Mayfield moves to head of class

Thursday, May 7, 1998 | 5:55 a.m.

A twentysomething sitting atop the Winston Cup standings is hardly news on the NASCAR circuit. Nearly everybody has come to expect it.

After all, Jeff Gordon has won the title twice in the last three years. But the young lion roaring the loudest now isn't The Kid.

It's Jeremy Mayfield, an unassuming Kentuckian who wouldn't mind being part of stock car racing's next dynamic duo.

"A rivalry wouldn't hurt the sport, that's for sure," he said.

But Mayfield cautions that he must improve to make that scenario a reality.

So, instead of reveling in his lofty status - attained with a second-place finish last Sunday in the California 500 - the 28-year-old driver was concerned with working hard to protect it.

He immediately went to Sonoma, Calif., to attack one of his weaknesses - driving the road courses.

That attitude is helping Mayfield considerably, says crew chief Paul Andrews, who knows something about the development of young drivers. He helped the late Alan Kulwicki win the 1992 series title.

"He's definitely still a young driver, but he's got a lot of good experience underneath him already," Andrews said of Mayfield. "We've all got our weak areas, but he has a knack, a cautious eye, for staying out of trouble, for avoiding wrecks in front of him."

Indeed. Mayfield has replaced Penske-Kranefuss teammate Rusty Wallace at the top of the standings in part by remaining unscathed in the last two races - where multicar pileups hurt some of the other contenders.

This comes as no surprise to Michael Kranefuss, who hired Mayfield late in the 1996 season.

"He's always got a sense of what's going on around him," said Kranefuss, who spent 10 years as Ford's racing chief before starting his own team. "This kid doesn't even know how good he is, but he has a quiet confidence that I've only seen in some of the best drivers over the years."

Mayfield certainly has lived up to the expectations of Andrews, who thought a top-10 in the standings this year was a good possibility after Mayfield missed by just 29 points in 1997.

"I don't think anybody on this team is that surprised as to where we are right now," Andrews said. "In fact, maybe we ought to be a little better."

He thought Mayfield had a good chance to win in March in Darlington, S.C., and considered the team's new Taurus the best car last month in Fort Worth, Texas.

"A caution at the wrong time killed us at Darlington," Andrews said. "We cut a tire at Texas, and that ended that.

"Without those two things, who knows? We might have a bigger lead and two wins right now."

It hasn't hurt Mayfield to have big-bucks sponsorship from Mobil and a teammate like 1989 Winston Cup champion Wallace. It's a union that began this season when Roger Penske merged his operation with that of Kranefuss.

"Jeremy and Rusty hit if off from the start," Kranefuss said. "They have similar styles on the racetrack, and there was a trust there right from the beginning."

Mayfield, still seeking his first career victory, says he's gotten some help from Wallace, a 47-time winner on the circuit.

"We do communicate a lot," Mayfield said. "We talk about chassis, our cars.

"A lot of multicar teams don't have what we have. Both of us are determined to win ... working together has helped both of us."

With the chase for the Winston Cup no longer an improbable dream, Mayfield wants a victory to further legitimize his credentials.

"We certainly have been close," he said. "We feel like we have kind of won even though we haven't."

The way Mayfield has progressed, he might not be able to say that much longer.

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