RYAN MCGEE'S BLOG:
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Getty Images

Hornaday (L) and Harvick will have to get used to answering tough, personal questions as NASCAR steps further in the spotlight.

Invasion of privacy isn't fair and it isn't fun.

But it's also a big chunk of the price one must pay for admission into the big room of the sports world. As much as any writer hates to stoop to cliché, here goes …

Be careful what you wish for.

No one enjoyed what happened after The Mag broke the news last week that NASCAR Truck Series champion Ron Hornaday Jr. had received shipments of testosterone and HGH from a shady Florida supplier in 2004 and 2005. Friday afternoon's reactive press conference at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway produced a room full of uncomfortable people, from Hornaday to his boss Kevin Harvick, to NASCAR V.P. Jim Hunter, to the writers and reporters gathered to hear what those three had to say.

Hornaday painfully rattled off the play-by-play of what sounded like a truly frightening mystery illness, eventually diagnosed as Grave's disease, the most common form of hyperthyroidism. Harvick recalled private conversations he'd had with his driver and mentor about his health. Both openly expressed their disbelief that they had to lay their personal lives out to be gobbled up by microphones, tape recorders, television cameras and blogs.

Throughout Friday afternoon and evening, NASCAR-leaning sports radio talk shows buzzed with callers raising a ruckus over how their private business had been violated and how a revered racer like Hornaday should be able to suffer through his pain in solitude. They howled even louder when the first questions posed after winning Saturday's race were about testosterone and not the trophy he held in his hand.

In my heart, I don't disagree. But like it or not, this is the space that NASCAR now lives in. It is a prying, digging, hyper-inquisitive world where enough information will never actually be enough information.

I'm not saying its right. I'm just saying that's how it is.

Life in the big leagues, the life that racers coveted for so long, has finally arrived, bringing with it a spotlight that baseball, football and basketball kept all to themselves for so many years. As any stick-and-ball legend will tell you, standing in that spotlight leads to one of two results: It either warms your face with its addictive glow or it burns the hell out of you.

For so many years, those who live and work in the NASCAR paddock—drivers, owners, sponsors, league officials, even the media—stayed up all night, minds racing with ideas that would allow them to finally stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the games and stars that monopolize the first segment of SportsCenter and the first page of the sports section. Now, thanks to the tireless efforts of all the above, stock car racing finally does reside among the sports giants.

ALL OF THAT ATTENTION IS GREAT—MOST OF THE TIME. SOMETIMES IT REALLY SUCKS.

The L.A. Times, New York Times and even the Wall Street Journal are now regulars in the infield media center. Time magazine is working on a big story for later this fall. 20/20, 60 Minutes, E:60 and HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel have all recently spent time in the garage. Their arrival has raised the bar for everyone who covers NASCAR, including the great veteran beat writers who have been around since the days when they were the only ones who cared.

All of that attention is great—most of the time. Sometimes it really sucks.

But one fact remains consistent. You can't have one without the other.

The day the tide turned for NASCAR was February 18, 2001. The national media had already showed up en masse for the Daytona 500, electrified by the league's new TV deal and recruited by a newly-revamped NASCAR media relations staff. But when Dale Earnhardt died on the last lap, that same media began digging and questioning the league about their crash investigation. Unaccustomed league officials became very defensive. Suddenly, saying, "We aren't going to react for the sake of reacting," no longer ended press conferences. It merely created more questions.

One year later, I was walking alongside Jeff Gordon as he entered the Darlington garage on March 16, 2002. Waiting for the champ was a media horde ten times larger than the normal Saturday pre-practice group. Why? Because Gordon's wife, Brooke, had filed for divorce the day before.

"This," he said, taking a deep breath before facing the music, "is not going to fun."

Four years later, Ray Evernham and driver/employee Erin Crocker became incensed when the media started asking about their off-track relationship, a long-rumored romance that was publicly revealed in lawsuit papers filed by former driver Jeremy Mayfield. In 2007, Michael Waltrip expressed displeasure with the media for reporting on a bizarre Easter weekend SUV crash, when he allegedly fled the scene before authorities arrived. And this past spring, everyone quickly became sick of answering questions that contained the words "Aaron Fike" and "heroin".

But if you have a job where they print t-shirts with your face on them, if you beg and beg for equal time with the NFL, MLB and the NFL, then privacy is something you have to be willing to forfeit.

Ask A-Rod, who probably didn't want his marital troubles to fuel the headlines of the New York Post all summer long (Where do you think the nickname "Stray-Rod" came from?). Ask Kobe Bryant, who probably didn't enjoy being called a rapist by the cable news channels for the better part of a year. Or ask Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart, who has never been forgiven by Arizona Cardinal fans after cell phone photos surfaced of him doing a beer bong when he was supposed to be rehabbing his injured shoulder.

Now you can add Ron Hornaday to that list, a good guy and a great racecar driver, but merely the latest NASCAR personality to learn that everything about his life—everything—is open to public scrutiny. And as the sport continues to increase its profile, the digging certainly won't be going away. It's going to get worse.

Again, I'm not saying that it's right or it's fair. I'm just saying it is what it is.

Be careful what you wish for.

Print Article . Email Article. Subscribe to The Magazine