Tonight's Tony Stewart/Kevin Ward Jr. incident

Just watched the video a bunch of times and I am not convinced that the throttle burst has anything to do with the death. To me, it looks like Ward forgot that the rear tires might poke out a bit more than the fronts and he stepped in a bit too close in order to give Stewart a proper piece of his mind.

The throttle burst seems more like a display of "F--k You, after thinking he had cleared the person on the track.

Bottom line, its not a great idea to get out of a car and stand in a stream of traffic.

The car is in the frame only a second or two before Ward goes down, the back of Stewart's car appears to be rolling in a straight line until the moment of impact. Only then does it 'jink' to the left. Also there is no indication of dirt or dust kicked up. Those indicate to me (but with no way to prove it) that Stewart was not trying to run him over.

But as I said earlier a different angle or a longer video may show something we can't see on this one.

Massive civil lawsuit in three, two...

With pockets that deep, someone will certainly take a swing.

Well here it is, the price of decades and decades of making it acceptable in sprint car racing to storm out onto a hot track. It's been more accepted than fights in ice hockey for longer than I've been alive.

I think Stewart saw Ward but stuck to his line and was looking into the corner when he clipped Ward who was walking towards his car. Stewart definitely had the opportunity to see him but didn't have a reason to give him any attention. He was off-line, not moving closer to his intended line until the very last moment, and a driver who should have known to keep a safe distance. That made Ward "roadside noise" that a good driver will tune out, especially in favor of a corner coming up very fast.

There's no way I could believe it was intentional. Even if you consider the highly unlikely scenario that he meant to cover the guy in dirt but didn't leave enough margin for error and messed up, Ward was still technically 100% wrong.

Such a sad situation overall. Such a needless loss of life. It was not an abnormal racing move by Stewart.

I'm really surprised we don't get more of these come up.

I spent 3 years at dirt tracks all over Iowa. I absolutely loved being at the track all of the time but I hated the BS that is involved.

Too many fights, too many hot heads, too many testosterone charged BS incidents. I would see one every month at least sometimes a lot more than that. The tracks never did a darn thing about it. No fines, no suspensions, nothing. They almost seemed like they encouraged that WWE style entertainment. It was sad and drove me away from dirt track racing.

I hope this incident causes track owners around the nation to look into this problem and put a leash on this BS.

In car video and Data will tell us alot(as well as the investigators) if he had it in the car. Very likely

Also the best comment I've read today is reference to this incident, someone posted "I showed this video to my 7 y/o so they would understand why you don't throw a temper tantrum"

Pretty sure in-car data isn't allowed in sprint car racing. In-car video's not going to be released to the public for sure.

SVreX wrote: In reply to wbjones: Major league pitchers are so accurate that many people have argued being hit by a pitch could constitute aggravated assault. That's not the law in any state, but the general understanding in the majors is that there are not too many accidents.

there are enough hit batters where there is zero "reason" to be thrown at (such as when the bases are loaded ) … yes they're good … but no where near as accurate as you're suggesting

if these pitchers were as talented and accurate as you suggest, then there would never be any walks (unless intentional) … assuming you watch baseball games … how often to you see a catcher set-up one place, and the pitch go somewhere totally different

patgizz wrote:

XLR99 wrote: Wow. I watched it a few times, not sure if he ever saw him until he made contact.

x2. that kid charged down like an angry person pointing and dodging cars, and it didn't look like it could have been avoided. plus he missed him with the front, and those rears stick out way more. i thought rule #1 of racing was if the car isn't on fire, stay in it until emergency crew shows up

Also, there was a car in front of Stewart that swerved to miss the guy and may have blocked Stewart's vision.

Boost_Crazy wrote: From the news reports, it sounded........

That's a huge part of the scenario here, or any big high profile event. The news coverage is only as good as the people reporting it. How many times have certain news organizations incorrectly reported something as fact before even doing basic fact checking and confirmation much too soon?

The real story on this may not truly come out for much longer than human curiosity is comfortable with. And this would be most likely for legal reasons in our modern litigious society.

DirtyBird222 wrote: All I can say is that someone let their ego and their anger cloud their judgement. A lapse in judgement/common sense is likely what led to this tragedy. I feel horrible for all parties involved. I highly doubt Stewart had any intentions of hurting this kid let alone what transpired. People calling for Tony's head need to relax and consider all possibilities.

not much different from all the people clambering for Marlin's head when Earnhardt died

wbjones wrote:

DirtyBird222 wrote: All I can say is that someone let their ego and their anger cloud their judgement.

X2

Present company excepted, the response to this tragedy—including the so-called "straight" news reporting of it—has made me weep for the future of our species. Beyond the horribly misinformed and sensationalistic news reporting, reading any sort of comments on this makes me want to go read a comment thread on Benghazi or gay marriage, just so I can get some intelligent discourse.

I fear we've officially become a society of howling, narcissistic trolls and idiots.

I know people need to make sense of seemingly senseless events, and the easiest way to do so is to point a finger at something they don't already like, in and endless circle of confirmation bias. But we obsess over "blame" when the answers are rarely that simple. and even if we do find a scapegoat, a kid is still dead, and the emotional scars still weigh on everyone who was there that night.

We look to quickly point out the failure of others, and we've come to equate that with our own success.

Hopefully some good will come from this tragedy. Lessons will be learned and absorbed that will help prevent such senseless things from happening in the future. Hopefully, but probably not.

In reply to JG Pasterjak:

Bear in mind, JG, much of the US market are not race fans, and making people angry is one of the best ways of making people watch more.

Which is why we see sensational news about the odd deaths, and not the deaths that anyone wants to actually face up to as a society. So we get years and years of that kid in Colorado and not the kids in the inner city that happens way too often.

In reply to JG Pasterjak:

Bravo.

wbjones wrote:

SVreX wrote: In reply to wbjones: Major league pitchers are so accurate that many people have argued being hit by a pitch could constitute aggravated assault. That's not the law in any state, but the general understanding in the majors is that there are not too many accidents.

there are enough hit batters where there is zero "reason" to be thrown at (such as when the bases are loaded ) … yes they're good … but no where near as accurate as you're suggesting if these pitchers were as talented and accurate as you suggest, then there would never be any walks (unless intentional) … assuming you watch baseball games … how often to you see a catcher set-up one place, and the pitch go somewhere totally different

Heck, it happened just a few days ago. Joba Chamberlain of the Tigers hit Derek Jeter by accident and immediately apologized to him on the field. Mistakes happen. Pitchers are human beings, not machines.

jg, you hit it right on the head. In the face of the combination of any idiot being able to instantly post video of whatever they have just seen and the maddening scramble of the news outlets to be first at the cost of accuracy and decency, those who try to think things through are left by the wayside.

It's like HL Mencken observed: 'No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.'

And how about if we make something good come out of this:

• A slow-moving race car still contains a lot of energy. Remember this the next time you're passing through a yellow flag section while the corner workers are cleaning up someone's mess.

• A slow-moving race car still contains a lot of energy. Remember this the next time you're tempted to put your body in front of one, no matter what the reason.

David S. Wallens wrote: And how about if we make something good come out of this: - A slow-moving race car still contains a lot of energy. Remember this the next time you're passing through a yellow flag section while the corner workers are cleaning up someone's mess. - A slow-moving race car still contains a lot of energy. Remember this the next time you're tempted to put your body in front of one, no matter what the reason.

• remember all of this the next time you are at an autocross. As a former organizer, I know we try to remember everyone this. (I've very rarely seen anyone not take it seriously- just a reminder...)

wbjones wrote:

DirtyBird222 wrote: All I can say is that someone let their ego and their anger cloud their judgement. A lapse in judgement/common sense is likely what led to this tragedy. I feel horrible for all parties involved. I highly doubt Stewart had any intentions of hurting this kid let alone what transpired. People calling for Tony's head need to relax and consider all possibilities.

not much different from all the people clambering for Marlin's head when Earnhardt died

he was getting death threats for years after that.. Kenny Schrader even got some- and he was just caught up in the wreck and was the first guy to Dale's car in the infield..

this particular incident happened less than a quarter of a lap after Stewart took the yellow- just like every other car on the track, he was still in the process of slowing down at that point, and the last thing he would have been looking for was someone in a black race suit with a black helmet running towards him in the middle of the track.. and to think that he would purposely run over (or even try to scare) someone that he had likely never met or even heard of before about 20 seconds after doing a clean dirt track pass on him is just getting into the realm of silliness..

this young guy thought he was going to try to race one of the best sprint car drivers in the country and he got beat cleanly... it's his fault his car hit the wall because he didn't back off for whatever reason, but he probably thought he would show everyone there that he wasn't afraid to stand up to the well known guy- and maybe plant his name into the memory banks of that well known guy..

novaderrik wrote: ... and maybe plant his name into the memory banks of that well known guy..

Mission accomplished.

JG Pasterjak wrote: a kid is still dead, and the emotional scars still weigh on everyone who was there that night.

Unfortunately this won't get any press. One of the things that struck me and made me real sad was the first safety worker to get to him. Clearly panicked and overwhelmed by what he saw, he removed his helmet and head sock. No reason to do it, but he was so overwhelmed by angst that there was nothing his hands could do to help that he just took his helmet off. He went to the track that night to help run the show and got caught up in something that will probably haunt him for a while. Sad.

SVreX wrote: I would suggest that Tony Stewart is infinitely capable of placing every inch of his car exactly where he wants it regardless of the track conditions or road surface.

Wow...You must not watch much professional racing if you believe that even the best of the best drivers are immune from misjudgments and errors.

How about the powers the be at a very influential magazine to SCCA and NASA suggest that an immediate rule is put into place that may prevent this from happening in road racing. Get the politics out of it, don't wait for a CRB vote, just make the rule now. Any racer who walks onto the track area, even under yellow, will be banned from racing for one year. Something like that.

Kramer wrote: How about the powers the be at a very influential magazine to SCCA and NASA suggest that an immediate rule is put into place that may prevent this from happening in road racing. Get the politics out of it, don't wait for a CRB vote, just make the rule now. Any racer who walks onto the track area, even under yellow, will be banned from racing for one year. Something like that.

I wouldn't have a problem with it, but from what I've seen, it's not very common in road racing anyhow. In fact, I can't remember the last time I saw it.