Read back over the last couple of pages, and it seems like many people are still kind of weighing in on the whole thing. So i thought i would offer my own dollars worth on the situation.
I would like to lay some foundation for my comments before i make them, so that there isnt any room for making assumptions, or apparent bias. I dont like NASCAR, never have, never will, and subsequently i dont care about Tony Stewart, or Kevin Ward in any capacity. So there is not, and will not be any fanboyism in my commentary. Just facts as i see them.
Ive been involved in racing for years. As a driver, as a crew member, and as a driving instructor. Between those, thousands of track miles, and thousands of hours of time at the track have been logged. In all of those cases, one thing was forced upon any individual who passes the paddock gate: a safety meeting, and a health and safety waiver. In both of these cases, one of the primary things that is talked about, is death. The fact that it can happen anywhere, at anytime, and in any situation. And because we are dealing with heavy things going at high speeds, more often than not, when something goes wrong, it will go horribly wrong. Safety procedures on how to deal with an accident are also heavily discussed. First thing that is said in virtually every meeting, is if you have an accident, stay in your car until the safety crew arrives. If you have a fire incident, and need to extricate yourself from the vehicle, it is your responsibility to get to a safe location, and contact a marshal as quickly as possible. This is usually followed by instructions about specific corners to watch out for, exit locations in the fence, and staying away from the racing line, never crossing a live track, even in yellow conditions, and always looking out for other cars. And finally how it is every drivers responsibility to avoid an accident as much as possible, but in the end, it is the your personal sole responsibility to be aware of your own safety, and protect yourself from danger. Bottom line, racing is dangerous, prople die doing it. Accept that risk, or leave.
In this particular situation, the "accident" that started the whole thing was about as common an accident in sprint car as you are going to get. Tony undercut his line and made a pass, and moved up to block Kevin, and protect his line, Kevin didnt back out to let the pass happen, got up onto the outer apron, lost traction, and spun out into the wall. Wards car was hardly even damaged from the accident, receiving nothing more than a flat tire, and maybe a couple bent tie rods. Any sanctioning body would have categorized that as any other typical racing incident. Tony leaned on him, he didnt yield, and he ended up in the wall. It didnt ruin his car, it didnt endanger him in any way, He should have been grateful the car was as intact as it was, and let it go at that. It was certainly not worth the tempertanturm that followed it.
An important thing to note about sprint cars, is that they run a ginormous offset in the rear wheels to force them to turn left. The front axle is also set up to promote this left turn only setup. The cars do not drive straight at all. Driving "straight" in a sprint car, involves the car crabbing awkwardly to the left, while having to apply right hand opposite lock to counter act it. And even then, you are usually pushing the front wheels, because there is so much positive lock in the rear axle. Given all of this, turning to the right, up an embankment, in a sprint car, is easier said than done, and not done in any way that would be considered graceful, or fluid.
Equally of importance is the braking setup of a sprint car. Usually they have a single rear axle brake. Typically it is located on the inside left rear axle. This is nothing more than a drag brake to help induce differential bias to rotate the car, and control the angle of rotation. It is not a "brake" as it would be described in most circle. Some cars do run a second brake on the outer right hub, but it is typically smaller than the inboard brake on the left axle.
On the front, the story is much the same. There is only a single brake, on the left front wheel, with the sole purpose of hooking the left front to control and correct the drift angle of the car.
Neither of these brakes are the typical heavy vented rotors you find on a road car (sometimes the left rear axle brake is a vented type), but are the single floating disc type usually found most commonly on a motorcycle. And in fact, in some of the lower midget sprint car formulas, they are sourced directly from a motorcycle. Running a motorcycle front brake on the rear axle, and a motorcycle rear brake on the front axle.
The majority of the "braking" in a sprint car comes from engine compression. As the engine is hooked directly to the rear axle without a transmission, simply lifting the throttle can create a massive amount back pressure, dramatically slowing the rear axle. The likelihood that Tony could have stopped, or swerved, to miss Kevin is a little absurd. These cars do not steer well, nor do they handle well, and especially not at slow speed. They are designed to go fast sideways. Not run a slalom course, or stop on a dime. Just look at the chaos that ensues from any sprint car crash. The cars flop around like fish out of water spinning and dash off all over the track. Its chaos. Sideways at speed is the only way they are reasonably controllable.
Once Kevin got out of his car, and started to walk out into the middle of the track, he just took every rule that he agreed to in the drivers safety meeting, and threw it out the window. No matter how much people want to argue over vague semantics, and assumptions, the fact is, from a legal standpoint, Kevin Ward violated safety protocol of the circuit when he walked out into the racing groove of a live track. Caution flag or not, doesnt matter. He took his life into his own hands, and paid the ultimate price.
If you watch the video, you will see that as Kevin gets out of his car, he is buzzed by a car on the high groove of the track. He then starts to walk out into the middle groove of the track. The blue and white #45 car nearly clips him, and Kevin even steps back a little to avoid the #45, and then moves even further into the racing line while gesticulating at Tonys car. The camera moves away here for a moment tracking the #45 that almost hit him. Only to snap back and catch Kevin right in front of Tonys car. Kevin is still pointing and gesticulating for a frame or two, up until Tonys car is literally 2-3 feet away from him. Its at that moment that we then finally see his left leg come up as he starts to jump out of the way, albeit it too little to late. Keep in mind that even under yellow conditions, the cars are still moving at 35-40 MPH. Nobody here would play chicken down to a game of feet with a road car traveling at that speed, would they? So it makes sense you wouldnt do it with an 800 BHP car that cant drive straight, and has, near enough to might as well be, no brakes.
It is worth looking at, and tracking the groove lines in the track, were you can see that Tonys car was in the same groove line as the #45. It wasnt until he had already hit Kevin that his car jumped up to the higher groove, were Tony eventually pulled over. As the camera pans back slightly, after the incident, you can see the #1 car down on the track apron, and a second car pass him on the outside. That second car was only slightly lower than what Tonys car was on the track. It is a lot tighter on that section of track than the camera angle really shows, and Kevin was, quite literally, right in the middle of it.
There has been much talk of the "throttle blip heard round the world", about how tony blipped the throttle into him. I also dont see how this is possible. Tonys car isnt lifting its nose, or moving in any way other than what it would for traveling at a consistent speed. The blip was likely from a car on the front straight that was slowing down, and had an engine stall. As i said, sprint cars have no transmission, and are direct drive to the rear wheels (this is also why they are push started). So if the wheel speed gets low enough, the engine will stall. You try to get the engine back by giving it a boot of throttle to force it back to life, and keep it ticking over at idle speeds. Its not exactly the safest procedure when there are a dozen other cars all bunching up and doing the same thing. I think it is extremely unlikely that Tony blipped the throttle at all based on what we can see of his car in the video. Unfortunately there is no telemetry on a sprint car, so we will never see any steering angle, or throttle tracking to know for certain sure what Tony did or didnt do. If this were F1 or WEC, it would be an open and shut case.
Now, i dont believe Tony is perfectly innocent, I do believe that he had some room he could have moved down into the track to try and avoid Kevin. I also have no doubt that if he had moved down, Kevin would have moved down along with him, and likely been in the way of the two abreast cars following behind Tony, and that would ended with similar consequences.
At the end of the day though, the question that must be asked is "Could this have been completely avoided if Kevin Ward had stayed in his car, instead of trying to retaliate over a flat tire", and the answer is "absolutely, yes". When you break track safety protocol, and run into the middle of a hot track, you either have a death wish, or arent thinking straight. Either way, youve taken your life into your own hands, and you will pay the consequences of those actions, and Kevin Ward paid the ultimate price.
I think the case here, is that a hot headed young driver got upset over the hot shot NASCAR millionaire pushing him up and off the track, even though he should have yielded the pass, and decided to give Captain NASCAR a piece of his mind for giving him a flat tire and ending his race. And through the red mist, the adrenaline, and the testosterone, he likely completely misjudged the speed of Tony's car, focusing more on shaking his fits in rage at Tony, and less about the fact that an 800 BHP car was hurling at him at 35-40 MPH. By the time he took stock of the situation, and tried to jump out of the way, it was to late. He got hooked up in the rear tire, sucked under the car, and spat out. Likely dead before he even hit the ground.
There is no doubt that this is an absolute tragedy. Its terrible any time any racing driver dies at the track for any reason. But going back up to my first paragraph, you have to take responsibility for your own safety, and Kevin Ward did not, and that to me (speaking as someone who has done multiple incident investigations at tracks) puts him squarely at fault.
Sadly, thanks to The Court of Public Opinion, Tony Stewarts career will be over. NASCAR is run almost purely on advertising dollars, and once one of Tonys primary sponsors believes that he is no longer the representation they want for their product because of the fan outcry, thats it. Once one of them pulls their sponsorship money, there is nothing else to back the investment of the other primary sponsors, and they will all pull out one by one. The sad thing is, this effects more than just Tony Stewart, but the Stewart/Haas Racing Team, and all of their drivers. So before its all said and done, it may be the end of several careers.
If there is one silver lining to this whole thing, i hope to hell it changes the way that NASCAR, and especially other smaller circle track speedways, police themselves and their drivers. YouTube is FULL of videos of dirt track races turning into destruction derbies. All because one guy spun out another guy, and by god hes gonna give that other guy a piece of his mind, and his front bumper. In some of these videos, it seems as though the track operators are almost encouraging these outbursts, by giving blow by blow commentary of the stupidity. Likely because such antics put butts in seats. And here lately that same fist waving, helmet tossing, and car kicking has started to become a common scene in NASCAR as well. And in all of those instances you never see the safety crew or security try to step in and stop it from happening. In come cases you can even see safety crew laugh at the tantrums as they happen. To me its an absolute shame that someone had to die for this issue of irresponsibility to be brought to the forefront as a serious problem. But i hope from here on out that any retributions, tantrums, or needless finger wavings that pur drivers in harms way, results in stiff penalties and fines for the driver in question. Hopefully discouraging, and preventing any of this stupidity from happening again, before someone else ends up in a body bag on account of trying to act tough, and prove a needless point.
If youve made it this far, youre a trooper. I welcome your comments and questions.
How ironic.
