MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Over a two-year period from December 2004 to January 2006, Ron Hornaday, the defending champion of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, received shipments of testosterone and human growth hormone from an anti-aging center that has been linked to drug-related scandals in the NFL and Major League Baseball....
... "I never knew that was a steroid," he (Hornaday) said....
Continued at the link above.
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6 comments:
so with harvick being such an activist on no drugs in racing....he should be forced to fire mr hornaday!! come on mr loud mouth harvick, stand behind your beliefs, lets see it!!
He should have to fire him due to NASCAR's policy on steroids - Oh wait, there isn't one.
From Jade Gurss (Dale Jr's former PR Rep):
ESPN "Journalism"
By now, many have seen the story on ESPN.com with the screaming headline about Ron Hornaday and his use of steroid cream several years ago. While it is true Hornaday did use the cream, it was for a medical condition, and I'm saddened that ESPN would sensationalize it to such an extent - linking him to any/all athletes who cheat their sport with performance-enhancing drugs. In the past few years, the ESPN website (and their NASCAR-related news programs) have exhibited a motorsports version of tabloid-style reporting which shouts sensational accusations and headlines without always being as accurate as they should be. Yes, it goes with the territory of NASCAR's massive growth in the past decade, but it's still sad. It's strange that a network with a reputation for fine reporting elsewhere (for example, their "Outside the Lines" and "E:60" programs) has an ugly underbelly which is covered-up by their freeze-dried, Disneyfied on-air sheen.
Let's be clear: I have been and remain very much a backer of stricter drug testing policies for NASCAR. Kevin and DeLana Harvick are also very vocal supporters of drug testing - and have implemented it for all of their employees. Yes, Hornaday did use steroids in the form of a cream. In retrospect, not the wisest treatment, but it was a prescribed and legal medication to treat a misdiagnosed medical condition. The drugs were not used in a way which would enhance Hornaday's performance or endanger himself or the competitors around him. Only after losing a large amount of weight (and at the insistence of Kevin and DeLana) did Hornaday get the correct diagnosis for what turned out to be a very serious thyroid condition. Should he have told someone? Probably. DId he break any laws? No. Should this have been a page one, screaming headline story on ESPN.com? NO.
The author of the story, Shaun Assael (whose reporting skills come into question as his story referred to DeLana Harvick as "Deanna" - although that has now been corrected on the website), first came to my attention in the mid-1990s. He was looking for someone to help publicize a book called "Wide Open - Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour." I declined after reading a small portion of the sleazy and poorly written manuscript. Since then, he has focused on steroids in sports like the WWE and Major League Baseball.
Assael obtained an interview with the Horndays under purely false pretenses, spending an hour on the phone with a media rep from KHI, going over Ron's career and statistics for what he described as a story for ESPN the Magazine "which will cover Ron's career" as he goes for a record-breaking fourth Truck title this year. Only upon arrival at Hornaday's home did he drop the pretense and present the drug evidence. Legal? I suppose so. Ethical? NO.
Food for thought...
^ http://fingerprint.typepad.com/
Thanks for that Mobil1fan. Always good to get the other perspective.
On the one hand, I can see the point of the rebuttal. But on the other hand, those words sound like they could have come out of Barry Bonds' mouth.
True. It'd be weird to suspend someone for something NASCAR doesn't have policy on doing so, considering the heat they took by doing just that back in '88 or '89. There's a difference between what Hornaday took them for, and in his dosages, than what Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire et. al. took them for as well.
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