iNSIDE SCOOP: Conclusions and Reality

From the get-go, let me state that I wasn’t there at Canandaigua Motorsports Park on Aug. 9 when Tony Stewart’s sprint car struck and killed young Kevin Ward.

I’ve seen the same video that you all have, and I have drawn my own conclusions. So have you, judging by the sheer volume of commentary I’ve seen on the web, heard on TV and radio and read in e-mails. 

Let’s get a couple of things straight right now. I’ve worked for Tony Stewart in the past and consider him a friend, or as much a friend as can be given his situation and mine. I know him a bit, and I know what he’s like, what his temper is and generally what he’s like as a person.

After reading most of the…drivel that some die-hard, stick-it-to-the-man “fans” have posted, I just shake my head and sigh.

Given the same information that everyone else has, here is my take on what happened.

Young driver races three-time NASCAR champion tough, staying in the gas on the high side as Stewart slides past underneath. Instead of backing out of it, which is what you do when a driver gives you a slide job, he kept his foot in it and crashed. 

Sprint cars have no mirrors, nor turn-by-turn spotters and generally no radios. When you drive these things, you keep track of who is near you by sound and the limited peripheral vision the cars afford you. The video shows that the cars didn’t make contact, at least in the 50 or so times that I’ve watched it. Stewart was always ahead of and already past Ward’s car and heading away when the young man crashed.

Ward came to a stop, unbuckled and went down the track, looking for Stewart. He was shaking his finger at Stewart and seemed very intent on getting right to the No. 14 car.

A driver right in front of Stewart’s car slowed to miss him, but Stewart didn’t until the very last minute. And Kevin Ward was struck by Stewart’s car. He was tossed some 50 feet down the track, landing in a heap. He died at the local hospital of massive blunt trauma.

Those are the facts, at least as shown by the video that we’ve seen.

As humans, we can’t stand not to know exactly what happened and why, especially when it’s something like this. We know what we see, and we make an automatic judgment on who was right, who was wrong and why a person did whatever it was that was done.

That’s when the trouble starts.

People know Tony Stewart as a somewhat grumpy individual who has been in his share of on-track scrapes, throwing helmets and punches and fenders and being a general horse’s behind when he’s angry. And that colors what they think of him as a person.

In this case, however, you can’t know what he was thinking and what happened. You can speculate all you want, just as I’m about to do. The difference is, most of you don’t know the man.

I don’t know what he was thinking. I do know, based on what I know of him, that he wasn’t thinking of retribution, revenge or anything close. He was thinking, I suppose, that he was supposed to close up to the car in front of him, like they say in the driver’s meeting.

He wasn’t, again by my knowledge of him, thinking of buzzing the kid or grandstanding or anything like that, either. He cut his teeth on open-wheel racing, so he has been there and done that when it comes to caution flags and on-track incidents.

You can’t steer a sprint car like you can a passenger car. They don’t work like that. They make their living sliding sideways, and the brakes and tires and wings all exist to make them slide sideways very fast and always to the left.

You also can’t see out of them, unless it’s to the front. The wing is down on the front roll bar, and there’s a nose wing that sits between the front tires. The sides are swept up to about the driver’s eye level on the right side, to protect against rocks and dirt clods and parts and stuff.

The last thing on this Earth that I suppose Tony Stewart expected to see was Kevin Ward trying to get into the cockpit with him. Stepping on the brakes only makes the car’s tail slide to the right. Gassing it up makes it do the same thing. Where was Kevin Ward standing? 

The right rear tire is 15 inches bigger than the left rear, too. Take a red Solo cup and put it on the ground. Give it a push. That’s what sprint cars do.

I’m sorry that a young man is dead. I feel for his family. I feel for Tony Stewart. It's got to be excruciating, knowing that you were directly involved in a fatality. But for the difference of about 23 years and 850 miles, Kevin Ward could have been Tony Stewart at the age of 20.

I have seen many men die in race cars, too many if you want to know the truth. But they’ve all been in the race car when they died. Kevin Ward was not, and that’s why he’s dead. Not because Tony Stewart went to the race track and decided to teach a kid a lesson. Not because Tony Stewart felt the need to take anger out on someone else.

That’s not how he is. He gets mad, certainly, and you’ve seen it. You’ve not seen, likely, the man when he’s not angry or being a smartass or playing around. He's just a guy, who through his work with charity and wildlife and thousands of other things has given back a tremendous amount to the world around him. I can't reconcile that guy with the characterizations that are being thrown around. Just. Can't.

He is not a murderer or a coward or an ego-driven maniac. He’s a race-car driver. He knows the line and when not to cross it. This was one of the times when he didn’t get anywhere near such a line.

Again, that’s all supposition on my part. But it’s good supposition. Take it as you see fit.