Jeremy Mayfield began racing karts in 1982, and then moved up through the weekly tracks of central Tennessee. He raced Street Stocks, Sportsman and Late Model Stock Cars, where he was 1987 Kentucky Motor Speedway Rookie of the Year.
He raced on the ARCA RE/MAX Series in 1993, with eight top-five and 10 top-10 finishes, good enough to earn that series' rookie of the year award and a lot of notice from NASCAR team owners.
To this point, the apex of Mayfield's career has been his 1998 season with Penske-Kranefuss Racing, when he finished seventh in the Cup point standings with 12 top-five and 16 top-10 finishes.
Perhaps his toughest season was 2001. He opened the year with a ninth-place finish in the Daytona 500, but he continued to drop in the standings until he was released from the Penske Racing team following the September race at Kansas Speedway. His best finishes were three third-place efforts. Despite having only five top-five and seven top-10 finishes, he won a career high $2,774,745.
In 2002, Mayfield hoped to bounce back in the No. 19 Dodge of Evernham Motorsports. He had a second-place finish at Las Vegas earlier in the year, but struggled to a 26th-place finish in the standings. He garnered four top-10 finishes in 36 starts and was out of the top 20 in all of the last six races of the season.
The next season Mayfield improved five positions in the standings with a 19th-place finish in the standings. He bounced back in 2004 as he made the inaugural "Chase for the Nextel Cup" in the last qualifying race with a victory at Richmond. In the end, he finished tenth in the standings, collecting 13 top-10 finishes overall and a check $1,023,269 at the awards banquet.
He made the "Chase" again in 2005 and finished ninth in the final standings in a year which also saw him pick up a win at Michigan Int'l Speedway.
After falling to 35th in the standings in 2006, Mayfield was released by Evernham Motorsports prior to the Watkins Glen event.
Weeks later he was announced as the driver of the No. 36 OTC Toyota for Bill Davis Racing starting in 2007.
Mayfield, a native of Owensboro, Ky., says he enjoys listening to the musical stylings of Kid Rock, Metallica and Limp Bizkit when not behind the wheel of a race car.
Mayfield drove for 17 of 36 Cup races in 2007, finished in 45th position in Cup Championship standings earning over $1 million.
