NASCAR, Evernham dispute Mayfield allegation

NASCAR says there is no evidence of a black flag issued to Jeremy Mayfield during the 2006 Brickyard 400 and that Ray Evernham, who owned the team Mayfield drove for at the time, was the one who ordered him to park his car during the race, according to a court filing Wednesday. The filing came in response to Mayfield’s claim last week that NASCAR Chairman Brian France had him black-flagged in the race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Mayfield made that claim in asking U.S. District Court Judge Graham Mullen to reconsider a May 2010 ruling that dismissed his lawsuit against NASCAR over a May 1, 2009, drug test that NASCAR says was positive for methamphetamines. The allegation surrounding the 2006 race at Indy comes in part from declarations of France's former in-laws, whom France sued last year when trying to evict them from a home he owned. NASCAR uses Mayfield's 2006 lawsuit against then-team owner Evernham as corroborating evidence that the black-flag story is false. Mayfield filed suit in the days following the Indy race after Evernham fired him. In none of those documents does Mayfield say he was black-flagged by NASCAR. In affidavits filed with NASCAR's response Wednesday, Evernham and then team director (crew chief) Chris Andrews said no one from NASCAR asked them to pull the car from the track. In affidavits filed by Mayfield, both of France's former in-laws say that France, after drinking scotch while in California to be with his pregnant wife during the race, called NASCAR President Mike Helton in the control tower at Indy and asked that Mayfield be black-flagged. When Mayfield got to the pits no NASCAR official ever looked at the car, Mayfield alleges. In its filing Wednesday, NASCAR produced travel records and hotel records indicating that France was in Orlando that day, not California. Scene Daily