivers, and they'd have you, it's still done this same way. they'll call a handful of drivers. You've got to get over there in a couple hours. Sometime during the afternoon,

it'll be after practice or whatever they'll let you know. You'll go up in this trailer. One at a time, you'll go up in his bathroom. Guy hands you cut. He's got all the materials and paperwork and everything there. And you go in the bathroom, Pete, hand it to him. You're just like so nervous because I never saw a list. They eventually, I think,

you don't have a list that you could get. But I was just like, I just won't. do anything because I don't want to look this list. Right. To hell with that, right? It's like work. But anyways, it was just, it was pretty scary at the time. And I remember, I don't know when this was in the timeline of events, but I think this

was after your suspension, we had another driver's meeting at Dover that felt like it was, it was like NASCAR brought all the drivers together and talking about the drug policy. and I remember in that meeting he drove the Clareton D car Carl Liddardardt's he stands up and he says what if we're taking

Clarit and D like my sponsor like I can't take this he was I don't really know what his question was but he kind of no one was going to ask any questions

right that was one of them meetings where you're like I ain't I'm gonna get me in it out of here I don't want to like you know signal

a test, right? Get my ass into the trailer. Straight to the test. Yeah, yeah. But he raises his hand. Carl's like, what about, you know, what about these over the count of drugs that are on our race cars, right? What about these, you know?

And they really weren't clear on what to tell you about that. Right. You know, and I think at that time, we all were like skeptical about like what you were going through, whether NASCAR, whether this testing policy was legit, was genuine, were they possibly picking up, you know, Clarity D and Adderall and things like that and not sure whether they were illegal drugs or was it this prescription, right?

We weren't sure. None of us felt, none of us felt safe, right? To, you know, none of us felt sure that this, you know, you couldn't trust it, right? Because it was kind of all so new. And NASCAR didn't have a drug, didn't have a problem. there were other sports that were having problems

and NASCAR was reacting to that saying you know what we'll have a drug because the media so there was some other issues going on in other sports and the media was like well what about NASCAR are there problems? How do you know? How do you know there's not any problems? You don't have a policy.

Well, we'll have a policy. Right. And so they're like boom, here's our policy. We've got this new policy and all the drivers are like all right. Well none of us taking drugs right. So like, no problem. And, but it was also kind of vague as they were rolling it out.

Yeah. And none of us really knew exactly the truth. Because they wouldn't say the, you know, they wouldn't come out and say, well, it was this drug. This is the drug that was in his system. Kind of, and it's similar, you know, not to hold the mic here, but it was kind of similar to how they do the illegal, you know, when a car is illegal. And it's, it might be fuel or it might be a part or something, then they won't say. And so it gets people. speculating, right?

And that is exactly what was happening in Jeremy's case. Yep. I mean, that's perfect right there. That's exactly the way I was seeing it too also. You know, and then so I'm thinking myself, okay, you know, I didn't do anything. You know what I took, yeah, I took, I took Adderall. I told him that, they won, took Adderallon to take Claritin D. So when it came out positive like that, and he hadn't even tested my sample yet,

and he already had a decision made before that that, I could tell it, you know, the way he was acting that this was going to be bad, you know. Yeah. And so when we actually sit down the first time, Dr. Black, and this will really get you, he's telling us, we sit down with him about two hours, him and O'Donnell and those guys, and he's telling us how, you know, his test, he can't have any false positives because he's got all this new equipment, and he's got all this lab stuff, this, that, and the other. And so he sits there and talks for two hours and explaining all this stuff.

When he gets done, my attorney asks him one question, and he said, what is the name of the chemical that you put in the sample that takes out, the pseudephedrine or anything that Claritin D's got in it as far as amphetamines and all this that and the other there's supposedly there's some kind of you know chemical you put in there that that separates that from illegal drug and uh this is what dr. black said just like this he goes he got quiet and he goes um i know what you're talking about but um um anyway yeah and we never got that that's that's what we're up against you know so i'm thinking the whole time listen this guy he he come in and personally tested mine

when he just told us that he's got lab technicians all over the world are perfect, but he came back to work from being retired as a lab technician and tested mine. So none of that made sense to us. And then when we got ready to get up out of the meeting, I didn't want to go through a lawsuit. I didn't want to fight NASCAR, by no means, you know, and I knew what was going to happen if I did, you know. But after hearing all that, I'm like, I had no choice, you know. It was either, you know, basically, you know, go off wherever I had to go off to, you know, for no reason.

I'm going to be sitting there in a rehab somewhere going, look, around, you know, everybody there, you know, and just didn't feel like I needed to do that, you know? That's what I want to ask you, actually. You, because you did have a choice. You had a choice. You're saying you didn't have a choice. But they said that there was a choice.

I was always curious if there was a clear-cut pathway back to racing. And regardless of whether or not you wanted to do it or was ever considering doing it, was there ever a clear-cut pathway to say, hey, listen, you do this. It may take six months, maybe a couple weeks. I don't know, but you will be back in your car. Yeah, no, I never got that. Here's what I got from Dr. Black. I said, how long and how quick can I get back from racing, basically?

This was like day one, two, you know, right after it happened. And this is Darlington the next week when they finally announced it. And he said, well, Jeremy said, it's like this. And this was a lot of the problem was him, you know, and he said, depending on how you respond to the press conference that we're fixing to have, which I'm sitting at home, didn't always had a press conference about it. Oh, yeah, I had no idea. And he said, depending on how you respond, I said, so basically you're telling me the way I respond to after the press, you know, the press conference you're fixing to have to the media, that's going to be how long it's going to take me to get back. And he said, well, yeah, basically that's it.

So as far as he thought, all right, if he has a negative response to this. Right. Right. And the media is going to come to you after this press conference and say, hey, Jeremy, what's your thoughts? And he said, whatever your response is to that, is how we'll handle it. Yeah. Yeah. So nothing was going good for me at all about it.

You know, I mean, I'm sitting there going, okay, all this is happening. And then now it's basically how I respond to the press conference is how long it's going to take me to get through this, you know. And so anyway, we started looking at because the problem started with Dr. Black, you know, for one, being the owns the lab doing my testing for some reason, mine only, and had my name on it, we're supposed to be just numbers, you know. That's right. you know, you know, going down the line.

So there's a lot of things that were wrong with it. And then, so when all this started out, we started doing a lot of research. You know, we had a lot of experts that were calling us, saying this, that, and the other. But Dr. Black told me also that he did not, there's no way his company can have a false positive on my test or anybody's test. So that was wrong, too. You know, no false positives, which we all know that they can. He was doing the WWE at the time, I think, one of the wrestling deals, whatever. He was their administrator for their drug test.

And he had to go to Congress at the same time we were doing this because of Chris Benoit. You remember the wrestler that kind of, you know, had roid rage, whatever he had. And basically, Dr. Black was doing their testing and showed on his list, nothing, nothing, nothing, never. You know, no steroids. And then the guy goes off and then they find steroids all in the system. So, I mean, when all this started happening, we just started looking into it and it just looked like, you know, some reason, you know, you got a guy over here just had a roid rage,

and you're telling the world he's never tested positive for anything. You know, then you got a guy over here that's just trying to race, and now I'm positive for Adderall, which eventually turned into methamphetamine, you know. Yeah. And so just, everything was just leading into that. It just wasn't, something wasn't right, you know. Yeah.

So what point are you kind of like, you know, NASCAR ends up getting all this thrown out because you signed the hard card agreement, And you sign the hard card agreement, every driver, every crew member, everybody signs this agreement. It basically takes away a lot of your ability and rights to defend yourself in a case like this or whatever, right? So you've waived all of your rights. So that's what the judges all eventually decided, am I right? Right, right, exactly.

And so you basically just had to walk away? Yeah, that's pretty much it. And it was the drug testing part of it. We won. The first time we went to court, we won that battle. you know we wanted really all of them as far as the drug testing went you know but then eventually got to where they after so long you know I forgot what the time frame was but you know came down to where I just signed my agreement saying I couldn't sue NASCAR for any

reason whatsoever when you say when what specifically did you win what was the case well we what was being what was being determined in the court right that that that there could have been a false positive that you know they should have given me an opportunity to at least tell me not to do it you know basically you know so you're saying that that the court decided that there could be a false positive. You're saying that's how. Yeah, definitely. And the judge awarded us my license back.

Really? Oh, yeah. And you know what that's going to happen after that, you know. And I never forget that because Brian was, Brian France was in the courtroom that day. And he was pissed, you know, after the judge saying, okay, you can, you know, basically go back racing again if you want to. You know, it's up to you. And you know how that goes. When they suspend me and the judge, you know, basically takes the suspension away that, you know,

It pissed them all pretty good. So did you come back to race? I don't remember this. So your suspension was lifted. It was overturned. Right. And then did you return? Well, I was going to.

And then what happened? Then they showed up at my house like it. That was like on a Thursday or something like that. And I wouldn't even go race that weekend. That weekend was Daytona. And we weren't ready to race anyway because we didn't know what I was going to happen, you know. And so then it showed up my house on Monday at 7 o'clock at night. You know, NASCAR and their new drugs.

testing people or whoever they were, you know. And I told my attorney, I said, all they want to do was just get another sample. You know, I could have, my dog could have peed in the cup, you know, and it was going to be positive, I'm sure, you know, they held on the sample, they own the lab, they own everything. So all they needed was to go back and say, look, Judge, I told you, look, it's positive again. So our thoughts were when that happened was, okay, at 7 o'clock at night, that's telling us that you don't want to, you know, you think that all the places are closed where I can go get my own test done, right?

I mean, that's what you're hoping and thinking. Okay, yeah. All right, so we went, we went straight to the hospital to Frye Hospital. My doctor had, you know, set up a drug test for Frye, and we show up there and all this is documented, too, by the way, by, you know, I'll tell you about that in a minute. But so I show up at Frye Hospital and get lab cord to do another test on me. You know, this is like 20 minutes after they left.

I fought and went straight to the hospital. Did you give them a sample? Yeah. And then you went to do your own sentence. Yeah, and went down my own just to make sure, you know. Yeah. And I learned that from Tim Richman deal, too. He did the same thing, you know.

Really? Oh, yeah. And so we go get our test done, and I couldn't wait. I was like, man, it's going to be great here. You know, it's going to be a good thing here. So, and that was by LabCorp, too, by the way. And so a couple weeks went by, and we didn't hear anything, you know, and I thought. From NASCAR?

Yeah, from NASCAR. Yeah, from NASCAR, not Dr. Black or nobody. What about Lab Corps? LabCore, we got our results back, and it was zero, nothing in it, because I'll tell you another long story, too. I had not got my prescription feel from my Adderon, because I was like, I don't know if I'm going to take it anymore. So you've got to have a certain percentage of amphetamines in your system to making it to a methamphetamine somehow.

I forgot what the percentage is. So I go to Laf Court, doing my test there, and we get results back. Our attorney said, well, let's send them back because there was nothing in it. And they had like a 500 cutoff, whatever it is. Yeah, they had a grace period of milligrams or something, whatever it is. Yeah, nanograms per millimeter or something like that. So we got those as nothing. So they said, well, we knew what they were going to say about that.

Well, they got a cut off and we don't. So we had them tested again at a zero cutoff and then it showed nothing in my system again. Well, so now I'm like waiting. Okay, it's going to be good. It's two or three weeks go by and or anything. All of a sudden, boom, phone rings. It's Dr. Black. You know, and he's like, hey, Jeremy, you know, how are you doing?

I'm doing great, as it should be, you know. And he said, hey, we've, I just want to ask you first question. Are you still taking your Adderall? I said Now I'm telling you honest God's truth I said yeah I'm still taking it and I wouldn't You lied to it I lied to him but I said yeah I'm still taking it

Because I knew what he was wanting He had to know that To know the percentage of amphetamines To make it methamphetamines You know what I mean that's just the way He had to know that So I said no I said yeah I've been taking it Still taking it so he said well you test a positive again

You know for amphetamines or whatever And I said well I'm sure I was you know When you come I peeing your cup I knew that my dog Pete and I know you know you know pretty much knew what was going to happen you know and so you know anyway so we waited waiting waiting and waiting and hearing nothing else about it and all of a sudden the press release comes out Mayfield you know test it positive again it's like a month goes by for all this happened and uh I thought it was perfect now we got our lab court stuff well

he uh tried to convince the judge that lab court doesn't do that the type testing they do some reason somehow. Right. And I told them that LabCorp couldn't do, you know, test for what they test for and how they test and said in the other. And so that just kind of just evened out, you know, like a wash, I guess you'd say as far as the judge goes. You know, I'm not sure after that.

But anyway, after the, you know, he said a test positive again, he said, we should have had our B sample, basically. We can go back a little bit too on the B sample. And we said, okay, we want to send a B sample to Labcourt, you know, of our choice. Their B sample. Right. their beast sample they had and they wouldn't let us have it and we still haven't got it you know really I didn't get my first piece sample yeah on first test or my second

how much of Tim's case did you learn about or research during all this we dug into it pretty hard and and and you heard about Tim Richmond you know I'm sure you have you know all the stuff he went through and everything and uh here's a little different mind but word for word it's probably so close to the same lawsuit as I had pretty much and and then What's scary is that Dr. Black was when they had a testing doctor back then, you know, for Richmond, whoever did in Richmond's deal, later on to come out and confess that he was basically told to make a, you know, negative test into a positive test. For Tim Richmond. Tim Richmond.

And so they ended up firing him, getting rid of him. That's when Dr. Black took over. Okay. So right after that. Same, or took over NASCAR's test apollo. Yeah. Testable. Dr. Black, yeah.

But NASCAR admitted that they basically told him to do that, you know, pretty much. So you're talking about all the evidence or the, you got proof and looking through researching all the things that are out there available. You have, you know, when you went to buy the Claritin D on the way to Richmond that weekend that you got tested for the first time, you've got video evidence, you walking in the drugstore and picking it up and buying it. Right. Little things like you have all of this documented stuff that backs up your

version of the events. Right, right, exactly. So. And we had the day that they announced I was positive at Darlington. You remember when we done the driver's 360 and all that stuff, you know, the same people? Well, Tim, one of the guys that was a producer or film guys, whatever, he called me immediately. This is like on Sunday night and he said, hey, I want to come see you. You know, he's out in California.

He moved in with us. that day. So he was there like Monday the next day and brought his cameras and another guy for a film crew and basically live with us for the next 45, 60 days and everything was documented. This was a week after Richmond. Right. Right. We can have, yeah. Now you got a guy that's a film producer

or at least a professional. Right. And was he the guy that's like in the suburban with you when you're getting when you're, you know, people are out at your gate and stuff, you know, asking your questions when you're coming and going? Yeah, that's him. And he know him, he knows him well. And a great guy and a great, you know, a bunch of people. But so Tim lived with us.

And from that point on, I started going every week going getting tested, you know, and I went to. All your own. On my one from Labcourt. And all docking on with him filming it and all that, that and other. And he went with me everywhere. So I got tested every week. And, you know, when my results come in, I got testing in, results come in and just

kept down everything. So we have these results, right? So you're getting tested. You got these results? say everything's clear. How do you use those in your argument? Right. What are you doing with them?

Well, that's where it all went, you know, bad. They just started saying, okay, well, you know, he signed the hard car thing, all this went down and just, you know, he just kept getting drug out and drug out and drug out, but I'm still getting testing, test and tested. And now looking back, none of that meant anything, you know, it's just like. You getting a positive, you're you getting a negative test or getting a clean test, ended up being pointless. Right.

it really didn't mean anything. Even the one that I took 20 minutes after theirs meant nothing, you know. Did you have Bill Dill as an attorney at this point? Yeah. Because I would think that at some, I mean, he's regarded as like a bulldog, right? Right. He's like one of the best there is, right? Yeah, but I've learned a lot about the justice system too.

And Bill's a great guy, you know, and his whole firm did a great job. But you don't sue NASCAR and get an attorney out of Charlotte. You know what I mean? and I should have known that to start with, and I did, I just didn't, I just didn't, I just didn't, I just, you're saying that just, there was somebody at NASCAR got to him? Pretty much, you know, yeah, I'll go and say that, you know.

I mean, he was friends with all of them, you know, he's friends with Rick and Felix and all this stuff, and here I'm trying to, you know, make NASCAR basically, you know, making them look bad or whatever the case may be, and just, I don't know, things just started happening weird and just got weird and out of the way, and so we switched in and got another turn. I guess I guess I'm just like if you have document you know film documented proof and all these positive tests some that must mean something to somebody right now sure not NASCAR right and maybe not the attorney although you would hope that if you're paying an attorney that they would you know wouldn't know what to do with that I mean if your intention is to go prove your innocence on this somewhere maybe it's not in the within the NASCAR eco-s system, but maybe somewhere that means something, somebody, where at least on a public way,

we could go, okay, well, Mayfield does have this. And so NASCAR, what's your response to it, right? Like, you know, other than just going, he's on a hard card. Yeah, he's in. I don't care what it says. I mean, like, that doesn't seem like a strong defense from them. And it seems like that there would have been something done more with the, the negative, you know, the negative drug test that would have, you know, validated you this whole time. Yeah, they basically said that their test and lab court couldn't do the type testing they do you know and we'd go in and here's another thing they would say because there's a lot of rules and regulations with drug testing in the workplace pretty much and you know you probably know that

here with your employees or whatever and i think it's like samshan and there's a couple different organizations that keep this from happening you know what happened to me and and uh so we'd go into it with that okay this angle here we're going to take you know you have to follow these guidelines you didn't do it and NASCAR basically would stand up and turn and tell the judge we don't have to do that. We don't have to follow any guidelines. We do what we want to do, you know, pretty much. And that's what they told them, you know.

And then the judge wouldn't say anything. We'll leave and come back a month later, you know. And that just kept going on and on like that. And every time they stand up, that's something that they had to deal with, they would just look at the judge and go, we don't have to. So at this point, you know, let's say you're, you know, three quarters away through all this,

you have to probably be realizing that your opportunity to have a future in the sport is gone. Right. You don't have, you know, your ability to fund and run and control your own race team is gone. Right. So at this point, I guess fighting the battle is a little bit easier because you gave up all of those things, right?

Right, right. But when do you decide that that's no longer even worth it? Right. When did you just say, man, you know what? I just don't want to do this anymore. this war with NASCAR and I'm just going to move on right well we kind of once we started it you kind of got to you know finish it you know or yeah tried your best and um so we um and it was tough man I'm telling you it was hard because I knew I knew what was happening and I knew

that you know the first time we went to court you know I'd say we won that one um Ryan France was in there you know and Hilton was there you know and all the guys and I told Mike I was like I don't want this you know I don't want to do this yeah I want to work something out here. I don't want to have to say anything about it because NASCAR wasn't ever bad to me. You know, it's been great to me, you know. And I remember Mike going saying something to Brian, and Brian looking at me and going, it's not about you.

This ain't about you, you know, just like pissed off, you know. And he wasn't able to, you know, he didn't even want to talk about it. You know, he didn't want to say, hey, let's figure out of it. Yeah, figure out of it. Yeah, anything. You know, all he had to do is to me just say, Jeremy, don't take Adderov again. And let's go racing. And I told him they test me two or three times a week.

every one to test me. You know, I'm willing to come in every week and be tested, you know. Nothing was good enough, you know, nothing was going to satisfy them, you know. And that's why I knew. I was like, well, now I've got to write it out, you know. There's one I want to ask you about. There's one other thing because I know that like this is so drawn out that there was so many back and force.

But there was, if I, if I, going back and looking at the timeline, there was a, I think NASCAR had agreed to do an independent drug lab. And then they called you. This was on July 6th in 2009, but then there was a delay, a delay where they were saying that, you know, you had two hours to get to the lab to do the test, but it was seven hours later. And you said you were lost, you couldn't get there. And they took it as, if I'm remembering this right, they took it as, well, this is a tactic by somebody that doesn't want to be tested. What is your explanation on that? My explanation was I was at my race shop when that happened.

And when I come back out, we had a meeting, come back out and had a message. from some girl, hey, you need to be so-and-so somewhere to be a test. That's over in Canapolis, where my race shop was. And so I'm like, test, you know, kind of blew me away because I wasn't racing that weekend anyway, which that's the Monday I was talking about, the July, whatever day was. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, and July 6th. Right, so I called my turning.

He said, just sit tight, don't do anything. Just don't do nothing, you know, because he didn't know what to do. You know, we're back and forth. I sat tight and didn't do anything. Well, then he calls me like three or four hours later, you know, and said, hey, can you be it? Now I'm already on the other side of town, you know, heading home. know he say can you be it so-and-so so-and-so in Canapolis i said man i just left my race shop now

i'm already over here is there anywhere we can go over here i'll call you back well between all these call-you-backs and this that and the other i'm just going straight home heading home so that's when i started getting home and that's when they said what he said okay they're going to send somebody to your house and that was at seven o'clock at night whatever sent them to my house i just didn't go to the one first of all i was late calling lady back not because i was hiding anything because my attorney told me not to you know and then basically i started going home and then you know it'd be like 45 minutes hour for somebody else call you back and and I said good just be at my house and that's when they showed up at my house at seven but wouldn't

you wanted to take this test like like it seems like that was a uh if if it was an independent lab it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't an independent no it was still dr black it was still dr black yes okay so I was going to say that I would assume that that you know vindication seems to be you know closer now than it at any point because of this test but you're saying no No, it's not an independent test. Dr. Black was still administering it. So were you skeptical from the moment you got the call then? Yeah, from the time I got it, and my attorney was, you know, start with.

And then when they sent somebody out, they were determined that they were going to, you know, do the test. That's when we set up the one for 20 minutes later. You know, that's when I went to Lab Court 20 minutes later and got tested. You went to Lab Court 20 minutes later. That's all the same day that you're talking about in the hospital. Got it. Would your attorney not want to be part of that test? Would he want to be there?

Um, was that, you would think so, you know. I mean, yeah, you would think so, right? Yeah. Like, hey, right over here. I'm going to take this test. I mean, like, right. And that, that was, uh, Bill Dill, that was going on. And that, that's what got me too.

I was like, well, all they want to do is say, okay, all I had to do is is pen to cut one more time. And I, and I knew it was going to be negative no matter what's the situation. You know what I mean? The only thing I can do is go to another lab and prove that it wasn't because I knew what they were trying to do, you know, and it, this wasn't a cut and dry deal about just drug testing. This turned in to be a, the judge awarded, you know, me basically, I go back racing, you know, basically saying,

here's your license back, and you can imagine what, what would happen. It got personal. Yeah, I got personal. And then, you know, everything started going down here from there. But I thought that when I go to a hospital and get lab court to test me, and it's all documented, watching them come to my house, watching me go straight to the hospital, walking in and coming out, and then seeing the results, okay, now we're covered. now we're good. You know, there's no way they can do this, and they did, you know. You said on a, talking about it getting personal, you said on another podcast that you got,

during all this that you got a phone call from Brian's ex. They were, she, he was going through a divorce. Brian Francis's ex, right. Brian Francis X called you her, her and her attorney to let, to give you some information that you, you thought, they thought you'd need to hear. Right. And that's another reason why I stuck it out, you know, because then I found out, what was really going on.

And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, well, if that, you know, seemed to me like they would just go, you go test and everything would work out. You know, it's all seen it over with it. Right, right. It all seems right. Good done. Right, exactly.

And so we get a call. I'm not sure what the timeline was. It's probably, I don't know, probably a couple months into it, something like that. And we got that call, and I certainly don't want to drag her back into anything here. You know, on the show, whatever, but she ended up being a witness for us. So there's a person that, became a witness on your end, what did this person, what was the information that this person had to share with you?

Right. So we got a call from her to come meet with her, you know, and so Shane and I went and met with her. You know, not knowing anything, you know, didn't know what the deal was, basically. And she started asking me questions. It was like, well, you know, in, you know, Indy and at India, in 05 or 06, whatever it was, Did you get black flag for no reason and this, that, and the other? Yeah, I think, you know, because that's when Ray and I finally quit, you know, basically, I got fire after that. And so I started thinking back, and then she said, well, so-and-so doesn't, didn't like you calling out the owners, basically.

And I didn't really call out, Ray. You know, I just, I just talked to press one day, and it came out on paper that I did, but I didn't call him out, you know. And so she started saying all this stuff that her ex-husband, which was Brian, You know, didn't, that I was nothing more than a laborer, none of the drivers were. We're just laborers and his owners are the important part of this whole deal. And the laborers can come and go, you know. And he didn't like me calling out Ray, basically, you know. And so that gave you the opinion or some, that gave you, that gave you more confidence in the idea that this was personal.

Right. Right. Exactly. And that's when it, so then. Because the question is, is like, I think it started in a real, you but I think the question is is like well you know everybody would think that this is you know a black and white issue you you you you you you know there's a there's a professional structure to this that a process that it'll that it works out right right and you in your belief is that as you went in as you got deeper and deeper into it that it was a personal vendetta

against you right and then this you know when this person calls and gives you that information it just really gives you even more confidence toward that idea. Right. And that's what happened. Everything just started happening, you know, in that type situation, you know, or just, I guess you'd say, as far as building my confidence, you know, thinking, okay, now, now it makes sense. You know, now that this makes sense, whatever.

But, yeah, she sat there and told us that she would testify and do whatever we needed to do. Did that happen? Yeah, it happened. Really? Yeah, oh, yeah. She went to court. Yeah, went to court with me. But then what I didn't know, I should have realized, but I didn't, because at that point in time,

I really didn't care what Brian thought of me. and, you know, anything else. I was mad. You know, I was pissed off and probably done some things, said some things I shouldn't have said, you know, during that period. Yeah. She kind of comes on with us and we go over and spend some time with her and come to find out it was a personal deal between me and Brian, basically, you know. And so then it started making sense that that's why he wouldn't, you know, he wouldn't ever want to talk to him. He never wanted to work it out and didn't want to, he didn't want to hear it.

You know, it's just going to be, this is what's going to happen. And they're going to, now that you suit us, that. we're just going to make you kill your credibility and just wear you down to nothing basically, you know, and that's what happened. I was going to ask you, but, you know, half hour ago, I was like, you know, what was your relationship like with NASCAR before all this happened? You know, and I'm still curious about that. Like, would you, because, you know, ultimately you're going to get to the question that you just asked,

Dale, and that is, you know, what would be their motive? Why are they trying to end you? I mean, certainly there's been other drivers that have done more egregious things that would cross paths. and ultimately be personal. So why Jeremy Mayfield? Right. So we get to that. But first, let's go ahead and did you,

you always spoke your mind. You had some run-ins with, I don't know if you'd call them run-ins. I mean, like you've had, you know, you had relational things with Ray Evan Ham, as you've already alluded to and maybe some other people that you've raced with. But like, what was your relationship with NASCAR

before all this started happening? I didn't think it was bad. You know, I just didn't really have a relationship with them. I just didn't, I wasn't one that was just going to go to, you know, all Brian's parties and, you know, during speed weeks. I went to several of them. Then I got tired of going to them, you know, so I didn't go to any of them. And I just did my own deal. You know, I just wanted to race, you know, and as I was coming up, I thought that's what you did. You know, you show at me race, you're 100% racer and you just do whatever you got to do to race, you know. And

looking back, that was probably my downfall of my whole career pretty much, you know, until that came about was just I just want to race you know and I thought it was you run bad on Sunday you come in on Monday and everybody gets together and you work on your car and you make it better and you know what I'm talking about you know and it turned into for me it turned into during our meetings if I said anything as a driver and you know what I'm talking about on this deal if I said okay I think it's this this this and this well I'm going to piss somebody off at the table it's going to be the engineer the tire guy or whoever it's going to be mad you know and and that would create problems with me and the race team, you know, in far as way I handled things.

And so relationship-wise, you know, I had problems with Penske with me and Rusty, and I had problems with Everinghams with me and Ray and this, and the other, and I realized that, you know, and I realized that that was a problem. But I also realized that, you know, I kept thinking, well, you just keep doing what you're doing, which, you know, I kept moving on down the line, but it didn't work out that way. Well, okay, so with all that backstory there, you... And there's more to it than that. I was trying to...

But yeah, but if we summed it up, you don't like playing the politics of the sport. There's politics at any workplace, frankly. You never did that. Didn't do it well, didn't have any interest in doing it. Right. You spoke your mind in teams, team meetings, and it would cause rifts within the team. So now that this stuff started happening in 2009, before you talked to, or before you had a witness that said that this was a personal vendetta, did you have any suspect? did you have any suspicion on what a motive would be

to try to take you down the way they were doing it? I felt like when I left Ray's, you know, left Everhand Motorsports that, you know, and I stayed away for a little while trying to find another ride or whatever. When I went back, I just felt like I was blackballed. You know what I mean? I just felt like before you can go anywhere

and get a ride with this guy, this guy, this guy, whatever you need to do. And then all that just stopped, you know? You felt like a pariah in the garage. Yeah, well, not really to some degree, yeah. You know, I just felt like something wasn't right again because, you know, I couldn't just go call Ganassi and go drive one of his cars or somebody. And that's what led to me, you know, start my own team, you know, basically. But I didn't understand why or whatever.

I just knew something that wasn't right. And I was probably getting blackball somehow down the line, you know, just whatever happened on that deal. So I think, you know, for me, when you say, when you said the things about Ray being an absentee car owner, right? Right. Right. And his picture was on the Chicago Tribune, whatever. I mean, it was a full, you know, Ray well enough, you know, the next day it come out in the paper, he was a whole page of Ray. They took your comment. Right.

And made this big, big thing about it. Right. And it buried you. Right, exactly. And now. And especially for you know Ray. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah.

Well, I think any, Ray especially, but anybody would have taken that the way, you know, they, he took it. But I think for me, we're going to get all into that, but how all that went down. But for me, I feel like that every once in a while, you couldn't control what was going to come out of your mouth. Right. Every once in a while, you kind of would have these, you know, I always enjoyed being around you, but you, every six months or every so, you were going to be pissed off about something or have something annoying the hell out of you. and the media was going to catch you at the right time. Right.

And you weren't going to, you were going to say something that was going to eventually as we find out be harmful to you, right? And where you might be saying something in sarcasm or cracking a joke about Ray, you know, hell, I don't know. I don't see him. Right. That becomes, right, right. That becomes this big front page story in a big newspaper.

And then now it's a big problem. Right. And then now you've made not only Ray Mab, but you've made the, you know, in Ryan's eyes, made the sport look stupid, made, you know, pissed Ray off, pissed Brian off. Right. Now you've got all these enemies, right, that you've created. And that steam, you know, now, you know, steam rolls down the line. There's other examples of you doing that when you're going through this battle.

Now, I'm not saying you're not warranted to say what's on your mind, but when you're going, when you were, there were moments when you, when you would get in front of the media and say, I'm going to do what I need to do to make this right. I'm going to figure out a way to get down, get through this and get on the other end of it. Everything's going to be great. And then there were days when you would say, them guys.

They're going down. They're wrong. Right. You know, and this is personal. And then, you know, the next interview a week later might be, we're working through it. In NASCAR, we're going to get a figure. out.

Right, right. We're going to do, we're, everybody's on the right page. Yeah. And then, you know, and, uh, and I feel like, and even me, like, I, there's, I've done things in my career, said things that I thought were tongue and cheek or I thought weren't a big deal that ended up being. Right. Freaking big.

Because it pissed off the wrong guy. Right. You know, and then you would, you got to spend six months to a year repairing that. Yep. He's pissed. Yep. Right. And he's in a higher position than you and you're screwed.

till you fix it. And so I kind of, I know how easily that can happen, but I feel like that that was a big part of really. You said it right. And I realized that. That pushed you in a certain part of the garage, it puts you in a corner, right? When you went, and this is before the drug stuff.

Right, right, exactly. This is right at the end of the raid deal and you're trying to bounce around. You couldn't find rides, right? You couldn't put deals together. Right. So you end up eventually this argument with NASCAR over those positive drug tests,

just goes away, just fades into the background. Is that right? It did it just, yeah, basically, yeah. They just woke up one day and that was no longer a part of your life. Right. No, no, that's him wake up one day. It took a while to get here, but yeah, it definitely,

you know, that's what happened, basically. It just, it just all goes away. Yep. Just like that. No, I didn't just go away, just like that. I mean, it was tougher than you think, you know? I mean, you're talking about the end of it or how at all? Yeah, the end of it.

Yeah, the end of it just, basically the judge said, man, we're just throwing it out. See y'all later. Yeah. Exactly. And your attorney said, we are at the end of the line. Right. And you went home. And he said, we can appeal it and we think we can win the appeal.

You know, we're pretty sure we can win the appeal because that shouldn't have held up, you know, as far as you sign your hard card saying you can't sue for any reason. And they were really confident that that was going to, that we were going to win the appeal. But even, okay, even at that point winning the appeal, I'm already tired of it. And I'm already sick of it, you know, and going through all that at one time. even if we won the appeal, what are we going to win? Yeah. Your career is in the trash king. Yep.

For lack of better words. Yeah, pretty much. So are you, like, what is official here? Are you suspended officially today? Yeah. And, yeah. You're suspended indefinitely? Yeah, and I've tried several times, trust me, after it was all over with, to go back

and, you know, call the guys and NASCAR and not Brian, obviously, but, and say, what do I got to do to get back? You know, because I wanted to run some short, stuff, you know, that maybe NASCAR sanction track or whatever. K&N or whatever, right? Yeah, and I said, okay, you got me on the NASCAR stuff, not worry about the cup stuff, you know. And now for me to go back, my road recovery is like road recovery first,

and then I forgot what it was. Like five or six different things on my list. I have to do. Pay for all the legal fees, you know, on their hand on their end. And then. Oh, starting back from 2009 or something? Yeah, pretty much, yeah. You'd have to go back and pay all their legal fees?

How much ballpark do you think you spent already on legal fees? Oh, millions. Yeah. And I'm sure they spent twice that or three times that, I'm sure, you know. Okay. And so my deal is like, okay, do that. And then have a press conference or whatever and put out a press release saying that I lied about everything. That's what they asked you to do.

Yeah, that's what they asked me to do. To go back now and say that, and I'm like, well, that wipes that out of the board, you know. So, you know, I don't really have a way back, you know, that I can afford to do, you know. Yeah. Does it bother you? So let me ask you this when Brian, when Brian phased himself out of the sport, did that, did you think maybe I could connect to some people that maybe there's an opportunity for me to hear to get through? Yeah, I did. And I think the new president, Phelps or somebody like that, I tried to talk to him. And there's times, you know, they won't call me back or, you know, or it'll put me over here to somebody else. And I get the same answer, you know, as far as, you know, what do I got to do to get back, you know? And, you know, the sad thing about it is you're talking about Brian, you know, Brian, myself and Ray.

All right, none of us are doing what we love to do anymore, you know. He's not. Ray's not, and I'm not, you know. So it all ended up for no reason on the same boat, you know. It's just uncalledful, really, you know. So did you guys reach some sort of finality with NASCAR? I mean, at some point there was a raid on your house, right? Was this all part of, do you lump this all in together with that? Or was this a separate deal?

It was separate, obviously. But when you get the discovery of everything and you find the first, you know, five inches of paperwork, it's all NASCAR stuff, you know. I don't know what do you mean? Well, you know, for example, I don't know where you want to start on all this. Let's start here. Let's start here.

Let's start here real quick. And I don't know how long this goes. I'm just saying, start here. There was a raid on your house. Right. What was the raid for and what came of it? Well, it was a month before the appeals court, you know, because we were, we appealed it. We appealed NASCAR's decision and felt real confident that we were going to win,

that we were going to win the appeal. Okay. And then that would be another. thing that would be you know to try to sum all this up and put it into it or whatever and uh so a month before we're getting regular scrap yard and doing my copper deal i was telling you about and all of a sudden a guy came through my shop you know that that wasn't supposed to be there on my property that i didn't want there you know and uh he was a local guy that came in and you know always trying to sell something or he just stopped in well well no this is about he stopped in about he he would come through every once in

Right. He was just trying to sell things. Yeah, weed eaters and speakers. All kinds of weird shit. Yeah, just one of them guys, yeah. And he was just randomly come and go. Yeah. And how did you meet him in the first place?

By him doing that. Just coming in. Just showing up at my shop. You know what I mean? And, you know, trying to be friends and just trying to hang out. I'm sure, you know, a little bit why I'm talking about that. You know, you get that a lot. People just show up.

Right. Trying around to be a friend or fan or whatever. And so I found out what the guy was all about. So I said, look, man, you don't need to come back around here. just, you know, you're not welcome here and just stay away, basically. And he had some stuff on your property that you wanted to get. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, a truck and a boat and a set in the other end.

That's when I found out that the boat was probably stolen and everything else, you know. And so I said, look, you get your stuff and just go on and stay away from here pretty much. Well, all of a sudden one day, I hadn't seen him for a month or so, two months. You know, we're getting ready to go to the scrap yard. And here he comes just pulling in with some dude in the truck and just walks right by me right straight through my shop, you know? And I'm like, damn, that's kind of weird. You know, he knows not to come in here. Now what am I going to do?

You know, I got to do something to make it, you know, let him know I don't want him here, you know. And the other guy sitting in the truck, and I'm already thinking it's weird that he showed up and just walked right past me into my shop, you know. And so about that time, we walk outside and the guy sitting in the truck on his phone. Like, man, you need to get this guy out of here. You know, I don't want him here. And within seconds later, the guy gets out of his truck. and all I hear is here they come. You know, now I know, here they come, mean, so you know what I mean?

It's like, oh yeah, when he said that, it was like there's people coming out of the bushes and out of the, you know, sliding in bands and, I mean, it was crazy, you know. Really? Yeah, I had a long driveway. Like Scarface. This is the second Scarface for a reference. Oh, yeah, well, I'm thinking this. So I'm seeing all this going on.

And my shop at that point in time was right across street from my house, or not across street, kind of like a little field, you know, but I can see over the other. there and um and i had a cabin on top of the hill another cabin place whatever with now when they he when they said here they come it was uh all blacked out just ar-fifteen just i mean just coming from everywhere you know on the floor you know dun-da-dun all this stuff you know and everybody's you know there's a couple of my guys there was helping me you know we're all you know on the floor and everything else you know and then uh i get up and i look over my house and it looked like um i've never seen nothing like it's in the movie i mean there was like they're

were covering herself and you know running side by side and they had the big thing that opened you know that slammed the door open and I'm sitting there watching all this and everywhere I look there's somebody blacked out with guns on you know and and blacked out cars and sat in the other so probably like 90 people 80 or 90 people yeah oh just like that you know you your pants about pissing for sure but that that's something else too I'll tell you but so all this going on I'm looking over my house and my wife had she's getting to go to work She worked up in Hickory. I'm thinking, wonder what she's thinking, you know.

And so at the time, like a couple of seconds in my mind, I'm thinking, man, there's something big going on here. You know, there's a killer loose or somebody's broke out of prison or something they think he's here or something bad is going on. Because nobody told me at this point in time. All we know, there was no sheriff, nothing on her suits, nothing, just all black, camouflaging black, faces covered. I mean, you can imagine what that would look like, you know.

Eventually, a guy come to him and said, after it all, settled down a little bit, and there's still everywhere like ants running around. And it shows me a search warrant. So we had a search warrant search of property looking for a stolen piece of scrap metal, like a plate. I'm telling you, there's like a 12 by 12 or 14 by 12 steel plate. Well, I had like probably $30,000 with copper on my rowback.

We're getting ready to sell. And I'm thinking, steel plate. And I said, well, I got all kind of steel on my shed out there. Because you've got steel scrap everywhere, you know how that goes on the race team. And I said, I'm going to look forward if you want to. I'm not sure what you're talking about. but this is kind of big for a steel plate, you know, what they're doing here, you know. And so it just started, you know, getting worse from there.

But anyway, that was a long day for me, and something else I had to deal with after that. And that was a month before our pill, you know. So they ended up being 15, 25 counts of felony counts from that raid. And there was some, they said they found drugs in a safe and multiple. pieces of equipment or something that was stolen and ended up being this really long list of charges against you. You know, so like how does, how, that's not just bad luck.

Right. Like, how does that happen? Well, I still have no idea what some of the charges were. I had 28 felonies after it was all over. I went to jail five times after that. About every month I was going to jail for that raid, that one particular raid. Well, actually, they come back a week later and did it again. Raided you again.

Raided me again. And so, you know, then I had turned myself in. You know, then, you know, a couple months go by, well, I got to turn myself in again. Turn yourself in. You go into the jailhouse. Right. Been indicted. Yeah, going to jailhouse.

Did you spend the night? Did you stay in? Did you have any time in jail? I sit there for a little bit, but I got to get out. I was out pretty quick as I went in, but still had to go, you know, and they indicted me for this for four counts here, indicted me for five counts here, and this is all separate times I was going. What's their evidence?

Well, when it was all said and done, I bought an auction speaker system that you can, like, announcers in a mic or whatever to do auctions. I did auctions from that boy there that I was telling you about. And it was supposedly stolen. So I got possession of stolen goods, basically. And after all the 28 felonies one way, you know, this, that and the other. But, I mean, four accounts were like 10 years apiece. I'm sitting in front of the judge.

He said, this is a minimum of 10 years. apiece on this and four of them. That's 40 years, you know? Yeah. I'm thinking, man, and it was a larceny of trailer backslashed aircraft. What is that? I have no idea. Still this day, I have no idea.

What air? Trailer aircraft? Yes, backslashed aircraft, you know? That's crazy. So, what about the drugs? That was only four of them. What about the drug charges? Well, the drug charges were like this. I'm sitting there and watching all this going on my house and there was raiding it and looking to everything, pouring all the cereal out of the boxes and just tearing my house, you know, just apart, you know, basically.

And so I had a safe in my, in one room, I had a bunch of guns. I collected guns forever and this, that and other. So they want to be open my safe up. Nowhere on the, on the search warrant said, we're looking for, you know, willing to get your safe or search your safe or anything. I was looking for a stolen piece of scrap metal and stolen goods or something like this, or stolen a piece of plate or whatever it was. We go back to my safe, open it up, thinking, you know, I haven't done anything wrong. Again, okay, what's this for? A piece of, you know, sheet metal or a plate,

but you pour my cereal out of boxes in here looking through all my books, you know. So we walked back in there, open the safe up. It's okay, now you need to go. Go back on the front porch with your wife, who basically, when they was raiding my house over there, they grabbed her and threw her down. She just got out of the shower.

Got her in handcuffs, you know, face planting to the floor for no reason whatsoever. You know, she's not going to shoot them or hurt anybody. and he was going to kill my dog he was barking so if you don't shut your dog we're going to kill your dog okay all this is going on just one thing after another and so anyway they open safe up

send me back outside I go outside and she and I were sitting on the porch and I'm just looking around like this and just sitting everywhere I looked there's somebody taking pictures or something you know just big stuff going on so probably 15 minutes later they come out and I was probably 45 minutes later they come out and one of the detectives did, and he said,

and I need to see you for a second, you know, so I walked over the side, and he had his hand like this, and you can see like plastic on the other end up, just barely a piece of plastic sitting in his hand. He said, you know what I got here in my hand? I said, no, he said, we found meth and you're safe. I said, you didn't find meth in my safe. And of course, when you're sitting there at the time,

you're like, you know, there's no meth in your safe. You know, so I'm going to say, well, you didn't find it my safe because there ain't, there ain't no meth here, you know. The other is, he said, yeah, we found it. All I could see was just barely sent something sticking out. And he said, but we don't want to take you a deal, Jeremy. We want to make this right for you, whatever, you know. He said, we need you to call, you know, one of these people on this list and get them over here

and we want you to do a buy on them or whatever they do. What does that mean? Right. That means, you know, for me to call whoever's on this list, if I know them, they come over there and sell me drugs and they arrest them. Okay. So they wanted you to be, they wanted you to turn and be an informant. Right.

So, and while the- So they show you a list of names. Show me a list of names. I read the names. I was like, I didn't recognize nobody on the list. I said, but if you only call them, I will. You know, if you only call them, but I'm telling you right now, I don't know any of them, and I don't know what's, they're probably going to laugh at me.

It's wild. Oh, yeah. So he said, well, go sit down. He said, and we'll get back with a few minutes. And he said, think about where you can buy drugs at and who you can buy them from. And, you know, basically do this buy a deal. So I go out front, I'm sitting there like this. I'm thinking, what in the world do you?

You know, what's the world do you? going on here. I'm thinking too that I ain't got nothing there ain't no drugs. I don't know what you're talking about. They want me to do it by and this, that, another. And I had no idea about any of this stuff, you know what I mean? And just spun out pretty much. And so at that point

I'm starting to get a little bit mad, you know, thinking, what do you want? You know, what happened to the piece of the scrap metal? Y'all came here to look for. You're in my house, tearing my house park. And so it comes back to me and says, did you think of everybody? And at the time, I was kind of pissed off, and

And I said, I couldn't think of nobody. I honestly couldn't think of where I could go, have somebody come over there and sell me drugs while this is going in progress. You know? And he said, I don't know what you want or what you want to do, whatever. And I said, oh, I just thought of somebody. He goes. And when I did that, he goes, oh, really, who is it? You know, it's all excited.

And I said, I probably shouldn't say this, but I should go ahead and say it. I said, because I was pissed because I had a good feeling where all this was coming from. I said probably the NASCAR garage area be the only place I know like this. Just being mad and just being pissed off at NASCAR and it's at another and probably should never said that.

When I said that, the other guy says, he's not going to work with us. He said, I don't guess he is. And I'm still thinking, what are you going to do? Because I know you didn't find that in my safe, whatever you got in your hand. And then that's when he said, well, lock him up. So when I said that, five, six later,

boom, my hands around my, you know, I'm a back and I'm going to jail, you know. So you're saying, I mean, this is pretty obvious, but I'm just going to state for the record here. You're saying whatever he held in his hand was not meth. No, and it didn't come from my safe, whatever. And there certainly wasn't anything in your safe. No. You're saying that.

And they got in your safe how? I let them in my safe. You let them in the safe. You know, they wanted in my safe. I was like, okay, now you walk in there, I had a gun room and had a bunch of guns in it. And it was, you know, and something that was in my safe was I had a bunch of coins and all the stuff that I'd put in, you know, Like I found a silver dollar or whatever, you know, I had all that stuff in there. So I had baggies in there.

And it was clearly you could see what they were for, you know. And, but there's no meth in there or no drugs in there, you know. I didn't even have to open the safe up if I didn't want to, you know. And I did anyway. Well, then I, same way, they sent me to jail after that. And it was just like, I mean, I keep going all day on all, you know, all the details, but whatever. But so that's the first time I went to jail. And basically the guy.

while he's, you know, filling the papers out, put me in jail or whatever, we're down there. And he goes, another guy come out and he said, what did it weigh? He goes, well, basically the weight of a baggie, one point something grams, you know. And, you know, so they wrote down one point something grams and whatever it was, but the guys, you know,

I heard him say basically the weight of the baggie. You know, so I'm assuming that, well, it was a baggie that one baggies I had in my safe, you know, not realizing whatever. So anyway, the judge let me out. I didn't get to, had to go jail. All that stuff. Okay.

How many counts were there? 28, something like that? Yeah. Of the 28, you're saying that there was complete innocence in all 28 of those counts? No, there was like two counts of possession of stolen goods that I admitted and told them I had, you know? You had possession of stolen goods, but you're saying you bought them. Yeah, I bought them, but they were stolen. Right.

Just like a pawn shop or anybody do, you know. I'm sure if somebody around here's bought something that stole it. You don't know what the stuff from the pawn shop. Usually you just assume it is stolen actually, right? Right. So I know that for, I know that for months and months and months that you wouldn't accept a plea deal that had any felon charge on it. And did you eventually have to do that?

Or because I know you wanted to, you obviously trying to keep that off your personal record. Right, right. So I'm finding that kind of funny because you get raided. All that's happening, right? Right. Your world's exploding all around you, right? just like, oh my God, what's happening? How did I get here?

Right, right. How did you decide to keep turning away the plea deals that they keep sending you? Right. And like, I ain't accepting that. Right. Tell them, no felony charges. Tell them no felony charges. I'll plead to anything that any felon.

And you just went on and on. Yeah, they went on for two and a half years. Why are you not like just trying to get this shit off your back? Right. Well, because, for one, I didn't want to be a felon. I didn't want to go to jail, you know. I didn't, I didn't. But if you pled guilty to the felony charge, I think you would have still not done any jail time.

No, no, this was, oh yeah, this was, this was, yeah, this was my first time. So how did you get to decide that you're going to be the one to tell them what you're going to accept? Right. I just was like this. I was like, for one, it didn't happen all 28, didn't happen all at one time. Like, like, say a month or two after that, they'd indict me again because I didn't accept one right here, you know. Yeah. Now I'm indicted for five more.

Okay, then, you know, another month to half goes by and five more, you know, then three more. And different counties, too. You know, different counties were coming aboard. So, you know, that made it hard for me to fight all this. Okay, well, then at the end of that month I was telling you about was my hearing for our... For the appeal. For the appeal. And the NASCAR drug test.

Exactly. And so meanwhile, when we started getting our discovery, you know, you get discovery for everything that's accused you for, whatever, basically. Well, there was all kind of stuff on top of it that was just all NASCAR stuff. you know, well, why would that be a part of my case now? This had nothing to do with NASCAR, so why is NASCAR, you know, basically all their stuff, information coming in on this, you know? And so then we go to the appeals court, and of course, the first, you know, 30 minutes, they stand up and their attorneys are telling the judges, you know, there's eight,

or whatever, six judges up there, whatever it is, that Mr. Mayfield just got arrested for methamphetamines and the gun charges and just one right after enough. other, you know, and how are you going to win that, you know? And even though they shouldn't have based it off that, it had nothing to do with, it's totally separate, but, you know, the judges are listening and going, yeah, how are we going to rule on that, you know? So basically, we lost our appeal, and then it was over after that part of the NASCAR deal. Yeah.

But you're fighting these federal charges from the raid for two and a half years. Yeah. Right. All the while, which you eventually pled guilty to a couple charges in no jail time. Right. And all the while, you're losing all of your financial security. Your house got destroyed. You end up having the land gets, I don't know whether it's seized or sold.

This guy, they did a control burn on the house. The fire department comes, and the property owner just wanted to farm the land. So all of this goes away. This is your property. You talk about that little cabin. Right. You got your shop. You just getting your teeth kicked in.

Right. Right. And you had some trouble with the IRS because obviously, You spend all this money on your trial and court dates and everything else. Was there ever a moment in any of this when you were just at the end of your road? I mean, I can't imagine going through that and not having some moments of how in the hell do I get up the next day and keep going. Oh, yeah. There was a lot of those, you know.

And I want you all know, too. I'm not sitting here trying to defend anything. I know I got myself in a hell of a mess, you know, at that point in time, throughout all of it. And but, yeah, there was days, a lot of days I got, you know, I didn't know what to do. And it seemed like, you know, on Friday afternoon, when, if I made it through Friday, Saturday and Sunday were like, finally like a weekend, you know, no, no rage, no going to jail, no going to court, you know, made it through that week, you know. And that went on for a while, you know, and it's amazing how you feel on Friday when,

at five o'clock. You know what I mean? Nothing bad is happening this week. Nothing's happened this week. But yeah, it's definitely tough, you know, and there's times that, you know, I mean, I got mad, I stayed miserable and mad, this, that, and the other, but yet I knew that, you know, the 28 felonies, you know, you'd ask me that a few minutes ago, how do you tell them not that you're not going to accept a plea?

Well, it's the same thing. You know, I'm like, I know how it all happened the way it all went down, and I got arrested five times. It puts me back in the media five different. times Mayfield arrested again. You know, oh, Mayfield arrested again. Like I'm doing. And this guy keeps getting arrested.

Right. Like you keep getting, like five different instances. You're saying there are five separate charges just off on the same. Off the same rate. Yeah. But they would just keep throwing it on me like this, you know. And I guess thinking that at 28, it would eventually end up where I'd had to, you know, serve for two or three of them anyway, you know.

And so I started getting pleased and I was like, you know, basically saying, I'm not playing to that. I'll just go to court. I just want my day in court. and when you proved me that I stole an aircraft or a trailer or whatever it was, we'll go from there, you know, but there's never no proof of nothing. I need to call it doing anything. You know, this just all charges on, based on allegations from this one guy, you know,

and that's the guy that showed up in a shop that day. And so, you know, I didn't understand either again, you know, basically, and now it looks like I'm sitting there going, oh, I didn't do anything, I didn't do anything, I didn't do it, just like the NASCAR thing was, you know. It just put me in a bad situation again that I didn't know how to get out of it other than I'm in the middle of what do you do? I had no choice again as far as, okay, I'm in the middle of that, like you're saying, and the felonies just keep coming.

You know, like I can just go, okay, wait a minute, I'm done. You know, I'll just back out here and call it today, you know. So your wife has been with you and still with you today. How you talk about her being, you know, being in the middle of the raid and in the middle of all those situations and, you know, being exposed to all of these difficult situations. What kind of conversations do you guys have in those moments? Like, you know, right?

When she gets up off the floor and she learns that you're going to the jailhouse, you know, the next time you guys get back together, I mean, she's still with you. She's obviously in your corner. Talk about her because I don't know that a lot of relationships and marriages would have survived all of this. Right. And, you know, she's been my biggest supporter through everything, really. You know, and the day that this happened with NASCAR, she said, you're going to fight a marching. You know, fight for this. And I said, yeah, but I want you to realize what that means.

You know, I knew what it meant. You know what I mean? I knew what was going to happen. You're not going to win that battle, you know, but I told her that day, you can ask her, I said, everything you see right here, we're going to push it all in. It's going to be all in if we do this, you know. and she said you got to do it you know and and she's the one that's with me all the time you know she sees me every day she knows I'm no different today than I was we first met or you know when you and I first met you know and and and your dad and everybody else you know and so she's been with me seeing everything that goes on and she knows that that how it all trickled down you know what I mean how it all it's just happening stages all one at a time like this and you can see right where it was

coming you know and the way it was going and um You know, if I'd went away for 20 years or whatever, then they wouldn't have to listen to me, continue on talking either. You know what I mean? That's the way I looked at it too, you know? And so I'm not blaming them or saying it's any of their fault, you know, NASCAR side of it,

but it would have certainly got rid of me for a while, you know. But she's been there and seen it all, and she's, you know, seen it with her own two eyes, you know. And probably the greatest thing ever happened to me was her, you know. I didn't say so, yeah. Yep. and then we're still together today, and we've, and even through all that, you know, with our land in our house, that all happened at a bad time, too, you know, it was 2008, when,

you know, the market fell, and we had the place sold before, even the, even that the drug test happened, we're going to sell replaced, and it fell through because of the 2008 deal. When that happened, you know, the real estate market just dropped and everybody knows what happened after that, and then that put us in a bad situation because we had all her money sitting there, and, you know, so everything just kind of happened at all, it's at a, at a, at one time that set us up for the fall, you know? Yeah. I think, you know, the property part, the house, the land, and, you know, you lived near

dad, and you, I think you and you, like me and a lot of other people kind of emulated other drivers, dad, you know, owning property, creating crafting your land and making it what you want. You know, you put your little dirt track on there, whatever you're doing. We all've done that, you know, and having that taken away from. you're losing that, however you want to look at it. Kind of how did you pick yourself back up? You know, and where are you now in terms of, you know, where are you now in terms of sort of rebuilding your material life?

Right. Right. And it's still today, you know, we feel the effects of all that. You know what I mean? Still living. Still today, yeah. And, you know, some parts of it. But we've, yeah, we've just kind of just, eventually you just put, you know,

You can't worry about it. You know, and there was a lot of things I just couldn't, had no control over, couldn't really do nothing about, just had to ride it out, you know. And that's pretty much what we've done, you know, just kind of wrote it out for a while. And, you know, I tried to race here and there, you know, different things. And, you know, how it is. You know, nobody was going to give me a chance to come back or, you know, sponsor or anything because all the stigma and all the stuff that goes along with what I went through, you know.

So we just been fighting battles like that the whole time, you know. and but she and I are still as strong and stronger we've ever been, you know, because of that, you know. Are you still trying to clear your name? Do you feel like you're still out on a quest to do that? Yeah, I feel like I am. So, I mean, the reason I ask is because I find there's some irony in this. Like there's irony in the fact that, you know, they'll ask, you know, why would you know it's not accept a plea deal? Well, I think you were sort of because if you didn't feel like you did it, you didn't want that on your name, on your record.

You didn't want a felon on your record. And yet everything I've heard from almost the time you sat down is that you've sort of been an outcast this whole time, right? So like if you were out to try to clear your name and defend your name and defend what you feel is right, you still ended up almost on an island, right? Right. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. I got isolated from everybody else. And so I see irony in that, but I'm also wondering like at what point does this not even become important to you anymore?

Like, it's what's done is done. Does coming on a show like this just regurgitate? stuff and bring back more headaches and heartaches for you, or is there still a chance that you think that you can go clear your name and people, you can change their minds if they feel like you were guilty of all these things and there's still light at the end of the tunnel. Right. Yeah, I still feel like there was light to the end of the tunnel, you know, obviously. And, you know, obviously, you know, when you and I talked to each other a month ago or whatever was, that's the hope I've been looking for.

You know what I mean? And not because coming on the show and bashing anybody or anything like that. It's just being able to be back, you know, and say, hey, man, you know, and talk to the guy that I've raced with him forever, you know. Right. And I haven't been able to do that, you know.

And I probably could have, but it still wouldn't have been the same, you know. And like you said, when you go, it is like you're on an island by yourself because you feel like that nobody's there, you know, you can't really reach out. You don't even want to reach out because you know what you're thinking already, you know,

and it's kind of not fair because if you look at, and obviously we've done a lot of research and a lot of different things, if you look at just the drug part, let's say the drug part, okay, you know how many people's on or tried drugs in their lifetime pretty much, you know, around the United States is probably, you know, 100 million or something like this. Okay, so you start looking at like that, you start looking at statistics going, all right, even if I did or didn't, it, you know, in their eyes, what they're seeing.

I've been judged as, you know, that, okay, you're the bad guy. You're the one sitting out here on their island by yourself and just stay away from him because Brian and him were arguing and we don't want nothing to do with you, you know. And it's really not fair for that because I'm no different. I was. I just hadn't had a chance to talk to anybody. You hadn't had a chance to talk to you, you know? Yeah, that's right.

And, you know, and I didn't get a chance to say, hey, man, this is what happened to nobody. You know, and every time I tried to the media, it would turn into, first, saying I was in Mayfield, you know, who, you know, just got his house raided and it done all this bunch of bull and then I had three little lines for me saying, oh, I didn't do it, you know, pretty much, you know, that's kind of sum it all up. And I never had an opportunity to say it, you know, to really just tell you what happened, you know, and I've just been, you know, and there again, I'm not trying to say, okay, I'm the sane here of no means,

you know, but what I'm trying to say is that I definitely felt like that I just haven't had chance yet, you know. Okay, and then do you wish, oh God, I got so many questions, Jeremy, sorry. You know, there's a couple things. One is, I think everybody would want to know this question and they answer this question. I think we've all asked, not knowing the scenarios, like, you've just unpacked and, you know, laid this out. Without all of that information, those of us on the outside would just be like, why didn't he just say did it? And then, because racing is ultimately the only thing that matters, right? Like, you just, you know, you could have been back. You could just race and even if you didn't do it, just go through the motions, do it and be back.

The way people's memories are, they'll forget about it in six months, you know, and then you, Kyle Larson certainly got back redeemed. There's redemption processes. There's redemption stories, a lot of them, but you never seemed interested in the redemption thing. Right. Do you regret that? Do you wish you would have just taken that road?

Well, I thought I did. You know, when I said, yeah, I'm taking Adderall and Clearton D, I thought I did the right thing. And, you know, as well as I did, the way that it was all laid out, that's what I was supposed to do, you know. And then it just kept getting worse. It was like, not on my end. It was on their end. There just wasn't no working my way through this, you know. If I just said, okay, road to recovery, okay, I'm sitting on a race team.

I'm done anyway because the timing situation, this day and time would be different, you know. It is different. That's right. That's right. There was no actual official road to recovery program. Right, exactly. But we're sitting there with no list and all this stuff would go wrong. the way they test us, you know, we walk up in the trailer and just, for example, I give another good one.

And this is while the whole time I'm thinking, sooner or later somebody's going to see that this wasn't right, you know. See the inconsistencies. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and like the day I was tested, you know, from the start, I didn't know how to be drug tested. You know, we always went and got our physicals and did it then at the beginning of the year. Well, we're sitting in the trailer, like he said, sweat pouring off all of us, you know, walk up there and the guy hands you a cup and here, you know, he's got paperwork scattered all over the, all over his desk and everything else. still not, I'm not thinking anything about it.

Going to the bathroom and he goes, oh, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. So I turn around, open the door back up and walk back out. Let me see the cup. You need to wash your hands first. Okay, they're going to wash my hands, you know. I didn't know what I was supposed to do, you know. Go back out. Here you go, here's your cup back.

You know, he hands your cup and then you go pee in the cup, you know. That's wrong. Yeah, it's all wrong, you know, and I found that out after it happened. So I didn't know that at the time. It was also new, right? Right. And I'm not thinking anything about it. You know, I didn't think twice about it, you know.

and so then you go back out and he peeing your cup and then he's you know got all the stuff going on it's just a mess what I seen the day I went in there you know and and and every test I've taken besides their test has been the right way done it you know which was been lab cord you know lab cord's a reputable blood that's where I go if I'm getting blood yeah well don't go there because according to agents and Dr. Blight that they can't do the testing way they like the DOT does you know I think that I think they're fine they do good work right lapwork And I don't want to throw back on him either, you know, but it is. There's a reason why he, I thought I was going through controversy and all this stuff, but if you go back and look at him, he was going through a lot worse than I've ever went through and still going through it, you know.

Yeah, but I don't, I still just don't understand why Dr. Black had so much jurisdiction when it all said, when it was all said and done. Well, I do. I mean, well, I can assume. So when NASCAR brought in their policy, I think I know what you're about to say. They were, they were, they never thought that they were going to need a drug policy. They never, and there was at that time no basis for having one. There was nothing going on that would say, you know what, we really got a problem here. And so they weren't in the business of having a drug policy.

So they basically brought a guy in and said, we don't know nothing about this shit. We're going to leave it to you, right? And everything that happens with any drivers or any tests or anything, you're going to have an answer for it. And we're going to defer to you. And they defer to black, defer to black on everything, right? Whatever he says, man, he's the pro. He's the expert. And so he was gavent, he was emboldened with his power, right, to be sort of the voice of everything, drug policy in NASCAR at the time.

That was my opinion. He was like a foul chief for the, during a pandemic. mean? Right. Similar. Yeah. Yeah. And then also not only was just for the testing, but if somebody tests positive,

you've got to go back through him, you know, which now makes him, yeah. I'm not sure what you call that guy, but. But then, okay, fair enough. So then, but Dr. Black, like you said, had his own problems. And then eventually, as Dale said earlier, you know, Brian France found his way out. So, like, wouldn't you think that at some point, like if at some point now with those two people out of the picture, somebody would step up and be like, somebody that would step up, other than Brian Francis' ex-wife, you know, would step up and say, okay, there were some,

you know, there were some wrongdoings done here. Or somebody that at least could admit what you just said, Dale, we were new at this. It's not what we ever signed up for. And so, yeah, there were probably mistakes that were happened. You know, somebody, but nobody's really done that. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know what the, I don't.

You know, I think after all this time, I don't really know how you feel, Jeremy, about, you know, trying to, what can you fix? Right. What can you make, what can you, what can you gain at this point? I honestly think that, I don't know, you know, I don't know what happened, right? And, and I don't, I don't know that I really care. Right. You know, it, when it was happening, it was scary for all of us. you know, to see you go through that.

It made every damn one of us nervous to get our name called to be taken into that trailer. And because we didn't know what was right and what was wrong, we didn't know whether you were telling the truth or whether NASCAR was telling the truth. We're racing for an organization and, you know, we would hope that they would have everything right, you know, and that there's no way that they could mess this up. and so I think I have carried those opinions all the way up until this moment right now is like I don't know the truth I don't know that it really matters to me I don't know what

all went down with the raid and why that happened and all the details and I just know the I know the I know the jury Mayfield that I know right and that's good enough for me and you know I always enjoyed racing with you and and never once did did I ever get this a weird vibe from you right You know, when you typically get around people that that are doing things the wrong way or have some personal guilt down in there, it comes to the surface. They look, they look the part. Every, yeah, as much as we're around each other and when you made the playoffs, we spent some time around each other, you know, and I never once, and even today, like when I saw you at the racetrack, the other week, you're the same guy. Right. So, and I appreciate that, you know, and the thoughts like that, you know, and I felt the same way as far as,

I can't think of one time I thought that somebody in the garage area, somebody on a racetrack was doing anything. Yeah. I really didn't because we're around each other all the time. And that's when the drug policy came about, you know, and at that point in time, I'm like, why would you even, you had a good policy going was if you, you know, somebody obviously looks like they're drunk or on drugs, you do something about it, you know? Right.

All right, everybody. So we told you guys that this was going to be a two-perience. part episode. That was the first part of the Jeremy Mayfield episode on the Dale Jr. Download Part 2 coming next week. Mike, this has been a fun listen so far. I hope everybody will tune in to

the final second part of the interview, but pretty fun. We were able to announce our new partnership with Joey and Connor in the Speed Street podcast. Got a lot of cool things coming out here at

Dirty Mo Media, man. You and the team are creating some amazing things. Thank you for that. You know, we also launched Next Level, a YouTube series with Andrew Curlin. So a lot of fun things. I also want to say one more thing. You know, we talked about the ultimate experience at the beginning of the show. Bristol, Fall Bristol, Ultimate Experience is going on sale this week.

So we were doing three of them this year. We've just completed the second one. Bristol Night Race. Bristol Night Race, Ultimate Sweet Experience, Dirty Mo Media, Tickets. go to dirtymomedia.com to buy them. Do you have a guest in the suite? I know you had Jordan Taylor this past weekend? I haven't got that far yet.

Oh, boy. We'll figure it out. All right. Well, you got something in mind? I'll be working the booth. Yeah, I know you're busy. I won't be able to come. Yeah.

I regret that I didn't come this weekend, honestly. Good time was that. Not that it wouldn't have been a good time with you, but it was good time. Apparently, I wouldn't have been able to tweet, so that would have sucked. You would not have been able to tweet. I'm telling you, man. All right. Get them some X-Finity X-Fi or something.

I don't know. Anyway, I hope you guys have had a great week. Hope you enjoy the show. Tune in next week. Until then, take care. We'll see you. Next week on the Dale Jr. download. Putting the bumper to dad.

Nobody did that. Right. And as soon as I crossed the start to finish, I thought, man, what in the hell am I going to say about this? I knew it was coming after that. So I come back around and, you know, he's doing the flip in the office that and the other, you know, and he's driving beside him. I knew he's pissed, you know. I mean, the whole front straightaway was covered with bottles, beer bottles, and I, and I thought, man, what am I going to say?

You know, so I get out, you know, I just want to Randall's cage a little bit, all cocky and everything, you know, fans were throwing stuff, food, everything. You know, I had to sneak her way out of there. I had to sneak her way out of it, I had to ride in the back of her rental car, just to make her down the back of it, like two hours after the race just to make it out of the truck. And so I had my buddy up in the top of the truck. He's, you know, prepping our tires or tie guys. In the lounge? Up in the top of the truck? Yeah, up in the front.

And I remember coming to have practice, and I'm thinking, man, right, we got a shot, you know. And I'm smelling everything. I think you smell coming out of the back of the truck, you know. I'm thinking, man, we're in trouble. You can smell the tire fret. He puts our tires on. We're rolling through tech, and I'm pushing the car through tech. I'm really looking down, I'm thinking, oh, my God.

I mean, the good year's coming off of it. It just didn't look good, you know. Yeah. And here comes Elmo Langley. And he's going by NASCAR fishing. Yeah, NASCAR fishing. Yeah, NASCAR fishing. And I'm thinking, man, what do I do?

I'm going to tell you, when you asked him about what John Andretti's car had on it when it went to poll the next year. You know something. You know some creativity. Oh, of course he does. Yeah, I know. So you're not going to tell us anything? I'll tell you one thing.

I heard. I'm not sure, but I heard it. Friction between you and Rusty, like, always there and kind of making things harder than they have to be. You won at Richmond, which put you into playoffs that year. That was the first ever chase, I believe. The first chase. Yeah. I remember that was dramatic.

Yeah, it was like a, like a 12th. with round knockout. Then you make the comments about, you know, I don't, I can't tell you what Ray thinks because I don't seem. Seeing Ray, you know. Ray used to be on top of all that stuff, you know. He wouldn't let it happen. And if the nine was running bad, he'd be on the nine box.

Here's something else that happened. I just wouldn't tell you the deal with it. Sure. I made a big mistake. Something about a picture. Yeah, I made a huge mistake. So the last race with Ray at Indy, you got black flagged on, like, what? hell is that?

Bringing in the end of their going to black flag poured in my pit stall and everybody nobody come over the walk. I'm just sitting there on pit road like this bomb. We're just sitting there and nobody's saying nothing to quiet for like three minutes to seem like everybody's wrong, won't go behind, I'm sitting there, not the first crew members come over the wall. Then I hear

Ray said just park it. I just got out of it, walked off, you know, and that's last time I was sitting there. You got out of it on pit road? Yeah. With that whole black flag deal is a whole other conversation. I know what I think you're insinuating, but I'll just ask you. Like, what would be more to the black flag? Check out Dirtymoe Media.

Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.