[NASCAR] Tony Stewart apparently runs over opposing driver

(SOURCE)

"Tyler Graves, a sprint-car racer and friend of Ward's, told Sporting News in a phone interview that he was sitting in the Turn 1 grandstands and saw everything that happened.

'Tony pinched him into the frontstretch wall, a racing thing,' Graves said. 'The right rear tire went down, he spun on the exit of (Turn) 2. They threw the caution and everything was toned down. Kevin got out of his car. … He was throwing his arms up all over the place at Tony for most of the corner.'

'I know Tony could see him. I know how you can see out of these cars. When Tony got close to him, he hit the throttle. When you hit a throttle on a sprint car, the car sets sideways. It set sideways, the right rear tire hit Kevin, Kevin was sucked underneath and was stuck under it for a second or two and then it threw him about 50 yards.'"

 

It's hard to imagine a body being thrown 50 yards. That is insane I don't know what happened out there, but it would be hard to imagine that even angry and in the heat of competition Stewart would try to hit him or even brush him.

 

Firstly, RIP to Kevin Ward Jr. Although he made a boneheaded move to stop in front of fast moving cars, he didn't deserve that.

As for Tony Stewart, let's not call for his head yet. To me, the video seems inconclusive to determine his intent. Yes, he throttled around the moment of impact. It could have been to intentionally hit Ward or to swerve out of the way. As observers of that video with its one angle, I think it's hard to truly say.

As for now, let's let calmer heads prevail. Let the investigators handle it, collect the facts, and then we can judge.

 

here's what it looks like from the driver POV (not the actual incident)

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/bLIir0MgsAE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

How terrible.

You can see Stewart hit the throttle, and his car does fishtail into him. I can't make a judgement on it, but two things stick out clearly in my mind.

1) Stewart is an experienced driver and knows how these cars handle.

2) Stewart has a history of being a rageaholic douchelord on the track.

Neither of these things are going to help his case in court.

 

I don't know if any amount of experience is going to prepare you for someone charging you on foot on a dirt track. The guy went full r****d and paid the price for it.

 

Whether he intended to hit the other guy or not Tony Stewart just killed another human being. That's a traumatic event that probably gets you excused from work the next day. Even if he doesn't want the day off he needs the day off.

 

I think he turned the car towards him intentionally. I am not an expert. But he turns right instead of left.

 

When you look at just the facts alone, and listen to the sheriff's report, it seems pretty clear it was just a terrible accident.

It's sad that he lost his life, but the kid shouldn't have gotten out of his car and gone down the track. If he wanted to confront Stewart, he could've waited till after the race.

 

Haven't had a chance to watch the video to judge myself. Saw/heard about it last night on fox sports 1. Espn failed to mention it for the longest time.

I don't know NASCAR, but I watch enough sports to know about nascar and who tony Stewart is and what he's all about. He's a good race car driver and won their championships plenty of times before. (I think). You're a good driver and I agree, you can't prepare for stupid.

He's known as a hothead and it wouldn't surprise me if it was intentional. But that's what the investigators are for.

 

Ward gets hit by the back right tire as Stewart is skidding with front end aimed left. The right "turn" was due to contact and the body going under the tire or a reaction after or just before contact

Stewart is one of the best so I see him being able to skid his rear to Ward then realize wars is too close and throttle right in attempt to skid the rear away from Ward

That said, why did he throttle as Graves said in the quote at top of this page. An expert racer says Stewart throttle which puts you in a skid, suggesting Stewart planned to skid his right, rear end at ward.

 

He also said he got "sucked up under the tire and shot out 50 yards".

 

It really appears to me that Tony Stewart was trying to play chicken with the guy and was possibly trying to scare him when he hit the throttle. Did he want to hit him? Probably not, but Tony was certainly trying to put a scare into the guy, being stupid.

You don't play chicken with a guy like that. I know from experience driving in houston traffic that you can get road rage and do some stupid stuff behind the wheel. This was obviously a tragic end to something that was really both of Tony's fault and the idoit who is getting to close to cars.

 

Yeah, I couldn't figure out what was going on at all and have watched several times as well. At first I was like, 'why is Danica Patrick running chasing Tony Stewart in the middle of the Indy 500' then I noticed they were racing on clay and realized this was the French Open not Indy. Then I thought wait the French Open is tennis not auto racing so back to square one. On my 5th viewing I noticed the big wings and said to myself, 'holy dog crap those are airplanes why are they flying so low!' So I realized we are watching military footage of US bombing raids on ISIS - which of course doesn't explain why John Force crashed his funny car.

¯\(°_o)/¯

 

If I'm Ward's family I'm ****ing pissed authorities are dismissing this as an accident. Stewart is an expert driver and there are videos/witnesses who put doubt into whether this couldn't have been prevented.

 

Not defending Stewart or excusing anything he did if it was indeed intentional, but there is a very clear answer for how this could've been prevented. Don't get out of the car on a speedway and stand there in the middle of it yelling at someone. A little common sense would've saved the guy's life.

 

I think he meant 50 feet, btw. It's clearly feet not yards.

 

Common sense both ways though. Stewart didn't have to do any of the stuff he did. I have a hard time not seeing this as involuntary manslaughter.

 

I agree with you.

Ward's stupidity doesn't excuse Stewart though.

 

If you watch the tape, you can see...

1) the walking r****d trying to move aside at the last minute

2) the driving r****d hitting the gas and cutting left (thereby swinging the rear right portion of his r****d car outward) at the literal split second he draws even with the walking r****d

This is a case of one r****d out r****ding another r****d, criminally so.

I hope pudgy has fun fighting that manslaughter charge.