by Lynne Huntting
It was very windy at Phoenix International Raceway on Thursday, but it wasn't just dust and sand that was stirred up on the eve of this weekend's Subway Fresh Fit 500.
NASCAR's Cup Series drivers were also stirred up by another controversy, this time the issue of drug testing.
On Wednesday, an article in
ESPN Magazine quoted former Craftsman Truck driver Aaron Fike as saying that he had raced while under the influence of heroin at an event in Memphis - where he finished fifth. However, it was only after Fike had been arrested for possession of heroin and drug paraphernalia at an amusement park last July that NASCAR suspended him indefinitely.
"No system is flawless; but we believe our zero tolerance policy has served the sport well." NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter told the magazine, "I know Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick both said we should do random testing. When somebody says that, they're implying that we've got a problem, and I don't think we have a problem."
So far, all of the drivers interviewed on the subject on Thursday at PIR felt that random testing should be done in NASCAR, as it is in almost every other major sport, and Harvick was one of the most vocal on the matter.
"There definitely needs to be random testing on the drivers," he insisted, "I had a long conversation with NASCAR the last time we had this policy brought up, at the end of last year, and it almost seems like it went on deaf ears. I'm disappointed with the fact that we're in a case where we have to have a reaction instead of being proactive about the situation. The part I'm disappointed with is that we have to answer these questions again, and we haven't made any headway whatsoever on the drug testing policy. In the ten years that I've been racing, I've never been drug tested."
Dale Earnhardt Jr, five times NASCAR's 'most popular driver', said that the paying public would want to see the sport cleaned up.
