Apr 21, 2008

NASCAR Misses Point on Drugs

NASCAR waited until one of its biggest stars died, crashing into a wall in Daytona, until it instituted a policy that would help prevent such injuries. Now we are fearful that NASCAR is waiting until there is a catastrophic crash caused by a driver under the influence of drugs before it institutes an official random drug-testing policy that will help assure that such an accident never happens.

The recent reports that have indicated that Aaron Fike, a driver in NASCAR’s truck and Nationwide series, used heroin on race day should be a strong wake- up call -- as strong as the sport ever needed to move -- to put drug testing in place immediately. Instead, NASCAR President Mike Helton, incredibly, tried to spin the news that the revelation about Fike’s drug use is a positive thing, saying that it indicated that unofficially the family of NASCAR will police its own without an official policy. Any family member of an addict can tell you that point of view is not only denial, but it is also an enabler of drug use. Burying its head in the asphalt and expecting individual teams to police the sport is simply not an adequate response to the potential danger involved.

Stop and look at the severity of the problem for a minute and compare it to other sports. Right now baseball is wrestling with a giant problem involving so-called performance-enhancing drugs. It is a terrible tragedy, but at the same time, if a baseball player is being injected with human growth hormone, it is unlikely to do harm to anyone but the athlete himself. Racing, of course, is much different because of the dangerous nature of the sport and the fact that each driver depends on each other driver to do the right thing when it comes to safety.  Imagine the potential loss of life that could be caused by just one driver operating a race car at 200 mph under the influence of drugs, and you can see why the last thing NASCAR should be doing is shunting off the responsibility on this issue to its team owners, and in general, pretending that there is no problem at all.

The fact that many top NASCAR drivers have called for random drug testing is reason enough for NASCAR to move quickly to implement a comprehensive program. Obviously, many top drivers feel their lives are at stake if NASCAR continues its traditional policy of inaction. We say that NASCAR should move decisively to prevent a possible future tragedy. The last thing we want to say is I told you so.