TeamBlueOval
04-02-2010, 01:50 PM
HICKORY, N.C. – When Shane Hmiel first failed a NASCAR drug test in 2003 for using marijuana, NASCAR had a simple response.
Hmiel was required to go to a series of one-hour classes about the dangers of drug use while suspended for the final eight Busch Series races of 2003. After completing the classes, he was allowed back onto the track in 2004.
Hmiel stopped using drugs for a brief period and was back to racing. But he soon found a way to beat NASCAR’s drug tests.
“For a while. I wasn’t doing anything,” says Hmiel, who raced in both NASCAR's Busch Series and the Truck Series. “It’s the typical deal, as an addict, you find out when they’re going to test you, you find out where and be clean those two times. And that was a chore.
“It was hiding and buying those drinks to flush your system out. It was washing your hair in the special shampoo. It was like a job hiding it. I sit back now and I’m like, ‘What an idiot? You spend more time hiding your drugs than you ever did paying attention to your racing.’”
Hmiel couldn’t hide it for long. In May 2005, NASCAR busted him again – this time for marijuana and cocaine. He failed another test during his indefinite suspension and was suspended for life.
NASCAR has since changed its drug policy. Instead of relying on reasonable suspicion to test a driver, it now conducts random drug tests for all competitors. Hmiel, who is now racing USAC Midgets, believes the new policy could have helped him. It either would have kept him off drugs, he says, or caught his addiction quicker and forced him to get more treatment.
“Would that have helped me? Yeah,” Hmiel says. “The simple fact of how much farther along it has come than it was when I did it. They had to have probable cause. It took setting the stands on fire for them back then [to test you]. Now they do it to everybody all the time, end of story – you’ve got a hard card, you take a drug test.”
Since NASCAR instituted random drug testing, one driver (Jeremy Mayfield) and 15 crew members have been suspended for violating NASCAR's substance-abuse policy. Prior to random drug testing and since Hmiel was banned, NASCAR suspended driver Tyler Walker for a failed test, driver Kevin Grubb for refusing to take a drug test (Grubb later committed suicide) and driver Aaron Fike after his arrest for possession of heroin.
Hmiel says he has been clean for more than three years but isn’t asking NASCAR to lift his suspension and allow him to race in NASCAR again. He would like another opportunity, he says, but he’s not asking for it.
“I would love to have another chance,” Hmiel says. “Whether I deserve one, I don’t think so. I don’t think I deserve another chance. They were super nice enough to let me come back a second time. I would love to stock-car race, but right now my focus is winning the USAC national driver of the year.
“If something like that happened again [to allow me in], I would love to say, ‘Here’s a stack of drug tests I had for the last three years, thank you sir.’ … I pray for that day but I don’t see that happening.”
Hmiel would be happy enough if he could just go to a Saturday night short-track race sanctioned by NASCAR so he could see his friends. As of right now, he can’t go into the garage at any NASCAR event.
“I’m not the only guy in that garage that has done drugs in their life,” Hmiel says. “I’d like to go say hey to all my buddies. If I had to take a drug test before I walked in the gate, that’s no problem. I would like to have that just because I’ve been around that since [I was born in] 1980.”
~Scene Daily
I hope NASCAR continues to keep him out of EVERYTHING, including the Saturday night sanctioned short track races. He had his chance and he blew, and he deserves to CONTINUE to pay for it.
Hmiel was required to go to a series of one-hour classes about the dangers of drug use while suspended for the final eight Busch Series races of 2003. After completing the classes, he was allowed back onto the track in 2004.
Hmiel stopped using drugs for a brief period and was back to racing. But he soon found a way to beat NASCAR’s drug tests.
“For a while. I wasn’t doing anything,” says Hmiel, who raced in both NASCAR's Busch Series and the Truck Series. “It’s the typical deal, as an addict, you find out when they’re going to test you, you find out where and be clean those two times. And that was a chore.
“It was hiding and buying those drinks to flush your system out. It was washing your hair in the special shampoo. It was like a job hiding it. I sit back now and I’m like, ‘What an idiot? You spend more time hiding your drugs than you ever did paying attention to your racing.’”
Hmiel couldn’t hide it for long. In May 2005, NASCAR busted him again – this time for marijuana and cocaine. He failed another test during his indefinite suspension and was suspended for life.
NASCAR has since changed its drug policy. Instead of relying on reasonable suspicion to test a driver, it now conducts random drug tests for all competitors. Hmiel, who is now racing USAC Midgets, believes the new policy could have helped him. It either would have kept him off drugs, he says, or caught his addiction quicker and forced him to get more treatment.
“Would that have helped me? Yeah,” Hmiel says. “The simple fact of how much farther along it has come than it was when I did it. They had to have probable cause. It took setting the stands on fire for them back then [to test you]. Now they do it to everybody all the time, end of story – you’ve got a hard card, you take a drug test.”
Since NASCAR instituted random drug testing, one driver (Jeremy Mayfield) and 15 crew members have been suspended for violating NASCAR's substance-abuse policy. Prior to random drug testing and since Hmiel was banned, NASCAR suspended driver Tyler Walker for a failed test, driver Kevin Grubb for refusing to take a drug test (Grubb later committed suicide) and driver Aaron Fike after his arrest for possession of heroin.
Hmiel says he has been clean for more than three years but isn’t asking NASCAR to lift his suspension and allow him to race in NASCAR again. He would like another opportunity, he says, but he’s not asking for it.
“I would love to have another chance,” Hmiel says. “Whether I deserve one, I don’t think so. I don’t think I deserve another chance. They were super nice enough to let me come back a second time. I would love to stock-car race, but right now my focus is winning the USAC national driver of the year.
“If something like that happened again [to allow me in], I would love to say, ‘Here’s a stack of drug tests I had for the last three years, thank you sir.’ … I pray for that day but I don’t see that happening.”
Hmiel would be happy enough if he could just go to a Saturday night short-track race sanctioned by NASCAR so he could see his friends. As of right now, he can’t go into the garage at any NASCAR event.
“I’m not the only guy in that garage that has done drugs in their life,” Hmiel says. “I’d like to go say hey to all my buddies. If I had to take a drug test before I walked in the gate, that’s no problem. I would like to have that just because I’ve been around that since [I was born in] 1980.”
~Scene Daily
I hope NASCAR continues to keep him out of EVERYTHING, including the Saturday night sanctioned short track races. He had his chance and he blew, and he deserves to CONTINUE to pay for it.