Tony Stewart hits driver Kevin Ward in sprint car incident....

[FIVEHOE]

I love how the media is trying to pain Stewart as a murderer. It's pretty clear what happened, and the Darwin award was presented to the weakest link.

Pretty much this.

I'm not one to point fingers until I hear/see what happened for myself, but boy did the media quickly pounce on Stewart labeling him a killer. The first article I pulled up last night after hearing about the accident heavily painted stewart as a murderer, then I watched the video they posted and ****ing LOL'd at how they could draw such conclusions with such a shitty video.

I will say it was most likely both people's faults. Obviously more so on ward's side who was clearly going about things in the irrational/immature way (probably cuz of his age), but from what I saw it did look like tony was trying to snake him to send the message "gtfo the track", but the only person who will ever know the answer to that question is Tony.... and he certainly is not going to incriminate himself.

 

[openaccount]

Tony didn't blip the throttle. A car closer to the camera is what you are hearing IMO. The car turns right because the right side of the cars hits the kid. Sprint cars are not big vehicles, having a 160lb person hit the tires on one side is GOING to move the car to the right. Given how close the kid came to getting run over the blue and white car i'm not even sure Tony saw the kid till it was too late.

 

[jhonda]

some people are talking about the guy being young and stupid. Tony is old and does the same thing stepping out on the track and confronting drivers. Im sure both drivers are passionate drivers and sometimes your passion overrides your brain. Tragic that this happened but with the temper Tony has this was bound to happen. He puts people in the wall at 160mph+ someone is bound to be hurt or killed. Maybe Kurt Bush will think about this next time he is feeling froggy too. I agree that there should be a major punishment for getting out of your car on the track to do stupid shite like this. They are putting everyone on the track in a bad situation.

 

[AFGuy0127]

On a caution you dont drive right in the grove unless you have to. You drive down low or high and cool your tires off. Tony never hit the other driver to cause the crash and probably never knew the kid wrecked.

Sprint cars go left by design, so on a caution it is a constant right-left correction rhythm going on. As none of the tires are the same size and they dont have right side brakes. So if you stab the breaks it is going to rotate the the car about the left front swinging the right rear out. So if Tony would have slammed on breaks he would have hit him. Would have been worse. But Tony knows you dont slam on brakes in sprint car because it is direct drive and would kill the engine and since they dont have starters and have to be pust started, drivers last resort is hitting the brakes. It is just your mindset the whole time.
If you have to stop you knock it out of gear, which is not easy to do and certainly not something you can do in a split second reaction. Also the best way to even do that is to blip the throttle and knock it out at the same time.

Further more a sprint car has a blind spot out near the right front check it out here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfIlFUzE9iw

IMHO Tony was riding the top cooling his tires, switching to the bottom to go around the crash through the turn. Car in front him blocked his view of how far down he should have been. The kid lunged at Tony and he never seen him until the kid went the through the blind spot. Sprint cars are about impossible to move down to the left with out rotating the right rear out. So Tony did the only thing he could and tried to force it to swing out the left rear. If you pause to video at the just the right frame you can see the wheels pointed to the right which is the only way to get the car away from the kid since the right rear is already several inches wider than the right front.

In my eyes Tony is in the clear.

This IMHO is the best analysis posted here or anywhere else.

We don't know what really happened, just have speculation based on what we've seen. But there's no freaking way Tony intended this; the kid just got too close and paid the ultimate price for his actions.

It's a sad situation for all involved. I feel for Ward's family, as well as for Tony and his family.

 

[steeltoe]

The question is already being raised on if Tony will be mentally able to return to a race car.

 

[Snake Pliskin]

Yea Tony showed him who is the boss didnt he? The whole world saw it too.

Well that kid clearly wanted his 15, well here's your 20.

I'm sure Tony feels bad, like the time I hit a dog bad, but no worse then that and why should he.

A 20 year shit stain getting out of his car and approaching Tony Stewart like that.

 

[Smacked_in_ATL]

ESPN Radio pretty much saying the guy needs to quit because THEY as radio hosts wouldn't be able to go on. ESPN is the PC gestapo

 

[Smacked_in_ATL]

All sympathies need to go towards the kids family, not him. He looked like an idiot hot head.

 

[SVTORANGE]

Very unfortunate!

 

[jenkins_1120]

wrong thread.

 

[ibleedblue65]

ESPN Radio pretty much saying the guy needs to quit because THEY as radio hosts wouldn't be able to go on. ESPN is the PC gestapo

Lol yep

 

[Outlaw99]

ill bet it was in intimidation move on tony's part. get close to the guy, thinking he'll flinch.

he didnt.

 

[ColorMatched]

Just a terrible, unfortunate accident that occurred. Whether Smoke hit the gas to swerve or to scare the kid, both people were acting out of emotion and it went terribly wrong.

R.I.P. to the young racer and hopefully this can teach a lesson for the future.

 

[sunburned]

The question is already being raised on if Tony will be mentally able to return to a race car.

Is it being raised by Tony, or by the media? So much speculation here and the only one that matters (tony) hasn't said a single thing. Seemed like he was ready to race this weekend, but I'm sure media backlash made him pull out.

 

[steeltoe]

Is it being raised by Tony, or by the media? So much speculation here and the only one that matters (tony) hasn't said a single thing. Seemed like he was ready to race this weekend, but I'm sure media backlash made him pull out.

John Roberts asked Jeff Hammond on NASCAR Victory Lane what happens going forward and he said I don't know that's up to Tony but obviously he's not in the right place mentally because he backed out today's race. And then said we should know something within the coming days and weeks whether or not he'll return to the car

The only media I'm following with this is Fox Sports 1's NASCAR Race Hub crew because it's all drivers and crew chiefs and industry professionals.

 

[WireEater]

I feel bad for Tony Stewart now having to have this on his conscious because someone else made a really stupid decision.

 

[Coiled03]

Tragic accident all the way around.

I haven't seen anything that would point towards intent on Stewart's part. Seems the kid had a lapse in judgement and paid for it with his life.

 

[ttk53]

Tony didn't blip the throttle. A car closer to the camera is what you are hearing IMO. The car turns right because the right side of the cars hits the kid. Sprint cars are not big vehicles, having a 160lb person hit the tires on one side is GOING to move the car to the right. Given how close the kid came to getting run over the blue and white car i'm not even sure Tony saw the kid till it was too late.

I think this also do you see how zoomed in the guy is and you can hear the engine perfect, that was not tony's engine. that was a car right in front of the grand stands.

 

[svtsmo]

for further evidence that Stewart may not have even saw him on the track, this is what the visibility is like out of these cars. now picture this at night and you get a pretty good idea. you also get a sense of just how insane they are to race and that he may not have even realized the kid wrecked.

[youtube_browser]Aj9zBEqO4rI[/youtube_browser]

 

[thomas91169]

Does anyone know how sophisticated these sprint cars are?
Do they log throttle, braking, turning, RPM's like Nascar?
Would they have radio chat recordings to pit, and other drivers?
Did Tony have a GoPro on-board?

lol nothing even close to any of this.

Its literally a glorified go-kart with a giant wing on top to aide in downforce.

Theres no pit to car radio/spotter to car radio. Theres no spotters. Theres no computer for the engine or anything, its carb'd motors. Theres no transmission, no clutch if I recall, so if you brake you lock up all 4 and the motor dies.

As others have mentioned, visibility is horrendous, you have multiple layers of tearoffs on your visor so you can peel away the mud/dirt every so often.

Theres guys on the outside of the tracks that blink yellow lights for a caution, so you either are driving and see them or you keep racing until you hit the rear end of the pack that has slowed down and realize its caution.

These races/heats are pretty quick, and slowdowns happen, so its very safe to say that Tony Stewart had no idea that Ward was even turned around, let alone flailing about nimbly bimbly ON THE DRIVING LINE of a race track.

some people are talking about the guy being young and stupid. Tony is old and does the same thing stepping out on the track and confronting drivers. Im sure both drivers are passionate drivers and sometimes your passion overrides your brain. Tragic that this happened but with the temper Tony has this was bound to happen. He puts people in the wall at 160mph+ someone is bound to be hurt or killed. Maybe Kurt Bush will think about this next time he is feeling froggy too. I agree that there should be a major punishment for getting out of your car on the track to do stupid shite like this. They are putting everyone on the track in a bad situation.

lol wow. you have no idea how racing works.

If you watch when Tony does his hot headed things, he will do them in the pits. He will not stand in front of the car, he will be off to the side. He throws his helmet at the SIDE of the car, not stand in front of it and yell and point.