Today on “The Morning Drive” on SIRIUS NASCAR Radio, hosts Mike Bagley and Nate Ryan spoke with NASCAR managing director of corporate communications Ramsey Poston about the temporary injunction issued yesterday by a judge that lifted driver Jeremy Mayfield’s drug suspension. Bagley: “What are the next steps for NASCAR?” Poston: “We’ve got a couple of options to consider. At this point it is to, with regards to the lawsuit, is to begin to go into the discovery phase, begin to get testimony and affidavits and a witness list.” Bagley: “Does yesterday’s temporary injunction affect the current policy or procedure in place or does it even raise a discussion that there perhaps at some point needs to be a change to the policy and the procedure?” Poston: “In the short term we’ll continue to implement our policy as is because, again, this was a temporary injunction to allow him back onto the track. It was not any sort of indictment in terms of the policy. But anytime you go through any sort of challenge on any policy, you tend to learn more about it and I suspect once we get past this process and the dust settles, we’ll look back and say, ‘OK, where can we strengthen the policy? What can we do?’ I will say this: if this stands and if this is not reversed, this becomes a much larger question for all of sports and all of substance abuse testing. This now means that any athlete in any sport, regardless of what contracts they’ve signed, can now take that to court and be allowed back onto the playing surface.” Host, Nate Ryan: “Ramsey, are you guys going to appeal the decision?” Poston: “That is one of the options that we’re considering. We have not made a decision on that yet.” Ryan: “When do you have to make that decision by?” Poston: “We have some time to make it, so there’s no definitive deadline on when it has to be made.” (Sirius NASCAR Radio PR)(7-2-2009)
