NASCAR Driver Admits to Using Heroin Before Racing

Aaron Fike, speaking publicly for the first time since his arrest last summer, admitted to having used heroin on race days.

The suspended driver, who was arrested last summer in the parking lot of Cincinnati's Kings Island Amusement Park after security guards caught him using heroin in his SUV, said that getting arrested saved his life.

He admitted to having battled with a prescription painkiller addiction for years, and said that he had been using heroin for 8 months prior to his suspension. He confessed that his recreational heroin habit had become a daily addiction, and that he had used heroin on race days.

His arrest came only a week after his personal best result, a 5^th place finish at the O'Reilly 200 – driven while high on heroin.

Fike says that he hopes NASCAR will take his story as evidence that their drug policy needs changing. NASCAR currently tests drivers for drugs only on suspicion of use, a policy that allowed Fike to race for years while abusing drugs.

Fike's sponsor, Tom DeLoach, owner and general manager of Red Horse Racing, said that no one had any idea what Fike was going through, "Not those of us that worked beside him every weekend or, to the best of my knowledge, any of the people that we race against every weekend."

Fike is currently racing on the USAC's Midget series and is tested for drugs each day at the track. He hopes to return to NASCAR but recognizes that his dreams of NASCAR stock car racing may well be finished.

Fike says he's grateful that it all came out, and says, "if the problems I have had can end up saving some lives and opening the eyes of the people that run racing, then that's not all bad."