Jeremy Mayfield - Charlotte Preview

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		Kristine Curley
		Golin/Harris
		704.924.9404
JEREMY MAYFIELD
	NO. 19 DODGE DEALERS INTREPID R/T
CHARLOTTE PREVIEW

RUNNING FOR THE NO BULL MILLION DOLLAR BONUS
"We're going after the No Bull (Sunday at Lowe's Motor Speedway), but the million dollars is just a bonus. We want the trophy and the million-dollar check, the trophy first. We want to win bad, and I think it would be awesome to see a fan come home with a million dollars, but for us to have the trophy and a fan to have a million and for us to split a million among the race team.... It's pretty awesome what Winston does. That's a lot of money they've paid out."

RUNNING THE 600, THE SEASON'S LONGEST RACE
 "I've run that race a lot, and I think it's just a mindset (extra 100 miles). You know you've got to do it, so you just do it. It seems like you're pretty wore out after it no matter what, but after every race if you're not tired you didn't drive hard enough. It doesn't matter how good of shape you're in. I think 60 or 70 laps might be a little bit harder, but I don't really see the difference in it."

IMPACT OF DRIVER INPUT ON A TEAM
"The drivers still have to give input back. You're still seeing some teams struggle out there. They can't find the drivers they're looking for and vice versa. Since I've been here, Ray has listened to all my comments about what I'm looking for in a racecar. Every week, that's why you're seeing us get better and better. There's not a week that's gone by yet that we haven't made improvements. Our final result may not show that yet, but we've made huge improvements week in and week out and a lot of that is based on driver input. Sometimes you get hit or miss things, but if you just keep toward working getting the team, driver and everything feeling right, it's still going to be the best direction to go in. Ray is willing to work and make the changes we need."


STATS & FACTS

*	This weekend's race marks Mayfield's 16th career visit to Lowe's Motor Speedway.  He has one top-five and four top-10s, with a career-high finish of second place at the track in the fall race of 2000.  His best start at the track is fourth, which he earned in the 2000 Coca-Cola 600.  Mayfield's most recent start at Charlotte came in last year's Coca-Cola 600 where he started 34th and finished 10th.

	*	Mayfield made his first NASCAR Winston Cup Series start in the fall race at Charlotte in 1993.  He started 30th and finished 29th with car owner Elliott Sadler.  He earned his first top-10 at the track in the 1999 Coca-Cola 600 and hasn't placed outside of the top-10 at Charlotte since then. 

	*	Last Saturday, Mayfield earned his first pole of the season after he notched a time of 29.454/183.337 mph during Friday's qualifying session for the Winston Open. He went on to lead every lap of the race, earning him one of the final two spots for the Winston. Mayfield would spend the latter part of the first segment running near or with teammate Elliott. Mayfield would finish fourth in the first segment and was in position to advance to the final segment until contact on the track forced Mayfield out of contention of the top-10 finish needed to advance to the final segment. Mayfield became the third driver (Sterling Marlin and Michael Waltrip) to earn multiple wins in the Winston Open. Both of Mayfield's victories (1998 and 2002) came from the pole. With his win in the Open, Mayfield made his fifth consecutive start in The Winston.  
		 
*	Mayfield's fifth-place finish at Richmond moved him to 19th in the points standings - five spots better than his ranking after 11 races in 2001, and 20 spots better since this year's Daytona 500.  He is just 47 points out of the top-15. Mayfield's best overall finish in the Winston Cup points race came in 1998 when he ranked seventh at the season's end.
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*	Mayfield's second-place run this year at Las Vegas was his best run at the track and his best overall finish since the 2000 Pennzoil 400 at Homestead-Miami where he finished second.  The finish also qualified Mayfield for this weekend's Winston No Bull 5 $1 million bonus.
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*	Coming into the 2002 season, Mayfield had 237 starts, with six poles (two at Talladega and one at Darlington, Dover, Rockingham, and Texas), three wins (two at Pocono, and one at California), 33 top fives and 58 top 10s.  His most recent win came at Pocono in June of 2000.


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