Jeremy Mayfield claims in court documents that team owner Ray Evernham’s “close personal relationship” with development driver Erin Crocker distracted his team and kept the owner from being an instrumental part of the No. 19 Nextel Cup team, whose struggles this year eventually led to Mayfield’s firing.

Mayfield made that allegation in his lawsuit against Evernham Motorsports filed Aug. 9 in North Carolina Superior Court in Iredell County after Evernham Motorsports informed Mayfield Motorsports Inc. on Aug. 7 that Mayfield would not drive the car in the Aug. 13 race at Watkins Glen. Evernham responded in an affidavit that he has worked diligently to make sure that the No. 19 team had the personnel and resources to be successful.

In the complaint filed with the court, Mayfield and Mayfield Motorsports Inc., which handles the driver’s business affairs, claim: “For significant periods of time [Evernham] has been, at best, an absentee manager and owner, largely because, … at some point in time Ray Evernham had entered into an [sic] close personal relationship with a female driver he engages to drive on NASCAR’s ARCA, truck and Busch Series. That relationship became a subject of considerable discussion and distraction in the Nextel Cup garage area during the 2006 season.”

Scenedaily.com

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