DOVER, Del. -- NASCAR on Saturday morning at Dover International Speedway announced an updated drug policy, which will include random testing beginning in 2009.

NASCAR held a mandatory drivers' meeting for the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series competitors on hand for Saturday and Sunday's events at Dover, including some team owners and crew members.

A similar meeting was also held Saturday morning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of this weekend's Craftsman Truck Series event.

"The way it came about is, we had a number of discussions with the other professional sports leagues [and] a lot of industry experts -- a number of those are in the garage, actually," said Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR vice president of racing operations. "I think the bottom line with the policy is we get asked a lot of questions as to why we did this, why now. I think we have talked to a lot of industry experts. We think it's always incumbent upon all of us at NASCAR to think safety first -- that's the safety of our competitors and the fans. That's why we've got this policy in place moving forward in 2009."

NASCAR will continue to work with its outside experts at AEGIS Sciences Corporation and its founder, Dr. David L. Black. AEGIS helped design and implement NASCAR's substance-abuse policy.

"We've had a relationship with Dr. Black for the last 20 years," O'Donnell said. "AEGIS right now is the largest sports and forensic testing laboratory in the United States, so we feel like we've always been with the right group and we're going to continue that relationship moving forward."

AEGIS personnel will administer all preseason and random substance-abuse tests, and O'Donnell said a computer-generated list would be used at "most if not all" weekends to test "from 12 to 14 people." O'Donnell said in a typical weekend, an average of two drivers per series would be tested with the balance coming from the ranks of over-the-wall crewmen and officials.

Jim Hunter, NASCAR vice president of corporate communications, said the tests would not impact the conduct of a race weekend, with the results available in "from three days to a week, as they are now."

The selection would be so random that O'Donnell said a driver could be tested every week in the season, or never after the preseason test is given. And he deflected any concern about bias.

"I think you could say that if we were the ones administering the test, but we're not -- this is done by an outside agency," O'Donnell said. "They do this every day for NCAA tournament teams. And Jim brought up a good point [in that AEGIS doesn't know who they're testing].

"The way that AEGIS will do the computer program is really by a number. So it will be random generation. They'll see a number that will come up [and] we'll associate that number with a particular driver. So the people who are involved in our testing do this every day and really aren't as familiar with who is who. It will just be a number to them of who's coming in to administer a test to." (Continued)