Stock Car Science - What Do Drug Tests Really Tell You?

I thought some people might find this interesting. It gives a pretty darn good analysis of how drug testing works. Granted the list was only given to crew members, that makes no sense, but it gives you an idea, scientifically of how the process works.

This woman also wrote a book on the physics of nascar that I'm reading. I think she's pretty neat.

Nascar has fixed drug test in the past .
You just couldn't go in and tell Timmy to get off this,"Evelyn Richmond says of her son's obsession to race again. "He had enough strength left to drive that Busch Clash. In a way, I thought, if this is what Timmy wants, he's had enough jerked out from under him, and since he only had so much time left."

He had no race car. And NASCAR had developed its first drug-testing policy, which Richmond felt was designed with him in mind. He stopped taking his AIDS medication, AZT, six weeks earlier so it wouldn't be detected. He also asked his doctor to give him a drug test to make sure he was clean. He sealed the sample in a safe deposit box in Daytona Beach Shores. He knew when he was clean when he signed NASCAR's drug-testing consent form in the Daytona garage area, so he asked to take the test right then.

Two days later, NASCAR announced Richmond was suspended indefinitely for testing positive for substances on its list of banned drugs.

"It tore him apart," says Terry Magovern, a friend in the music business whom Richmond called after getting the news. "It tore him apart, and nobody would listen to him."

'CHARACTER ASSASSINATION'

Richmond met with Richter, told him there was a mistake and demanded another test.

Five days later, NASCAR announced Richmond's first test actually showed nothing more than over-the-counter cold medicine, though in large doses. The second test was clean.

"We were under a certain amount of pressure to release some sort of information as soon as we reasonably could," says Williams, the former NASCAR spokesman, of the initial suspension. "Tim Richmond wasn't going to be there (for the race). He was suspended. There had to be a reason.

"What we offered was the best information we had at the time. When we recieved further information, I got a call from (NASCAR president) Bill France Jr., who asked me to come down to his office. He had just gotten off the phone.

Williams said that's when NASCAR learned what the first test actually showed (over-the-counter cold medicine).

"And a few hours later, we released that," Williams said. Dr. Forrest Tennant, NASCAR's drug testing consultant, says no scientific mistakes were made in analyzing Richmond's drug test.

France won't discuss Richmond, saying through a spokesman that a court order prohibits it.

Richter says Richmond was a great talent with a great personality. Asked about NASCAR's drug test or anything else about Richmond's departure from the sport, he says, "You're getting into that no-no land."

Hendrick is still bitter about the way NASCAR handled the drug test.

"That's h

ThRETURN TO VICTORY LANE

Richmond had an edge when he returned to racing. "Testy", some said. "Not your normal Tim."

"He was never accepted when he came back," Richard Petty says. "Everyone knew he had trouble." Meaning AIDS?

"Yep. It was just one of those things. Whether it was true or not, everybody said that's it, and so everybody kept their distance."

His first full-length race since the diagnosis was the Miller 500 at Pocono Raceway in June, 1987. Just before the start, Earnhardt walked over and slapped him on the back. "You ready to get it on?" Earnhardt asked. "Yeah!" Richmond said.

And when Richmond won the race, he cried so hard he couldn't see the checkered flag. Earnhardt, Kyle Petty, and Bill Elliott drove alongside to offer congratulations, and Richmond cried all the more. He made an extra victory lap to compose himself, but it didn't do any good. In Victory Lane, Richmond couldn't utter a word-just hugged his mother, whipped a towel in the air and started pouring beer everywhere.

For Johnson, the team manager, there'll never be a moment like it. "I've got a 5-year-old son," Johnson says,"and if he becomes a race driver and wins a race, it'll still be second to Tim winning that race. Nothing would ever top that for me." Richmond won the next race, too, at Riverside.

Barry Dodson, Richmond's former crew chief with the Blue Max race team, watched from the California hills above. Dodson's own team had fallen out of contention early, so he jumped into his rental car to find the best view of Richmond coming through the road course's turns. He was afraid it might be his last chance.

"He wouldn't just run through them like an old lady," Dodson says. "He'd sashay through there, slinging the ar into the corners. passing on the inside of Turn 8.

It was Richmond's last win. is will always be my favorite Pocono win.

Tim Richmond RIP
Sad part he was thrown away buy Nascar like yesterdays garbage