Tony Stewart hits and kills fellow racer

Please add a choice for "sucks the guy died, wake me up when there's a verdict and/or monetary settlement."

 

I think we have a volunteer!



CW

 

... if powers that be in organized motorsport don't close ranks, and get their act together, this thing's going to get out of hand. Already, blood off central, lateral and canine incisors of the New York Post can be seen, as they sink their teeth ever deeper into the neck of the once great, once proud Tony Stewart:

Racer says crash that killed Kevin Ward Jr. was avoidable | New York Post

 

Where have you been for two years with no posts on F-chat? Good thing you can remember the password or email you signed up with.

 

“At this time, there are no facts that exist that support any criminal behavior or conduct or any probable cause of a criminal act in this investigation,” Sheriff Philip Povero said Monday.

 

But according to bobble heads.


As Stewart raced by, he appeared to hit the throttle, fishtailing and striking Ward.

Stewart, 43, hasn’t been criminally charged in Ward’s death, but TV legal analyst Rob Becker said it’s likely he will be.

“What happens when you hit that throttle is the car is going to move to the right . . . Stewart had to know that if he hit the throttle with a man standing on the dirt to his right, there was a good chance the car would hit him, which means there’s a good chance he could be killed,” Becker said Fox Sports 1.

“To me, that’s reckless homicide. That’s manslaughter in the second degree

 

You don't know TS intimately and you're just spewing forth heresy and opinions like every one else. BTW and FYI, that's pretty much what this site is for..

 

This thread is turning into a train wreck.

 

Yes you are right a red flag, some use a black for the same reason. Point is there is a flag to make peopel stop, that is used when other people are on track in a physical human form, there was no redf flag.

You are also told if you go off track crash etc to stay in car unless its on fire.

Ward was trying to out stewat stewart and make a show spectacle.

if you caused a yellow is irrelevant, from what I read TS was doing 40 mph so he was going slow. In any event under a yellow you are expecting to avoid otehr cars possbly an accident, youa re not expecting tsomeone to run inot the track in front of you. And yes if that happens you do try to avoid them, if you see them in time. Still many people going 40 have hit deer dogs cats things that run into the road in front of them, more so in the dark.

Had ward not run onto the track, stewart woudl not have hit him, where is it ever permitted under a yellow for people to be on track?

In the end you go to the track at your own risk. Unless someoen is arguing that TS crashed ward knowing he would get out of his car and run intot he track thereby allowing Ts to wipe him out.

We are talkign dirt tack here, its not exactly grippy asphalt where you can swerve.

 

To repeat. The audio is from the front stretch. That rev is from a different car. Tonys car is Not "fishtailing" when he enters the screen. The car does not change course until after contact is made.

 

So this source has video of the footwell of Stewart's car showing the throttle pedal? Or the engine with the throttle cable? How else is there the appearance (visual) of hitting the throttle?

Just stupid, stupid, stupid. A video recording of a race track where there are more than a dozen cars circulating, there is sound of an engine revved, and people are concluding that it MUST be the car framed in the video. Lens!= microphone.

 

Why should this one be any different?

 

Yep. TS is not going to be criminally charged (barring some smoking gun evidence) but he will be writing a big check at the end of the day IMHO. That karma can be a mofo.

 

(Note, despite stated as fact, asj is completely, totally, unarguably wrong with the above statement about pedestrian right of way in every nation.)

Yeah, you show up here with some patently idiotic, asinine belief that motorsport drivers go around "deliberately running down pit workers, corner marshals, spectators, helpless pedestrians, but for no good reason than to quench his blood-lust." You certainly do come from a different microcosm than pretty much the rest of the world. The angle you're arguing from is lacking in any real world basis, and the penny-ante psychobabble is from you.

Please go back to that microcosm - you are nothing more than a definitive troll - go ahead, read the definition linked in an earlier post. That's not a point of view, either.

 

I strongly disagree with your interpretation of what a yellow flag means. Way too narrow, and just wrong. I posted it earlier. There may be debris or people on the track in front of you (in particular safety crew, but no matter, I don't think). More importantly, be prepared to stop. For anything. If necessary.

TS may or may not have crashed Ward out on purpose. Since I'm not a dirt-tracker I can't comment on the norm there. However, by virtue of way in which Ward shot out of that car, was pointing out TS and charged him, it's pretty clear he wasn't too happy with TS. Regardless, that's not really the point in evaluating TS' liability.

Was he negligent for not striking Ward? If so, he's at least partially liable. How much will then be in question. That's where his state of mind comes in. Did he intend to brush him back or not? If so, it's a bad problem for TS. If not, there will still have to be an evaluation made about how negligent he was for not seeing Ward in time to avoid him. And, remember, all of this was under a caution. That's not exactly the equivalent of a burden shift in the law, but it's pretty damning. Under a caution you KNOW there's some reason to slow down. You know you made need to avoid debris OR people or both. Or, you may even need to stop, if necessary. And, given his past conduct, he is fully aware that other drivers come out of their cars and go so far as to throw things and even get in front of other cars on-track.

CW

 

The Internet has a lot to answer for.

 

My first thoughts to Ward. A comer, and obviously a tough young kid. As a quasi 'fan' of Tony Stewart, I think I can only draw one conclusion. Tony Stewart can't be Tony Stewart anymore. The whole 60's AJ Foyt style WWF fake tough guy thing has come to an end. His sponsors own him now. He is no longer 'his own man.' As soon as he tries to be 'himself' again, the backlash will be waiting for him. 'I'll kick his a$$', or 'I'll run him over every time for the rest of the year,' isn't happening. Ditto with his ridiculous treatment of the media, his conduit to his fan base. It's over. Tony Stewart, the racer, died the same time as 'Kevin Ward, Jr.' I don't know his fate, and frankly, I don't care. I've done a little track time, like most everyone here, and yellow caution is one thing, and yellow caution at the crash site is a much higher standard of care. Smarter people than me will clear that up, but in my opinion, The Smoke is cooked for the above reasons. There is no longer a 'larger than life' Tony Stewart. There is just Tony Stewart, a car guy, with a horrible asterisks next to his name.

 

Fact, I do not know TS 'intimately' as you state.
Fact, I have met him under several social and racing conditions, not Nascar, and have had conversations with him and including him.
Fact, I have been involved in motor racing since the mid 60s, in Europe and the US.
Fact, I have been involved to various extents with sprint car drivers, manufacturers since the late 80s.
Fact, I regularly attend local dirt track events.
Fact, I have NO idea as to the mindset of Tony Stewart at the time of the incident, neither was I present.
Fact, I like everyone else do have an opinion and can substantiate any comments, but have never tried to introduce any "factual heresy", I await the findings of those in charge and in possession of real FACTS.
An unfortunate accident which would never had made this forum were it two local drivers involved.

 

I think the problem here is that none of us really knows what happened, outside of the tragic death of a young man. From a human perspective, this is awful from all angles; for the family of a young driver trying to find his place in his chosen profession to the veteran driver who must live with the fact that he ran over and killed a fellow competitor.

I honestly have no vested interest in this tragedy beyond the sympathy I feel for the people impacted. I can wait to see how things pan out without assigning guilt to either party based on limited available information. My opinion has very little relevance to those trying to investigate what happened Saturday night.

 

That's where he's screwed IMHO. Only issue for a civil jury to decide is how many zeros the award has, unless TS is smart enough to nip this in the bud. Don't forget his sponsors don't want this nastiness to linger either.

 

I had a guy give me a finger while moving the inside, it looked like he was waving me by, I went around the outside, and he promptly stuffed me into a barrier support pole. Turns out it was a middle finder - not an index finger, and the guy was unstable. I had NEVER been on track with this guy, and this was my first pass attempt on him. I waited for him to come by, and reached out from my kart and hit the ignition kill switch as he went by on the next lap. I had gotten my kart pointed back up the track, and drove off, as I came around the opposite side of that wall, he was standing in the track in front of me. This was the fastest part of the track. A driver was to my right I was in the process of passing on the outside. The driver next to me gave me no room to do anything. Turns out later the driver next to me was his brother.

There was nothing that had happened important enough for either of us to get killed, he dumped me into a wall support, and I shut his engine off. The guy was simply mentally unstable to such a degree that he was willing to jump in front of a 40MPH 350lb rental kart. His brother lacked the brains to realise how dumb this was, and tried to help a collision occur.

A track worker pulled him out of the way with about a second to spare, otherwise, it was game over for one or both of us. Worst case I'd have a broken neck, who know's what he'd of had.

I do find it difficult that even a red flag once Ward got out, would of stopped a collision between TS and Ward, as from the time the flagger would of seen it, to the time he could signal the drivers, this would of already happened. Ward jumped into Tony's path is what the one video we have shows, just like the unstable racer jumped into mine.

Tony's car is sliding as it comes into camera, the car would likely be sliding if Tony hit the brakes. Tony would of seen Ward when Ward emerged from the shadow of the #45. Ward, wearing a suit that matched his car in the background, would be pretty invisible until he came out of the shadow of the #45. The time for Tony to see him, and react, is far to small at 40-50MPH in a car that is made to corner with heavy downforce and a lot of horsepower turning the right rear of the car, rather than just steering it like out street cars. Touching the gas after hitting the brake and getting it sideways, would be a move to get the car to the bottom of the track. The yellow flag came out within seconds of when Tony came back around. There is human reaction time for the flagger to realize the car against the wall isn't driving off, then there is the reaction time of the driver's getting the signal, after that, the drivers are focused on the car in front of them. The car with a clear view and no one in front threads the way, and those behind with obstructed views follow. Safety crews do not jump in the middle of a chain, but let the chain link up, and then move in the break behind once the cars are bunched and past.

I am bowing out of this until the police close the case.

 

I've been on track with a guy who I know was taking "meds". I don't recall what he was diagnosed with or what he was taking, but it was something along the lines of ADHD. Difficulty concentrating and controlling emotions and so forth.

Anyway, it was eye-opening, for sure. I'm surprised there isn't more of that, to be honest.

Is everyone who gets in a race car stable? Can't possibly be. I mean on the medical forms, they ask about your mental condition and if you're taking anything, but it's up to the driver to be honest. If they're honest, it will be noted by the MD. It may lead to a disapproval of a license.

CW

 

I emphatically disagree.

 

No, you haven't. You've continually spouted conjecture with zero evidence. Post something, anything, tangible. Not just maybes and possibles. We have incontrovertible evidence that Ward walked directly into traffic and zero evidence that TS did anything wrong, yet you find him at least partially culpable. How? What are you basing it on that is real and not just a feeling or conjecture? So far you've provided nothing.

 

There's no point in my saying another word to you.

As I said, we'll see if a jury agrees with you or not.

CW