In 1999 or 2000, the name "Kevin Grubb" caught my attention like the name "A.J. Allmendinger" does for some. The name was fun, and he drove a really awesome green and blue car (it had a wolf on it, too, and I liked wolves...little did I know he was sponsored by Timber Wolf chewing tobacco, which isn't exactly something I'd support, but...I was 6 or 7, so it's not like I knew what Timber Wolf made). And so Kevin Grubb became my favorite driver in the Busch Series (now Nationwide).
I supported Grubb for years...it started as just his name, but then it became tradition. I guess I never had a great reason.
He bounced around to the Toys R Us ride, and then to the Dr. Pepper one...and the whole way I always wanted him to get his big break and do well. He was pretty talented, to be honest. Not great, but he could get a good result, too. In 2003, he lost his ride, and I was pretty upset. Why bother watching the races without Kevin Grubb in them?
For 2004, he was going to drive for Rensi Motorsports, but before his first race, he failed a drug test. I wasn't happy. The guy I had been supporting all these years was using drugs? Not possible! NASCAR drivers don't do that stuff...do they?
Grubb hit rock bottom sometime in 2004. He was in a very, very bad place. I always checked his fan forum for updates, hoping it was some mistake, or that he learned his lesson and would come back clean, sorry for what he did.
But what you don't understand when you're 11 is that not everyone's mind works the same way. You don't understand self-medication or any of that. I don't sympathize with drug use, but when you're young, you just think "drugs are bad and bad people do them." It's what you're taught, and it's something that, as a mentor to younger students, that exact age, I was always careful to avoid. I always wanted the kids to know that under no circumstances should they use drugs, and I didn't think telling them they'd be a bad person for doing it or that people who did were bad people was an appropriate way to go about it. I think sometimes you have to respect that kids are smart enough to learn things that aren't over-simplified, and I always strived to teach kids about the positives of a drug-free life, and of all the outlets for help and support and fun there are in the world, rather than the scare tactics...anyway...
Grubb's website disappeared. I hadn't thought much about it. In 2006, he had completed NASCAR's recovery program, and was back in NASCAR.
Grubb scored a top ten finish for a very, very, very small team that just wasn't usually finishing the well that year. He was back. He beat a tough struggle, and he hadn't lost any of his talent.
Grubb was suspended again from NASCAR that same year. After a lap one crash at Richmond, Grubb suffered a concussion. He was asked to submit a drug test by NASCAR, but he refused. Grubb claimed the following day that he had no memory of refusing the drug test, and must have done it in the haze of his yet-to-be-diagnosed concussion. He offered to submit a drug test to NASCAR that day, but NASCAR did not allow it, and he remained suspended.
He never made an effort to return to NASCAR again. No one heard much from him. Grubb was struggling, struggling with something he couldn't shake, something I never would have understood the first time around. He was suffering from a mental condition, and like so many who do, he had used drugs to cope with that.
On May 6, 2009, Grubb shot himself in the head in a Virgina hotel room. There were no drugs in his system, and no evidence of drugs in the room, but drugs weren't his problem. His problems were deeper inside, and drugs had been his horribly misguided solution.
It's a place that the guys in denial, guys like Tyler Walker in that video a few posts up (and another on YouTube where he destroys property at a night club), guys like Jeremy Mayfield and his never-ending lawsuits (he was involved in something like nine simultaneous ones recently), are headed.
It's a place Jon Wood would have gone had he not left NASCAR (he was never suspended) and gotten help (he no longer drivers, but is involved with his family's Wood Brothers team again) after what was called a "misdiagnosed illness." It's a place Shane Hmiel was very close to before he cleaned up after his self-medication for bi-polar, which he had not been diagnosed with, only for his revived career in open-wheel racing to be ended by an accident that has left him in a wheelchair.
A.J. Allmendinger treaded dangerously toward a territory that Rob Moroso went into. Allmendinger's DUI was right on the legal limit of .08. Moroso's BAC level was a lot higher. Moroso killed himself and an innocent victim in a car crash. At the time, Moroso was the most promising young talent in NASCAR, a precursor to Jeff Gordon, a guy who could have been among his greatest rivals through the 90s. Threw it away.
I hope he isn't treading dangerously this time, and if he was, I hope he amends the situation.
For himself.
For that 8-year-old kid, too.
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