Harvick implements drug testing for his team

By Kenny Bruce - Assistant Managing Editor

Thursday, May 01, 2008

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SCENE ON THE CIRCUIT

Kevin Harvick has been a staunch believer that NASCAR’s substance-abuse policy doesn’t go far enough. And when a former competitor – one who once drove for Harvick’s Kevin Harvick Inc. team – recently admitted to using drugs on race days, the 32-year-old Harvick decided it was time to take action.

“After the whole drug-testing [discussion] in Phoenix, we went home and changed the whole policy that we have at our company,” Harvick said April 25. “All the drivers and crew chiefs volunteered to take a random drug test. We did that, and then we put an outside company to put a random drug test and policy in place.”

Harvick said the entire KHI organization would be tested “within a week.”

“We have got most of them done and haven’t had any failures yet, so that is a good thing,” he said.

KHI currently fields entries in the Nationwide and Craftsman Truck series.

Earlier this year, Aaron Fike told ESPN The Magazine that he had been addicted to painkillers for six years and had used heroin for an eight-month period, often while competing in the truck series. At the time of his arrest in July 2007, Fike was competing for Red Horse Racing. He drove in three Nationwide Series races for KHI during the previous season.

NASCAR’s policy, created in 1988, is to test competitors only when there is reasonable suspicion of alcohol or drug use.

NASCAR Chairman Brian France defended the policy while speaking in New York City on April 25, saying that the ability to test anyone, at any time, was a more aggressive approach.

According to the Los Angeles Times, France said “... in our situation we can test you every day if ... we’re concerned about something, with no limits. I don’t know how you can beat that.”

Harvick said NASCAR could easily institute a policy that requires anyone obtaining a NASCAR license to be tested, and that it should be standard procedure for anyone visiting the infield care center to submit to a test.

“If you have been through there 10 times in 10 weeks, that should be a standard procedure,” he said. “I think that would fix a lot of the questions that we have and be a pretty simple solution.”

Seven competitors have been suspended indefinitely since 2000 for either violating the substance-abuse policy (failed or missed drug screenings) or actions detrimental to stock-car racing (drug-related arrests).

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