Email Friday, April 11, 2008

From Greg in Oregon:

Claire-

You Rock!

Greg in Oregon
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

CBL to Greg: Well some other drivers say that some folks act suspicious even when they are just being normal and not under the influence. Kevin Harvick said that Fike drove a couple of races for him and there was no reason to believe by how he acted that he was under the influence. He did not notice it in his encounter’s with him. Dale Jrr said that if the second worse thing (after someone actually driving under the influence) is wide speculation in the media that casts doubt on the sport then wipe all that out and test the drivers randomly if need be. Thanks for the email. See Dale Junior’s Comments below:

Dale Earnhardt, Jr Quote Transcript : (Phoenix International Raceway) Thursday, April 11:

ON NASCAR HAVING REGULAR RANDOM TESTING. “If the public were to ask that question, NASCAR’s reaction would be to start testing people. They’ve always sort of had that style of management if you will. Once a complaint gets loud enough, they sort of take reaction to it. I wouldn’t have problem with random drug testing if it’s important to the integrity of the sport. That’s what’s important to me and maybe it would be able to help maintain that. We’ve always sort of had it differently than other stick and ball sports because we drive cars. It’s just overall handled differently. People would assume that steroids and things like that wouldn’t be an advantage here and I don’t see how they would but I suspect the only reason a guy would do that in this profession is just physical appearance of his own perception of himself. I don’t think it would be an advantage inside the car. Recreational drugs have always been a fact of life and people always say you’d be surprised but I don’t think it’s a problem here. I don’t think it’s an issue here but maybe you’d be surprised, I don’t know. If NASCAR wants to go in that direction, I guess the second to worst-case scenario is for speculation to run rampant in the media.

“The worst obviously is for that to be happening. If that’s the second worst for us to be speculation and be running rampant in the media, let’s just squash it, fix it, make a statement with testing and what not.”

From Gary in Texas:

Claire

Gary Stevens
Austin, Texas

Gary: Thanks for the email.

CBL to Gary: Thanks for the email – I’ll definitely do a story on this but for the quick take – yes…there is a specific spot for the transponders and it’s adjacent to the fuel cell. There is a specific measurement from the nose of the car to where the transponder must be located and all of them in all of the cars are located in same location. NASCAR gives them out to the teams each race weekend. The guys in the garage tell me that by the time you have damaged your transponder you are usually toast as far as getting the car back out anyway because of where it is located. If the transponder is damaged somehow and does not work- then there are five scorers who time by hand and the average of what they clock would be used. Hope this helps and I’ll get an interview with a longer story so you can listen on air. Thanks – good question.