(By Greg Engle)
Posted: Saturday,May 30th, 2009
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A North Carolina Superior Court judge denied NASCAR driver/owner Jeremy Mayfield’s request for a temporary restraining order against NASCAR to have his indefinite suspension for a positive drug test overturned Friday afternoon.
The judge did grant Mayfield’s request for a gag order to prevent NASCAR from talking about what drug was involved and set a hearing for a preliminary injunction for Wednesday.
During the hearing Friday, a Mayfield attorney disputed the results of the drug test administered May 1, which Mayfield’s attorney said was a positive test for amphetamines. NASCAR’s attorney said in court that it was a dangerous illegally banned substance, but did not specify what it was.
Mayfield’s legal team argued that Mayfield should have been allowed to have his second sample tested at a different lab than the first test and that the seal on the second sample had been broken prior to the test.
NASCAR indefinitely suspended Mayfield on May 9 over the positive test. NASCAR chairman Brian France indicated May 15 that an indefinite suspension such as the one Mayfield received is for a positive test of performance-enhancing drugs or illegal recreational drugs.
Mayfield denied May 16 that illegal drugs caused the positive test and suggested that a combination of a prescription drug (which in court was revealed today to be Adderall, which is commonly prescribed as a treatment for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and Claritin-D allergy medicine resulted in the positive test.
Mayfield is the first Sprint Cup driver to be suspended for violating NASCAR’s substance-abuse policy since Tim Richmond in 1988 and the first suspended since NASCAR instituted random drug-testing this season.
(Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service)
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