It was announced Monday
that Hass CNC Racing has released Jeff Green immediately and signed Jeremy Mayfield to drive for the remainder of the season
and next in 2008… Why? Green has led this under funded team to a 30th position in the standings so far this year. Mayfield
has only managed to qualify in 13 races and sits in 48th two points ahead of John Andretti and that dominating BAM Racing
team. If you wanted a driver that could do much with little, why not chose Tony Raines? He has done much with nothing, while
Mayfield has managed to drive top cars to the bottom. Let’s examine the illustrious career of Mayfield.
Mayfield made his first Cup
start in 1993 with Sadler Brothers Racing at Charlotte late in the season. He
made another four starts with them at the start of the ’94 season before driving for T.W. Smith and Cale Yarborough.
In 1995 he made 27 more starts for owner Cale Yarborough finishing 31st in points. He followed that up in 1996 by making 30
of 31 races and ending up 26th in points. He finally ran his first full Cup season in 1997 for Kranefuss-Haas racing and finished
a stout 13th in the driver points. In 1998 the Kranefuss-Haas team was sold to Penske South and Mayfield started
running the No. 12 Mobil Oil car, this led to his best points year ever, earning his first win and finishing 7th in the Cup
point standings.
Since then his career
has been a self inflicted down hill slide. He scored two more wins with Penske but just was not happy with the team and left
in 2002 to join Evernham Motorsports. His leaving Penske was significant in the fact that he aired his displeasure with Penske
as he left. He felt that he was playing a secondary role to Rusty Wallace.
Mayfield went from playing
a secondary role to Rusty Wallace to playing a secondary role to Bill Elliot at Evernham Motorsports (EMS). He went from 5
top 5’s and 7 top 10’s for a 35th points finish with Penske in 2001 to 2 top fives and 4 top tens for a 26th points
finish with Evernham in 2002. Meanwhile Ryan Newman, who took over the 12 car when Mayfield left, had 1 win, 14 top 5’s,
22 top 10’s, finished 6th in the point standings and won Rookie of the Year; all while playing second fiddle to Rusty
Wallace. One would think it’s obvious that the problem on that 12 Penske team was Mayfield, not the team.
The next year, while
Mayfield finished 19th with ZERO wins, 4 top 5’s and 12 top 10’s, that darn 12 team, with Newman driving, (playing
second fiddle to Wallace), wracked up 8 wins (3 more in 1 season than Mayfield has in a 14 year career), 17 top 5’s,
22 top 10’s and was once again 6th in points. In fact, Mayfield has never placed higher in the points or won more races
in a year than Newman has. Upon the semi retirement of Bill Elliot, Mayfield became the “premier” driver of EMS in less than two years and that
was not enough for him.
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In 2006, failing miserably,
Mayfield was at a crossroads again. Since his “I’m so good and my team sucks” ploy was shown to be false
by Ryan Newman taking over at Penske and blowing away the competition, Mayfield had to think of another; i.e. better excuse
for his lack of performance on the track. Not being content in his failure to disrupt a team (Penske) Mayfield decided to
disrupt the personal life of his owner, Ray Evernham. He (Mayfield) went public with was at the time the worst kept secret
in racing; Evernham was having an affair with Erin Crocker, a development driver for EMS, and THAT was the reason Mayfield
could not win as Evernham was not at the track. One would suppose low people will always take the low road.
So why did Haas hire
this guy? There are many talented drivers, without the baggage and excuses that Mayfield is carrying around. Jeff Green may
not have been the best driver that Haas could have hired, but he was head and shoulders above Mayfield. In a just world, Mayfield
would be limited to driving the truck that hauled the garbage away from the tracks after a race, not a high powered car.
2006 StockCar Review.
