The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarter's Expenses?
Posted on 08/11/2014 6:27:28 AM PDT by shortstop
When you mix anger, hotheads and high-octane fuel, you sometimes get trouble.
In Canandaigua on Saturday night, you also got tragedy.
A 20-year-old phenom, pushed up against the wall by one of the biggest men in NASCAR, wrestled himself out of his bunged up car and stormed down the track to confront the man he felt had done him wrong.
It was high-bank dirt and small-town dreams and a kid with a helmet and some coveralls and cars coming by under a yellow flag. He walked into the traffic lane and one came past and then it was the big man and he raised his hand to flip him off and a foot or two outside the path of the front wheel he made his stand.
But the back end cut loose and swung wide and the big rear tire came over him and hung him up and then threw him far and lifeless back onto the bank.
That’s how Kevin Ward Jr. lost his life and Tony Stewart lost his peace of mind.
And maybe his career and maybe his freedom.
Because the press conferences are being held by the sheriff, not track officials, and every angle of every cellphone video is being scrutinized by people who know physics, racing and the laws of the state of New York.
And the most ominous report in the press is the claim that spectators could hear Tony Stewart’s engine rev as he approached Kevin Ward Jr. Did they miss hear? Was he trying to get traction to cut left and avoid the kid? Or was he trying to scare the younger man, maybe spray him with mud as he passed, do something in some way to stand up to this impertinent, wet-behind-the-ears, backwoods rookie daring to walk across the track and flip off a three-time NASCAR champ?
Was it stupid plus stupid equals a horror no one could imagine?
Did the impetuous decision to get out of a crumpled car on an active track combine with the impetuous decision to brush by an angry competitor leave a young man dead and the race world questioning itself?
Or did a kid too young to buy a beer simply misjudge and walk into the arc of a passing racer?
The investigators will have to decide.
The investigators and everybody who squinted into their phones yesterday watching the YouTube of Kevin Junior’s death.Whatever they decide, Tony Stewart is at fault.
Tony Stewart and a culture of bare-knuckle racing that believes the response to competitive jostling is to storm into the scrum with fists and fingers flying.
It’s a world of high-tech machines and low-tech men.
A world where when you have a dispute with a guy you go kick his ass.
A world where it’s somehow reasonable to climb out of your car on an active race track and storm around like a 3-year-old throwing a tantrum.
A world that Tony Stewart helped create and perpetuate.
Because it wasn’t just Tony Stewart’s car that killed Kevin Ward Jr., it was his example.
It didn’t take the ESPN producers long to find video of Tony Stewart storming around on an active track himself, throwing his helmet at passing cars and giving the finger to drivers who had crossed him.
The sad irony of Saturday night’s tragedy is that Kevin Ward Jr. was killed by Tony Stewart while being Tony Stewart. You had a 20-year-old guy in a helmet and some coveralls whose entire life had been steeped in motorsports, raised in a culture which, for most of his life, had been defined by the antics of Tony Stewart.
Kevin Ward Jr.’s choice to exit his car and walk across the track was insane, but it was a choice which the code of honor of his sport almost made obligatory, and a code which was best exemplified by the man whose car would, in a split second, end his young life.
Tony Stewart has blood on his hands, through either the pressure of his foot on the throttle or the impact of his example on his sport. In a way, Tony Stewart not only ran Kevin Junior down, he also put him in the track in front of him.
Not by the jostle up against the wall, but by the expectation of how a man is supposed to react to such a jostle.
And that blood is not just on Tony Stewart’s hands, it is smeared across the multi-colored logo of NASCAR. Because when your dog runs loose and bites someone, you’re responsible. And the officials at NASCAR have allowed the hotheads of their sport – the Tony Stewarts of their sport – to rant and rage from Talladega to Daytona. The founding myth of southern racing is that it all began with hillbillies running moonshine across the back roads of Dixie. True or not, the times have changed, the society has changed and the attitudes need to change.
The line is, “Gentlemen, start your engines,” and there needs to be more emphasis on being “gentlemen.”
Because that’s what was lacking Saturday night in Canandaigua – even tempers, sportsmanship and a simple rule that says you don’t get out of your car unless it’s on fire.
It was all so needless.
And everybody watching that YouTube knows that.
And racing needs to face that fact.
—the only getting any sympathy from me is Tony Stewart—
—when a flesh and blood human steps out in front of a metal device going at any speed, there will be only one winner-—
I just watched the full video. I’ve only been to sprint races on a couple occasions, so I am hardly an expert. What I see is the kid, first get out of the car and then move down the track into the path of the cars as they are coming out of a turn. Much like we see the black tire marks show the path of the cars on a concrete track, here, you can see the tire tracks in the dirt. He moved down as a second move into what is clearly the main groove for the drivers.
At the point where a driver is coming out of the turn on the dirt track, their path had already been determined based on how they entered the turn. At that stage it is force/momentum/friction coming out. I seriously doubt Stewart knew he was there until he was well into the turn.
I’m a little sick of the media desperately fishing for a sensational story that simply doesn’t exist.
Tony Stewart has a history of “incidents” but I could name those who don’t on one hand. Its like trying to single out a hokey player for fighting.
The kid did something stupid and paid with his life. End of story.
Kevin Ward, Jr. committed suicide.
The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarter's Expenses?
and now the progressive elites will try to smear nascar and its fans, marginalize, demonize...
Like Sgt Stryker Said, “life’s hard. It’s harder if you’re stupid”
How does the author know this? I looked at the video and the back end actually kicks toward the infield, in the opposite direction of what the author claims.
Darwin wins.
It’s totally ignorant to step out of your vehicle and cross the track while the race is in progress.
If he had stayed in his vehicle, he would not have been hit.
I’ve watched NASCAR for years and I can tell you .. you must have a death wish, if you’re willing to step in front of those vehicles.
It’s sad .. the guy was so young.
There are several different racing organizations each with their own sanctioning criteria
and rules. I suspect many will review their criteria and possibly changes will be made
in their applications.
This writer only mentions NASCAR but this was a Sprint race. NASCAR had nothing
to do with it.
You can see on the video the first car that passed Ward he jumped a little out of its way and then he even went further into the middle of the track when Stewart was approaching. Even if TS revved his engine it will still be hard to prove any intent of malice even if he did it on purpose.(Not to kill but to scare)
Tony Stewart has blood on his hands, through either the pressure of his foot on the throttle or the impact of his example on his sport. In a way, Tony Stewart not only ran Kevin Junior down, he also put him in the track in front of him.
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The 20 year old did what 20 year olds tend to do - think they’re invincible and act impulsively. THAT has nothing to do with Tony Stewart “putting him on the track”. Plus, doing it on a dirt track, at night, dressed in a black racing suit and a black helmet ..... tragic as it was, Ward paid the ultimate price for his lack of impulse control and common sense. “Smoke” may be a hot head in his own right, but he had no control over Ward’s actions.
Bottom line for Tony, he was driving the car that hit Ward & killed him, even though it was accidental. Although Ward put himself on the track in a position to be hit, Tony will forever be haunted by this and yes, he’s probably lost his peace of mind.
I do think as a result of this fatality that there will be a new rule in the event a driver’s common sense is not operating .... you do not get out of your car unless it is on fire.
This is a good example of, “if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”
“media desperately fishing for a sensational story that simply doesn’t exist.”
You know how they are, there was a death involved and they are vultures.
“Its like trying to single out a hokey player for fighting”
I think that’s sort of the point of the article. NASCAR has had a hint of professional wrestling to it in the last few years...and it got more people to watch. But something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.
I predict that in the very near future, NASCAR will announce stricter punishments for running around on the track, fighting, etc.
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