If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I despise stupid people that do stupid things and make stupid decisions.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here, not knowing every fact, but am gonna say that a ruling I just read about qualifies NASCAR for the Stupid Hall of Fame.
Jeremy Mayfield, a race car driver from Owensboro, Kentucky, was just suspended indefinitely for failing a drug test. Indefinitely.
Great. If I were driving around at 200 MPH, I wuldn’t want to be out there with a driver taking illegal drugs. Illegal is the operative word for today.
It seems that the drug in question might be Claritin-D.
That would be an over the counter drug for allegies and nasal congestion.
Duh! It’s freakin’ May 9th. It’s prime allergy season.
I’ve been using some of the same “drug” for the last 2 months so I could breath without sneezing, sniffling and snorting.
So have millions and millions of others.
We aren’t “druggies”.
But according to NASCAR’s substance abuse policy administrator, Dr. David Black, taking this drug could “…cause everything from a high heart rate to anxiety to a drastic change in body temperature. That would not be good for anybody driving,” he said.
Let’s see, we have professional race car drivers who go around a track at speeds over 200 MPH, while trying not to contact a concrete wall or another driver doing the same thing and he thinks that won’t give them a high heart rate or make them a wee bit anxious?
It’s well over 100 degrees on the surface of most race tracks and the temperatures inside the car are so extreme that they need to have cool air pumped inside the “firesuit” they wear and he’s concerned that they might have an elevated body temp?
Here’s the best part: there’s no appeal process.
They have basically said, it’s our ball, bounce it like we say or we’ll take it and go home to our Mommy.
They suspend a man, take away his livelyhood and they have no appeal process? Why would you play with them to begin with?
No appeal and for Mayfield to return to the sport he will have to follow a program determined by Black. Black said the program would included extensive and intensive tests from a health care professional that could be “…many, many months of participation in a treatment program. It’s going to be a period of time. It’s not going to be very fast.”
My thanks to ESPN.com, where I read this story and my thanks to NASCAR for being this freakin’ stupid and qualifying for the Stupid Hall of Fame.
Congrats!
I wish you continued luck selling this very flawed product to the corporate sponsors you depend on for your own livelyhood.
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Making this story even funnier is the fact that Claritin is a major sponsor of the 99 car, driven by Carl Edwards. He even appears in a commercial that implies that he personally uses Claritin because it is safe for use by race car drivers – “”When I’m driving at 180 miles per hour, I can’t risk taking a medicine that makes me drowsy. That’s why I only use non-drowsy CLARITIN to treat my worst allergy symptoms,” said Edwards.”
OMG! Thanks Doug! Now I remember that commercial and that makes NASCAR and the idiot they have as their Drug Czar look even stupider, if that was possible.
I owe you one
A bit more research reveals that it’s not quite as simple as I made it sound. Claritin and Claritin-D are distinctly different drugs; Claritin-D contains Pseudoephedrine (sudafed), so I can see why they wouldn’t want drivers taking it.
Oh well – can’t be right all the time I suppose…..
Still not enough for me to not want him on the track with me. After all, the sport was founded on the basis of moonshiners running from the law dogs. They weren’t hauling eggs, they were hauling corn liquor.
If his doctor thinks he needs the small dosage of the nasal decongestant to breathe and live with less drainage, I’m okay with him being on track with me.
What’s next? Brain scans? Sorry, you can’t drive today because your preoccupied with Miss Winston taking your money and your heart and running away with them?
I’m still of the mind that if I was the maker of Claritin, I would cease funding them immediately. Cut them off like they did Jeremy Mayfield.
With no appeal.