Steve9347 Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 Twitter is abuzz right now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve9347 Posted August 10, 2014 Author Share Posted August 10, 2014 http://www.sbnation.com/nascar/2014/8/10/5...-track-incident Apparently the guy he hit has died. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve9347 Posted August 10, 2014 Author Share Posted August 10, 2014 Worse yet, the driver he killed was 17. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justBLAZE Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 Just awful news. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buehrle>Wood Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 He was 20. But yeah, twitter seems to think he is dead. Stewart apparently in custody after trying to flee. Saw the video, sure seemed intentional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justBLAZE Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Aug 10, 2014 -> 01:56 AM) He was 20. But yeah, twitter seems to think he is dead. Stewart apparently in custody after trying to flee. Saw the video, sure seemed intentional. I saw the video and I now I have eased on Tony, he did not turn into the kid, the only thing I dont understand is why did he gun it right there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justBLAZE Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 http://deadspin.com/reports-tony-stewart-r...dium=socialflow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buehrle>Wood Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 Sheriff confirming he's dead. May Stewart rot in jail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChiliIrishHammock24 Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 Uh......WOW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaconOnAStick Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 This is nuts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChiliIrishHammock24 Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 I honestly feel sick after watching the video. Really unsettling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 (edited) This is going to be like the Mary Joe Kopechne situation with Teddy Kennedy...no matter what happens with the court case, he's going to have his reputation ruined forever. It's impossible for any reasonable person to watch the video, hear the accounts of witness and actually see it without coming to that conclusion. The woman on the Score overnight show was refusing to say it was intentional and people were getting upset with her, I get it that the media has to be "fair and unbiased" and not jump to conclusions, but this one's going to be impossible to explain as it happened under a yellow/caution flag. Just the comments of the person next to the one filming are going to live forever in everyone's minds if they don't take that video down. Update (12:29 a.m.): The Sporting News's Bob Pockrass has some more details: Rich Willis, who was at the track, said he didn't see exactly what happened but his sister down in Turn 1 did. He saw Stewart and Kevin Ward get into the wreck. "People (who could see it better) said the guy got out of his car and was gesturing angrily at Tony Stewart when Tony Stewart came by during the next lap under yellow," Willis said in a phone interview. "He approached him and evidently when he was driving by the guy standing on the track gesturing at him, he gunned his engine. "What happened was the back end kicked out and clipped the guy and the guy flew across the track." Update (1:06 a.m.): More from Pockrass: Tyler Graves, a sprint-car racer and friend of Ward's, told Sporting News in a phone interview that he was sitting in the Turn 1 grandstands and saw everything that happened. "Tony pinched him into the frontstretch wall, a racing thing," Graves said. "The right rear tire went down, he spun on the exit of (Turn) 2. They threw the caution and everything was toned down. Kevin got out of his car. … He was throwing his arms up all over the place at Tony for most of the corner. "I know Tony could see him. I know how you can see out of these cars. When Tony got close to him, he hit the throttle. When you hit a throttle on a sprint car, the car sets sideways. It set sideways, the right rear tire hit Kevin, Kevin was sucked underneath and was stuck under it for a second or two and then it threw him about 50 yards." Edited August 10, 2014 by caulfield12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 (edited) I don't follow racing at all, but it seems that Stewart "just snapped" and I'm predicting the reason's (from his defenders) going to go back to the broken leg/rehab/recovery he went through to get back to NASCAR (didn't that injury happen in a similar type or form of racing??) and the one that's going to be thrown back out there against him is that he supposedly caused a big wreck one year ago in July at the same track at which at least two other drivers ended up hospitalized. They're going to look at the "kid" (20 and not 17 or 18) who was killed...his inexperience, and how the veteran driver in Stewart should have known better, as it would be more understandable for a teenager to try to kill a veteran/famed NASCAR driver than the other way around. Stewart's ego and hubris. How dare a "punk" kid on a sprint/dirt track engage him so publicly? Who does he think he is? Then you're also going to hear the...."he just meant to scare him a bit" or "he lost control at the last moment when he realized how close he was coming" or the prank defense...like when someone falls down in the snow or water and someone skis past them to taunt them a little bit, spraying them with snow or water but not inflicting any real physical harm. August 07 2014 KANNAPOLIS, N.C., (Aug. 6, 2014) – Tony Stewart will be turning left and right this weekend at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International, but since this time last year, his career has come full circle. A year ago, Stewart was absent from The Glen. His streak of consecutive starts in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series ended at 521 when in the wee hours of Aug. 5, 2013, an accident in a sprint car race at Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, Iowa, left him with a broken right tibia and fibula. Stewart’s season was over, and he did not return to a racecar until Feb. 14, 2014 when practice for the Sprint Unlimited began at 5 p.m. EST at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. #StandWithSmoke was the mantra upon Stewart’s return, and it’s appropriate that #StandWithSmoke reappears in Stewart’s return to Watkins Glen. Edited August 10, 2014 by caulfield12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodAsGould Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 I find it incredibly stupid to confront someone in the middle of a racetrack but obviously it's tragic what happened. Is there a better video out there where you see Stewarts car approaching him from a longer distance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 (edited) This was from one year ago... Monday night’s accident was the latest in a string of spills Stewart has taken in sprint cars in recent weeks. On July 16, Stewart was involved in a 15-car pileup at Canandaigua (N.Y.) Motorsports Park that sent a 19-year-old female driver to the hospital. Last Monday night at Ohsweken Speedway in Ontario, Canada, Stewart was racing for the lead when his vehicle flipped five times. Although former NASCAR driver Jason Leffler was killed earlier this year in a sprint-car crash in New Jersey, Stewart maintains close ties to his short-track roots by scheduling roughly 70 sprint car events per year. Friday at Pocono Raceway, Stewart brushed off the Ohsweken accident as routine. http://www.sbnation.com/nascar/2013/7/17/4...print-car-wreck The story from a year ago....when Stewart took responsibility for causing a huge wreck which put 19 year-old Alysha Ruggles in the hospital. Edited August 10, 2014 by caulfield12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 (edited) It's also going to be a gut-wrenching decision whether he will race today or not. He just killed someone on the track, one-half the people think it might have been intentional...and he's 19th in the point standings for the Chase, so he has all the financial commitments to his sponsors as well to deal with. Don't know how he will deal with that, the guilt...compounded by the fact that if he does sit out this race, his enemies will use that as evidence that he's done something wrong and pulling out of the race is a form of culpability. Apparently there are no pending criminal charges (it's still under investigation) but you can be sure Ward's family will engage in a civil lawsuit against Stewart and his companies. A lot of the insurance agent(s) who handle his affairs probably were summoned out of bed at 2:00 a.m. or so last night when the story started to break on twitter. Apparently, Ward, Jr., the driver who was struck...died upon arrival at the hospital and not later, like at 1 or 2 .m. The incident actually happened around 10:30 p.m. or so EST. Ruggles, whose mother took her to the hospital after she began complaining of back pain following the accident, suffered a compression fracture in her back, according to the (Rochester) Democrat and Chronicle. "Right now, she has to take it one day at a time," Wendy Ruggles told the newspaper. "We had a big scare; she was close to being paralyzed." The track’s Facebook page posted that Ruggles was released from the hospital Thursday. "To quote our Alysha Ruggles - she said ‘Everyone needs to stop blaming Tony, it was a racing accident,'" the track said on its Facebook post. www.thesportingnews.com Edited August 10, 2014 by caulfield12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamshack Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 Why the hell does the guy get out of his car and confront someone in a race car on a dirt track? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 How can you tell it was on purpose? I finally brought myself to watch the video and can't tell if there is intent or not. The kid is walking in the middle of a car race. WTF. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowand44 Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 10, 2014 -> 07:19 AM) Why the hell does the guy get out of his car and confront someone in a race car on a dirt track? This. QUOTE (Brian @ Aug 10, 2014 -> 07:29 AM) How can you tell it was on purpose? I finally brought myself to watch the video and can't tell if there is intent or not. The kid is walking in the middle of a car race. WTF. And this. No clue if it's on purpose or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamshack Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 QUOTE (Brian @ Aug 10, 2014 -> 05:29 AM) How can you tell it was on purpose? I finally brought myself to watch the video and can't tell if there is intent or not. The kid is walking in the middle of a car race. WTF. The one thing I noticed is the other car(s) seemed to really slow down once the guy was out of his car and on foot on the track. Then you see this other car come up much more quickly, and you can hear him rev his engine right as he passes him. I don't believe he "intentionally" hit him; I do believe he acted recklessly in trying to frighten him. They both used very poor judgment (too much testosterone) and now a kid is dead for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleHurt05 Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 I can't really understand why that kid would be dumb enough to go confront these cars moving so fast. It seems hard to prove he tried to hit the kid, but I bet these guys have way more control of their cars than we know. Stewart said he is still gonna race today, can't imagine NASCAR lets that happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockRaines Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 QUOTE (Brian @ Aug 10, 2014 -> 07:29 AM) How can you tell it was on purpose? I finally brought myself to watch the video and can't tell if there is intent or not. The kid is walking in the middle of a car race. WTF. Gunning his engine and fish tailing into the guy suggests intent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve9347 Posted August 10, 2014 Author Share Posted August 10, 2014 QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 10, 2014 -> 07:19 AM) Why the hell does the guy get out of his car and confront someone in a race car on a dirt track? That's what I want to know. It feels a bit like natural selection, here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve9347 Posted August 10, 2014 Author Share Posted August 10, 2014 QUOTE (Brian @ Aug 10, 2014 -> 07:29 AM) How can you tell it was on purpose? I finally brought myself to watch the video and can't tell if there is intent or not. The kid is walking in the middle of a car race. WTF. I posted that title last night when the news was breaking on Twitter. I even added a question mark, because who knows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Aug 10, 2014 -> 08:13 AM) I posted that title last night when the news was breaking on Twitter. I even added a question mark, because who knows. I meant people in general who say they think there was intent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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