Backstretch Motorsports

RON HORNADAY, NO. 33 CAMPING WORLD SILVERADO; KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 SHELL-PENNZOIL IMPALA SS AND CO-OWNER OF KEVIN HARVICK, INC. (KHI), HORNADAY’S RACE TEAM AND JIM HUNTER, NASCAR VICE PRESIDENT CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS met with members of the media at New Hampshire Motor Speedway to discuss recent media story concerning possible substance abuse:

JIM HUNTER: “Good morning everybody. Well, Ron Hornaday has been in the news the last couple of day and we are here this morning to help clear the air. Ron is, as most of you know, or some of you know, is a pretty candid guy. From NASCAR’s perspective, we appreciate Ron’s candor as well the openness of his truck owners, Kevin and DeLana Harvick. The Harvicks have been very active when it comes to substance abuse in our sport. We have discussed the substance abuse issue with them very extensively for the past several days.

“Here is what we know: our substance abuse experts have told us the prescription Ron Hornaday used did not enhance performance or impair his judgment. It is our understanding Ron had a very serious health issue which is continuing to be addressed.

“The facts as we know them today are as follows: His health issues go back to 2004, ’05 and ’06. Ron was sick and tried to find out why. In December of ’04, he began to lose weight and just wasn’t up to par. By the end of the year, some personal friends referred him to a clinic. Following blood tests and consultation, he was given a testosterone cream prescription. By mid-summer or mid-season of 2005, he continued to lose weight. He also had an emergency appendectomy. He still wasn’t feeling very good. He had lost more than 20 pounds. He went to another doctor and that doctor gave him a full physical. I will let Ron tell you about that, from top to bottom. He was diagnosed with gastrolitis and treated accordingly. By late February of ’06, he still wasn’t 100% and had lost 30 pounds. After the California race, Kevin (Harvick) made Ron go see Kevin’s physician. Hornaday was diagnosed with hyper-active thyroid and was told he needed to be treated immediately.

“Ultimately, his physician prescribed Synthroid for use in thyroid conditions. I will let Ron pick it up from here.

RON HORNADAY: “A lot of you know me, some of you don’t know me, but I am a pretty open person. I think a lot of people have seen me through the years of racing, how much weight I have lost and stuff. I know I was doing the right thing for my health, so, when Kevin told me I was going to his doctor, I got pretty upset. I told them I had just done a full scan, I can’t say it can I? Up the wrong side, down my throat and everything. When he came back and said I had gastrolitis, I argued with Kevin and said I have seen doctors and just got the whole thing done.

“At the February Daytona race (2006), I got IV’d before the race. Then we got to the California race and I was really sick down there, had IVs again before the race. I think we had a brake problem and ended up pretty far back.

“We got home, Kevin called me that Monday morning and asked me what I was doing that morning, I said I was coming up to the shop that afternoon. He said he needed me up there now. When I got there, Rick Carelli (KHI general manager and Hornaday’s spotter) was waiting for me at the door and said we had an appointment. I kinda told Carelli a couple of foul words and told him that I didn’t think that was fair and all that stuff. We finally got over there (Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center) to the doctor, just walking him the door, Kevin had explained to him what my feelings were and what I had been doing and all that stuff, he kinda looked at me and said ‘I kinda know already what it is. I can see it in your eyes.’ He told me to take my hat off and felt my hair and said I will let you know by this afternoon. He did all the blood work and all that stuff. When he called me about 3:30 or 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon, I think he spoke to me and asked if he could release the records to Kevin. He told me it was called Grave’s Disease. I didn’t know what it was.

“I asked if I could take care of it after the season and he said no, it was a life and death situation right now and that I needed to take care of it now. For four or five days where they check what you eat, you go that morning, that afternoon, that morning, that afternoon for three or four days. They give you a little pill; I don’t know what it is called, nuclear something or another, when the nurse brought it in there, she opened up this little vial up and dropped the pill down my throat. I couldn’t see my wife; she couldn’t come around me for forty-eight hours, the whole deal.

“Now, I have to keep going back to the doctors, for two years, you have to go back every three months. Now I am every six months, I have to see the doctor, take blood work, then they prescribe the Synthroid. Sometimes you guys see me fat, sometimes you see me skinny. They are measuring how much my body does.

“I felt like I was chasing, I don’t know how to say it.”

KEVIN HARVICK: “Chasing ghosts. From a friend stand point, when you see Ron’s health start to deteriorate. It is not about driving. This whole situation is not driving; this is about somebody’s personal health. Ron went to the extent of trying to make his life better, trying to make his health better. When he went to the extremes of being mis-diagnosed twice, after the California race, I pretty much told him, that is it. You are done until you figure out what is wrong.

“From an owner’s standpoint, maybe that is not what I should have done or how I should have done it. But from a friend’s standpoint, that is how I did it.”

HORNADAY: “I don’t know if anyone has seen the championship speech I gave, I thanked Kevin and DeLana not only for winning the championship but helping me with my life. That is kinda what I meant. I could have kept going down the same path thinking it was gastrolitis and keep taking the little pills the doctor was giving me for gas or whatever it was, I probably wouldn’t be here. So, Kevin and DeLana, I owe everything to for making that phone call to set it up with their doctor.”

HOW ARE YOU FEELING NOW RON AND DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE THIS ALL UNDER CONTROL?
HORNADAY: “I when I came here with Dale Earnhardt, Inc. in ’94 and ’95, I weighed 200-205 pounds and that is where I sit right now. My belly might show it. I feel fine. I felt fine before. I started losing weight and I got the shakes real bad. I felt fine then, other than just losing weight and getting the shakes. A little tiredness and stuff like that, but I mean, heck I am 50, I am going to be tired now, so it don’t matter.”

JIM, IS THERE ANY NASCAR INVOLVEMENT WITH WHAT RON DID OR IS IT OVER AND DONE WITH?
HUNTER: “It is over and done with, he is cleared to race. We don’t see where Ron did anything wrong. Our substance policy is based on reasonable suspicion. If you talk to physicians, which I would encourage you to do, on a case-by-case basis, depending upon on what a person’s condition is, then their prescriptions with all sorts of substances that are used for treatment, in some cases, those are acceptable. In Ron’s case, it was back in ’04, ’05, it is over.”