Tony Stewart (OT)

Anybody see the accident Video it sounds like about
35 seconds he guns it? bad outcome.
Race

Very unfortunate set of circumstances that came together there. Not sure why anyone would want to see that video. It"s bad enough reading the description.

Reading a number of discussion forums this morning where several people actually think Stewart deliberately hit the other driver. That is nothing short of ridiculous. Terrible accident. I'm sure Tony feels horrible. Unfortunately, instances like this just happen from time to time in motorsports. No racer EVER wants to see his fellow competitors injured in the slightest.

WOW, that gunning of the engine right as he went past him sure looks suspicious. Sympathy and prayers to the family.

John T

Regardless of whether or not it was intentional, its bad. First the other driver should have NEVER gotten out of that car. Secondly, it doesn't matter if Tony did it on purpose or not, his career is over. The typical reporter will never let him live it down, and his only choice will be to retire. My personal opinion, Tony meant to gun it, scare the kid a little, but hitting him was purely accidental. Tony is not racing today.

Not really unusual to be gunning an engine during a race.

I know and agree, I just noticed the gunning right when he went by the other guy appeared strange perhaps???

John T

Not only "not uncommon", but very common to "wick it" in order to turn a sprint car on dirt. Solid rear axle, tires that really bite, you have to break tires loose a bit in order to get 'em to turn when you want 'em to turn.

No way was Stewart thinking this guy was going to jump in front of a moving car. And that's essentially what he did....Jump at Stewart, in his car, and ended up in front of rear wheel...

I'm not a devout Stewart fan by any means. But I did race (flat track bikes) years ago and saw a couple people get hit in somewhat similar circumstances. These things happen.

They were under a yellow flag at the time.

I am not a race fan of any type. It looks like two hot heads met up and one lost big time.

You are not too smart to try to "face" down somebody in a moving car. It looks like the kid walked/jumped at Tony's car.

Aren't some of these dirt track cars a solid drive line??? Meaning they don't have a clutch like a normal car??? Just a disconnect??

You're right and I certainly agree, I just thought it perhaps possibly maybe strange while under a caution to "wick it" right as he went past that driver???

John T

Direct drive, "locked" rear end. You steer as much with throttle as you do with front end, maybe more so....Track is small and tight. Also, notice a car just in front of Stewart that had to swerve at last second to miss Ward. Stewart might have had very little time to react after seeing the driver in his path.

Point is, it's a terrible accident. Many of the greatest drivers in the sport ended their careers by getting killed on the track. Many more who never quite made it so famous meet the same fate.

Like the late great Dale Earnhardt Sr once said, "This ain't a bunch of old ladies out there playin' bridge". Bad things happen.

Forgive me for sounding unsympathetic... but 'stupid is as stupid does' was about the first thing that came to my mind. Walk out in front of moving cars on a race track you can pretty well expect to get run over... and he did. Looks to me like the drivers did their best to avoid him.

Rod

After watching a few times I'm not so sure Stewart didn't mean to tap the guy. Nascar drivers pride themselves in their ability to tap and control. The revving engine say's plainly KMA just as sure as the gestures from the guy that lost. Two bad tempers in a bar fight only this time they were on the track. As usual the bigger weapon won and both men lost. My conscience coulden't handle it.

I don't really get into racing, well say the nascar level I suppose, but like the sport or competition part of it, always enjoyed the local drag races, used to get involved in that a little, was fun, and at the level seen on tv, way beyond competition and fun.

This shows the results of anger, and escalation thereof, without thinking. It appears that way, and it seems that Stewart likely did gun it, but probably was not expecting that kind of result would occur, or so I would think, being a tragic and needless crime. Its these quick thoughtless reactions, a terrible thing to see, one family has lost someone, Stewart.... can't even imagine being him right now.

First impulse in a wreck is get the heck out of disabled car in case someone hits it or a fire breaks out. But should hightail clear of track if possible. The car in front of Stewart swerved without gunning and skidding into disabled driver, but Stewart appeared to be trying to tap or spin dirt or track debris onto the guy intentionally. Just appears awful suspicious on video.

horrible to watch, but it does not look to me like Stewart tried to run him over, maybe throw some dirt on him or get his attention with throttle, but the other guy in my opinion went way beyond what I would expect as far as just kept coming at him. You might expect him to be mad, maybe take a few steps out and throw his helmet at Stewart , but he just kept coming at him. What was he thinking ? Not saying Stewart couldn't have avoided him, but if the guy would have done what he should have , if you leave car, go to a safe place , like over the wall and wait on safety crew to arrive, it never would have happened.

Hi I might be totally wrong with what I see here, I think the problem might be the first car driver the guy is walking in front of. That car moves out the way as the second car comes round the corner. I would be thinking that guy is powering round the corner in a usual maneuver. then surprise theres a guy in the middle of a track, that he wasn't expecting to be there. and there was no other possible outcome than hitting him.
It's what looks to me to be a tragic accident and feel bad for the driver his family and all the watchers. I'm sure if it is not found to be an accident jail time will follow for Stewart.
Regards Robert

My thoughts, exactly! If the idiot stays in his car, he lives to race another day.

Probably tried to "whick it" in an attempt to avoid running over a person that suddenly appeared in the middle of the track after the car directly in front of him whipped to the left to avoid him.

If he wanted to run over him it would have been pretty easy to do.

I don't think Tony Stewart even saw him until it was to later. The car jumping over to the left is when the kid is already under the tire.

Id say that"s also another possibility (among the others I mentioned) for sure??

John T

Did a little racing when I was younger. We were always told. When involved in a wreck. Get off the track as fast as you safely can. If you can. Things come at you fast. Not much time to react.

Sad deal.

From what I see from a small clip in my armchair, looks like the typical reaction by both sides on any such deal, see it 100 times every Saturday night on dirt tracks across the nation.

Get out and point or throw a glove at the driver you don't like.

Gun the engine in response and get out of the way.

What went wrong here is the fella on foot got too carried away and ran down too far on the track.

The rules will say you stay in your car until safety crew gets there. And you don't run around the track on food chasing after people.

And you don't pop out in front of a hard to control sprint car that is following another sprint car on a dark track from the high side, wearing a dark suit.

The kid got more worked up than he should have, got himself in a very bad position of his own making, and unfortunately paid the price for his emotional state.

I could be proved wrong on that, but from what little I see, that is my view of it today. The minor gunning of engine by Tony is the accepted and normal response to such dealings on the track, and anyone running around on the track on foot shouldn't get that close as to be run over. 100s do so every weekend, as I said, you don't run up into a sprint car from the high side, in a dark suit on a dark track on the 2nd car of a line of cars. There really is no one else to blame for a tradgety that results from that but the person on foot.

20 years ago, that hothead running around on the track coulda been Tony making a hotheaded, fatal mistake. He certainly has his own temper issues.

But I don't see that tony did anything wrong, the unfortunate young fella just got himself in a bad bad spot without a moment of thinking things over. I understand how he felt and not thinking it through, but ultimately the young man let his rage create the tradgety that happened to him.

Paul

Hot head from the get go. Should have been banned from 'real' racing long ago. Only a matter of time until he killed someone. Too bad it wasn't himself!!

Sure looks to me like Tony ran Ward up into the wall, and when he came around again, he goosed it to break the back end loose to throw dirt on Ward, misjudged where he was, hit and killed him. Good job Tony Stewart. That guy"s blood is on your hands...

Anybody, including you, who thinks any racer would intentionally run over a fellow competitor on the track is an IDIOT!

Ho Hum,
I think I'll have a beer and think about what to make for dinner.

After watching video you can see that the other driver goes down the track too far and at last minute tries to retreat back up the track away from the tire and if you stop the video you can see Tony,s car rear end actually move to the left and the left rear tire is almost flat from the weight of the car being put on it because the other tire was already on the other driver. Most sprint cars are set up to handle at high speed and if they slow down the front will plow straight ahead. Once he saw that guy coming down the track he was going to hit him head on if he hadn't kicked the rear around a little. I believe his reaction to miss this person has been misconstrued by people who don't understand how a sprint car drives/handles when not at speed. I have seen them drive straight off a corner with the front wheels turned left either because it wasn't set up right or engine problems kept them from having the power to kick the rear around. They don't steer with the front end!

I don't think he meant to hit him, I think he meant to buzz him and it went bad. I hope I'm wrong.

Under caution with a wrecked car in the high groove, I found it odd that Tony is going by in the middle of the track.

I am not even remotely qualified to pass judgment in this case but will say what I think.
I think the final outcome will not be against Stuart. If a person steps out into traffic, and is hit and killed, I have never heard of a driver, while obeying the law, to be found at fault.
This is basically what happened here.
The young driver should have not intentionally put himself in this position!
Sad day!!!

Here is my 2 cents:
I am pretty sure that Tony knew that there was someone on the track. How you ask, his crew chief is in his ear just about every minute of the race. He is letting Tony know who is around him and what moves he can make. So I have to believe that he was in communication with his crew and they would have seen and or heard about the guy on the track. Period. They knew that it was Tony who wrecked him and if he was out of the car gesturing at anyone it was Tony.
Did he mean to hit him, no, I am fairly certain of that. But this is on both of them Tony could have stopped the car instead of gunning it. He also could have dropped to the center line as far from this guy as he could get. The other guy should have just stayed in his car and fought it out later. Or he should have gone high on the track if he had to get out of the car. They both contributed to this event, neither is blameless.
It was an unfortunate event and it will probably be up to the DA or a grand jury to see if charges will be filed. Possibly a manslaughter type of charge.

You understand this is a local type of sprint car, not the Sprint cup top end race cars?

There are no spotters. No radios.

The cars are designed with as little weight as possible, no transmission, no clutch, no starter, brakes are not that great. They are designed to go as fast as possible with as much hp, as little weight, no nothing extra.

You do not stop the car, you have no clutch. There is a simple disconnect, but then you need to be push started.

They are set up with different size tires on the left from the right so as to bite in and turn on the corners, and what little extra weight there is is placed to make them heavy on one side. They are designed and built to drift around the corners; when driving slowly* they handle very poorly! they do not steer or manuver well at all! you typically are using the throttle more than the steering wheel to drive them. The different sized wheels make them handle like a Mac truck, not a sports car, at slow* speeds. Often the easiest way to change direction is to gun the engine, not turn the steering wheel; the car turns left when you gun it so if Tony gunned it, was he trying to turn away from the fella? You presume a lot with your limited knowledge of sprint cars.....

*Remember, slow speed is a relative term. They have no clutch, only direct drive shaft, so at idle they still are moving pretty fast, there is no slowing down to 10mph when someone is running around on the track in front of you.

This sort of disagreement and driver vs car dance goes on 100s of times every weekend, there are accepted ways of showing your anger by running around and waving a finger or throwing a glove and getting over it. The approved response of the car driver going around is to gun your engine in reply and get on around the lap, let the track crew clear off the track and get on with the race. Every pit meeting the drivers are told to stay in the vehicle, get off the track as fast as you can if that is unsafe, and every driver knows the limitations of these cars, the kid, in a calmer moment, would have known playing chicken with a sprint car is not a game you will win......

What went wrong here is the guy on foot was in a dark area in a dark suit and ran around way too aggressively and Tony was following another car so couldn't see the kid until too late. Too close. Tony would be expecting the kid out on the track up by the wrecked car, the kid ran a fair ways along the track against traffic, then came down the track way too far into traffic from a blind angle to Tony.

So very sad, but the kid did this to himself.

Now any given day, Tony is just as much of a hothead, and could easily be the person trying to shake a finger as someone driving by, and he be the one ends up run over. He has that exact same temper. And then - it would be his fault for getting out of the car and go running around on the track on foot in harms way.

If you dislike Tony then probably global warming is his fault also, and I understand where you are coming from, it's just going to be his fault no matter what.

And yes, it looks like the lap before Tony did a botched slide job, tapped the kid and wrecked him. Happens all the time, but would be Tonys fault for the contact, you need to clear a guy on a slide job or it is your fault.

(This is dirt track. The rules of who's fault can be different than in NASCAR or Indy where the car in front is in the right.... It seems from your comments you are not quite in tune with dirt track rules - no spotters or radio, no stopping or really slowing, very poor car handling when idle speed, etc.)

The young guy just got too tied up in his emotions of the moment and it cost him his life, he made some very poor choices in a blind rage of the moment.

It is sad, it wouldn't have had to be.

Paul

I think Kyle Bush is a great driver, and yes I do believe in global warming..... Look at the ice samples from millions of years ago and the core samples of old growth trees. Tony was trying to punk that kid out and killed him! The kids fault somewhat for stepping up on him so Tony won't go to jail.

I'm just curious how some of the folks here are making the assessment that Stewart did it on purpose since he is not in the video til the point of impact? You can't see the line or direction he's going before the hit, and you certainly don't know what was in his mind or what he saw, so how did you determine that it was intentional or that he was responsible?

I can't really tell what happened. If Tony goosed it to try to scare the guy out of the way it was a pretty stupid move.[ looks like it] It appeasred Ward almost got hit by the first car. Tragic for all involved.

Cars don't just instantly go to idle speed when caution goes out. If you notice, the car in front of Stewart had the same exact line. They were still at speeds of 60 or 70 mph, and needing to be in a line where they could get through the turn they were entering. That "straight-a-way" they were in is literally just a short few yards....As evidenced by the car in front of Stewart, other drivers were NOT expecting Ward to run down the track and into the racing line, which anyone who's ever raced ANYTHING knows you just don't do, ESPECIALLY on a poorly lit track, in a black fire suit and helmet.

Tony Stewart has a reputation of having a temper. But he has never shown any tendencies towards being the type to deliberately run over another driver. There's a huge difference.

I don't know enough about it to have an opinion. I will say if you watch it frame by frame, it looks very different.

The person filming is in the middle of the straight. There was more than 3 cars on the track. We don't even know if Tony was the one who revved the engine.

Tony's taken swings at guys and wrecked a few but he's never gone after someone afoot with the car.

Not really one of them racing deals, yet that's not far from what it is.

What the kid did was not much different than stepping off a curb 3 feet in front of moving semi.

Others have already said it, but if you don"t really know what you"re talking about, it"s best not to say anything at all.

Bad boy tony couldn't beat the boy driving, so wreck him out and kill him and maybe now he can win.

(quoted from post at 09:33:18 08/12/14) Bad boy tony couldn't beat the boy driving, so wreck him out and kill him and maybe now he can win.

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JMOR, you need to quit lying. Your posts were removed last night because you got out of control with your lies and now you are doing the same thing.

I will say it again, if you have factual information, the Ontario County Sheriff office needs to hear from you. (585) 394-4560.

If you dont have any information that you are willing to share with the sheriff, then it is just your personal dislike of Mr, Stewart causing you to make up lies, and that has to stop.

(quoted from post at 19:01:24 08/10/14) Here is my 2 cents:
I am pretty sure that Tony knew that there was someone on the track. How you ask, his crew chief is in his ear just about every minute of the race. He is letting Tony know who is around him and what moves he can make. So I have to believe that he was in communication with his crew and they would have seen and or heard about the guy on the track. Period. They knew that it was Tony who wrecked him and if he was out of the car gesturing at anyone it was Tony.
Did he mean to hit him, no, I am fairly certain of that. But this is on both of them Tony could have stopped the car instead of gunning it. He also could have dropped to the center line as far from this guy as he could get. The other guy should have just stayed in his car and fought it out later. Or he should have gone high on the track if he had to get out of the car. They both contributed to this event, neither is blameless.
It was an unfortunate event and it will probably be up to the DA or a grand jury to see if charges will be filed. Possibly a manslaughter type of charge.

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Period? No I think question mark

(quoted from post at 16:06:53 08/10/14) Reading a number of discussion forums this morning where several people actually think Stewart deliberately hit the other driver. That is nothing short of ridiculous. Terrible accident. I'm sure Tony feels horrible. Unfortunately, instances like this just happen from time to time in motorsports. No racer EVER wants to see his fellow competitors injured in the slightest.

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Maybe this will help people see how hard it is to see out of one of those cars.

(quoted from post at 15:41:55 08/10/14) Anybody see the accident Video it sounds like about
35 seconds he guns it? bad outcome.
Race

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Who said it was Stewart that was gunning the engine? Lots of cars on the track and the video was from across the track, could have been any car that was still out there. I understand that these cars don't have transmissions and have to maintain a certain RPM/speed or they stall, so blipping the throttle is expected. Also it is theorized that Stewart probably didn't even see him until the last second, if at all, due to the restraints and padding on the right side of the drives seat.

(quoted from post at 09:52:50 08/10/14) Not only "not uncommon", but very common to "wick it" in order to turn a sprint car on dirt. Solid rear axle, tires that really bite, you have to break tires loose a bit in order to get 'em to turn when you want 'em to turn.

No way was Stewart thinking this guy was going to jump in front of a moving car. And that's essentially what he did....Jump at Stewart, in his car, and ended up in front of rear wheel...

I'm not a devout Stewart fan by any means. But I did race (flat track bikes) years ago and saw a couple people get hit in somewhat similar circumstances. These things happen.

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Well put ...... I agree with all of it. 8)

I will admit I am not that familiar with dirt track racing and I made an assumption that Tony would have a spotter to aid him in finding the best path around the course. For that I apologize.
Think about this... if Tony had maintained his course and speed the kid would probably have not been hit. Kevin could see the path the car was taking and yes he did get close. It was the Wicking of the car that caused a course and speed change. With the close proximity of the two, Kevin did not have time to react. Tony was in no danger of hitting the wall to cause him to wick his car to make the turn. I think the intent was to scare Kevin a bit or spray him down with dirt. But alas it became much more. For the record Tony was one of my favorite drivers but he needs to cool his engines.