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"I think Tony may be in trouble"
kingfish 17613 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
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08-12-14, 10:56 AM (EST)
 
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"I think Tony may be in trouble" |
I haven't seen any definitive video, and to speculate that Stewart was at fault is pretty much a wild assed guess based on my view of the human condition. I did see the video showing the young driver (Ward) exiting his car after being spun out by Stewart, coming down onto the track and beginning to shake his fist at Stewart as he passed on a yellow flag lap. He was apparently mad at Stewart for spinning him out, and, as racers often do, hopped out of his wrecked car on the track to show his displeasure. Stewart is said to have been going 35-40 mph by the time that he came past Ward on that slowed down lap. That should have been a no big deal situation. This sort of thing happens often with no consequences. The audience gets a little additional entertainment. Even Stewart himself has done just what Ward did. Maybe there ought’a be a law. But there isn’t. Anyway, this time there is the possibility (Probability? Approaching Certainty? Stewart is widely known to have a very short temper and a vengeful personality on the track) that Stewart was also in somewhat of a road rage temper and may have succumbed to an impulse to buck back on a young whippersnapper that had the audacity to protest what Stewart, a three time NASCAR cup champion did to spin him out. Ward was in a position where if Stewart had briefly, even just barely, gassed his car as he passed, he would have fish tailed a foot or so and could have caught Ward that way. And that would have produced the exact result that we witnessed. Just a momentary impulse to give it a little gas at the right moment to scare the little 20 YO upstart, just to push him back a little. And it just caught him. Just barely, but enough to be fatal. Bump him with the car, just as he does every Sunday during racing season, except that these cars (winged Sprint Cars) have very wide exposed rear wheels, not hardly any protective fender at all, and if a body is hit with one of those wheels under power, even at reduced speed, it’s all over. Instant total body trauma. You go right through the wringer. Another possibility is that Ward got too close to Stewart's car as it passed. However if there was no unexpected motion from Stewart’s car, if it didn’t jump sidewise as it passed, Ward should have been safe. Kinda like a bullfighter keeping clear of the bull except when the horns don’t go where he might have thought. Also, Ward might have slipped on the banked track and fell under that wheel at the exact wrong moment. He very well might have. So, Oh Tony, did you succumb to that brief temptation? Or did Kevin just slip? And if you did, and if there is video showing that you did, will that be enough to get you indicted for murder? Or will that fact that you are so influential in the racing world, and you have such a great racing reputation and long history in NASCAR, both in Cup competition and in dirt track competition, and that this was a death on a race track where death is an inherent risk anyway, be enough to keep him out of court? Oh Tony. I hope this works out for you. But if you did the deed, if you murdered Kevin Ward, I hope they can prove it and that they indict. RIP Kevin Ward Jr.
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newsomewayne 9295 desperate attention whore postings
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08-12-14, 01:10 PM (EST)
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1. "RE: I think Tony may be in trouble" |
I think it was another driver who said it best. "Only Tony knows..." Only Tony can say exactly what happened...what he saw, what he thought, what he felt, what he intended, and what he did. I've seen the video a couple times. I've read reports of conditions and the atmosphere. I've been to a few races at big venues and small. I've watched several races on TV. I'm no expert, but I think I know enough to form an opinion. But right now I don't know what that opinion is. For those who do have an opinion, I wonder if it comes from looking for blame or looking for cause. Both men involved will have their defenders looking to blame the other at all points. I'm a Stewart fan, myself. I have been for several years. But I'm not looking to defend him on this. In the end, I think "only Tony" can defend him, because he has the facts. That said, as a fan, I'm hoping that on his end this was just a tragic accident. As for cause, there are several obvious sequential events where if just one is taken away, the fatal result never happens. Cause 1 - The spin out. I honestly don't see where Stewart did anything wrong here. I think he and Ward took different lines through the curve and where they met, physics took over and Ward's car took the hit. This is certainly not the first time this has happened to either driver from either perspective. Cause 2 - Ward's reaction: One thing I've not heard is how were the two racing before this happened? Was there another bump or two? Words said in the pits? Something else? Don't know. But for whatever reason this really set Ward off. Perhaps even, he knew some sponsor or talent scout was there and now he'd lost his "big chance." So, Ward decides to show his anger on the track and leaves the safety of his car even before track officials can get there. Cause 3 - Wards walk: One thing I've heard said is that four or five cars passed Ward before Stewart hit him. That's not exactly true. Most of those passed while Ward was still in front of or right beside his car. Those cars would've been down and away from the car anyway. As Stewart approached, Ward started coming down the track. There is a reason we are told not to play in traffic. Cause 4 - Sight lines: The last car to pass Ward did so, but I can't tell if he had to swerve or not. I think this car was directly in front of Stewart, but I'd have to go back and rewatch to be sure the proximity. I seem to recall a good sized gap between the 4th car and the last one to pass Ward, but not a big gap b/n that one and Stewart. Again, memory. I wonder two things. One, could Stewart see around the car in front of him to know where Ward was, and two, do these guys have spotters with headsets to tell drivers about what's happening on the track. Cause 5 - Smoke's reaction: Did Tony hit his gas as he passed Ward? That doesn't seem to be in contention, so I'll say it's so for the sake of argument. But why? I think we can throw out the least plausible that Tony couldn't wait to come back around and put this guy under his car. Just as unlikely is the lesser charge of intentionally hitting/injuring another driver. I see two likely causes here. One, as fish said above, Tony was trying to send a message to the kid and the message got garbled in transmission. Horrible mistake. Legal consequences? Not my bag, so I won't even try. The other, which goes back to cause 4, was perhaps this was a gut reaction to suddenly seeing Ward down on the track and Tony was wanting to get past or get away from him. The knowledge that his car would fishtail from the sudden acceleration may have been lost in the instinct to avoid a sudden obstacle in the road. Some may read this and say as a fan, I'm trying to lay all blame on Ward. I'm not. I really do want to just know cause. But just because the kid died, doesn't mean he can't be part of that cause. To know cause, we'd need more video from other angles. Personally, I'd take very little stock in any eyewitness accounts, particularly from fans. I hate that this happened. For Ward's family and for Stewart. Neither went to the track that night looking for this.
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kingfish 17613 desperate attention whore postings
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08-12-14, 01:45 PM (EST)
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2. "RE: I think Tony may be in trouble" |
LAST EDITED ON 08-12-14 AT 07:39 PM (EST)Only Tony knows. So far. But there is another video under review by law enforcement that hasn't been released yet. Why the delay? Should the delay be considered ominous? Or is it just attributable to time required for detailed forensic work. Probably the latter. We can speculate or we can wait. Either way, there must be something of possible interest there that requires time to figure out. One could also guess probably correctly that there were other videos taken. They need a clear one from the other side of Stewart’s car to be helpful, I think. From what I saw (that side of the track was dimly lit) there weren’t grandstands with the useful view, so who knows if we get this. BTW. I’ve been a Smoke fan too. Long time. I very much admire the guy. But I’ve also seen a lot of ill-tempered interviews of him, and confrontations between him and other drivers. He’s often threatened retaliation for the on track actions of other drivers. And he's used his car (in the Cup series) to retaliate during non-racing times on the track when he's felt he was done wrong. So I’ve developed a feel for his temper and impulsiveness, albeit from afar. And the possibility cannot be dismissed that he let his temper get the best of him this time too. But up to now, and probably even now, it’s just been Tony being Tony, acting the same as a lot of other type A personalities act. But if he didn’t resist a little well timed impulse to brush back an upstart during a caution, and killed Kevin Ward, that’s definitely over the line. Another driver's account: http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2014/08/10/nascar-driver-tony-stewart-fatally-strikes-driver-at-dirt-track-event/
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newsomewayne 9295 desperate attention whore postings
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08-14-14, 08:29 AM (EST)
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5. "Driving the Sprint Car: What it takes." |
Here's a pretty good article about driving the car Tony and Kevin were driving, from what I would consider a non-biased, but very knowledgeable source.Popular Mechanics: What You Should Know About the Car Tony Stewart Was Driving As seen in the video, Stewart and Ward were driving winged cars at the race at Canandaigua Speedway in upstate New York. However, driving below speeds at which downforce occurs requires fortitude and faith; the lack of surface grip can be unnerving when so much power is delivered to the wheels. Because the race had gone under caution following Ward's wreck, Stewart was driving only about 40 mph when he struck Ward, who had climbed out of his car, presumably to confront Stewart. "Having driven a 410 Sprint Car, it was one of the hardest cars to drive at 40 or 50 miles an hour," says Motorsport.com editor-in-chief Steven Cole Smith, who races a street stock car. "I thought it was way beyond my capability, but the faster I went, the more downforce comes in. They're not made to go 40. They're made to go 100."
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