There’s a new item in the inventory on Jeremy Mayfield’s souvenir haulers, a simple black T-shirt with a simple message.

“Underrated,” the shirt says, “is Underrated.”

At the start of the 2005 Nextel Cup season, 28 people who cover or work in NASCAR were asked to predict the 10 drivers who’d make this year’s Chase for the Nextel Cup.

How many had Mayfield, who was in the inaugural Chase in 2004, on the list?

Zero – 22 fewer than picked his Evernham Motorsports teammate, Kasey Kahne.

But when the checkered flag falls on Saturday’s Chevy 400 at Richmond International Speedway, Mayfield is all but a mathematical certainty to be right there for a second straight year among the 10 drivers vying for a championship.

Last year, he made it with a dramatic “must-have” victory in this race, a triumph that vaulted him from 14th to ninth in the standings while ending a 142-race winless streak.

Jeremy Mayfield is on track to qualify for the Chase for the Championship for a second season.

It was one of the signature moments in the Chase’s first year, a clutch effort that did not wind up with a fairy-tale finish. The No. 19 Dodge got caught up in wrecks in three of the first five Chase races, and Mayfield went on to finish 10th in the standings.

Perhaps that’s why it was tempting to dismiss Mayfield’s chances of making the championship cut again this year. Regardless of the reason, though, it’s hardly something Mayfield hasn’t become accustomed to in his 12th season of Cup competition.

“I feel that people underestimate me, but the good thing about it is that it’s something that doesn’t bother me,” Mayfield said. “I can go with the flow with a lot of things. But as far as on the racetrack, car-for-car, driver-for-driver, I feel like I’m as good as any driver out there. That’s the way I should feel.”

Mayfield knows that when a driver with a bigger name struggles, fans and the media tend to write that off to bad luck or unusual circumstances.

“When they have a bad year, you don’t hear people say, ‘They can’t drive.’ The problem I’ve got is when people want to throw off on me or say I’m not focused or I don’t drive like I used to drive. That’s not right. That’s what irritates me more than anything. … I’m as focused now as I’ve ever been, and I feel like I’m a better driver than I’ve ever been. Yet, nobody seems to realize that.”

Mayfield turned 36 in late May and just a few days later signed a long-term contract that will keep him with his current team for the foreseeable future. His relationship with Evernham was, both will admit, rocky at times right after they joined forces in 2002.

But things began to click in the second half of the 2003 season, and after rallying to make the Chase last year Mayfield is solidly inside the top 10 this year going into the final pre-Chase race.

With crew chief Richard “Slugger” Labbe coming on board to start this season, Mayfield finished 23rd and 28th in the first two races. He hasn’t finished that low again all year, though, and with six top-10 finishes and a win at Michigan three weeks ago he moved up to sixth to allow himself and his team to breathe a little easier this weekend than it could a year ago.

Mayfield could have wrapped things up last week at California, but he battled an ill-handling car all night and finished 26th. Still, he’s 145 points clear of 11th going into Saturday night’s race – only abject disaster could keep him from making the cut.

And if fans are looking for a driver to root for in the Chase, those who like an underdog’s story could do far worse than Mayfield.

Born in Owensboro, Ky., he ran late models and worked at his local track as a teenager painting signs on the walls and numbers on race cars. He moved to Nashville, Tenn., at age 19 and went to work as a fabricator at Sadler Racing, eventually driving late models for that team while still working at the shop.

Cale Yarborough hired Mayfield to drive the final 12 races of the 1994 Cup season.

“I was at the shop at 8 o’clock every morning and couldn’t be late,” Mayfield said. “I probably made less than just about every crew member there, but I wanted it. I didn’t have anything else. I didn’t have anything I could fall back on. I didn’t have a rich family that I could just come out here and race and have fun. I had to race to survive in life, and that’s what I’ve done.”