Mayfield v. NASCAR heats up

By DAVID GREEN

Did he, or didn't he? Or, as some cynics have suggested, does it matter?

Is Jeremy Mayfield a drug user, as NASCAR claims urinalysis results indicate, or not? Does the truth matter?

The pursuit of truth is the mission of the journalist, and quite often it is an elusive, if not impossible, quest.

Prominent among examples of this is the assassination 46 years ago of President John F. Kennedy, the details of which have never been proven to the satisfaction of a good many Americans.

It's a baffling case. One would think NASCAR would never have taken such dramatic action against Mayfield if the sanctioning body did not believe it had an airtight case. At the same time, it's hard to believe Mayfield would be so vehement in his denial of the charges if he did not truly believe himself to be innocent of them.

The obvious extrapolation of that logic is that one side is obviously and completely wrong, regardless of how the litigation turns out.

Just as obviously, whichever side loses stands to lose a great deal.

If NASCAR loses, Mayfield is not likely to let the organization off lightly. His personal and professional reputation has been severely, perhaps irreparably, damaged. That's bad enough for any individual, but especially costly for someone with the public-figure nature of a professional athlete or other celebrity. If I were Mayfield, and I were to win this case, I wouldn't be satisfied until I owned a good chunk of the France family fortune.

If Mayfield loses, he loses what credibility he had left -- and, it seems to me, he leaves himself open to criminal prosecution for any violations of law that might have been involved in acquiring or using whatever substance it is that he's supposed to have used.

That last phrase sums up the rock in my shoe about this whole matter. We still don't even know just what it is that Mayfield is accused of using.

When all is said and done, we still may not know the truth of what happened. But we will know what the legal system has determined to be the truth. And we will know what that has cost the loser.