Tony Stewart killed a 20 year old dirt track driver....

[MongGrel]

I don't know much about professional left turning, and I know even less about professional left turning on dirt tracks. But, I can't imagine that Tony's plan was to hit the guy and kill him.

Looks to me like he wanted to buzz the idiot, but the vehicle slipped, because, dirt. That doesn't exclude Stewart from being a prick for that, and certainly not for responsibility (vehicular manslaughter, probably), but I can't imagine him actually wanting to hit the dude--not that I know anything about this Tony Stewart.

On top of that, the dude that got killed isn't free of responsibility in his own death here. Looks like two dumb idiots playing stupid dumb idiot games and losing.

What I've said in my posts I agree.

Tony has been forced to go to Anger Management in the past mandatory by NASCAR, and someone posted something else where he had a past history of conflicts with this kid when racing there before.

I'm not a NASCAR watcher myself, I just know this because my wife watches it now and then actually and is a Tony Stewart fan.

That and I used to go to Midget/Sprint races many years ago a bit regularly.

I'm not ignorant on how they react, but the kid still shouldn't have been out there.

 

[SSSnail]

Bullshit. Sprint cars are set up to do nothing except turn left. The tire stagger and suspension settings make the car turn left with no input at all.

Go watch a sprint race, then come back and tell me which way the wheels are always turned.

 

[ctark]

Bullshit. Sprint cars are set up to do nothing except turn left. The tire stagger and suspension settings make the car turn left with no input at all.

Then you dont know anything about sprint cars.

Also people keep bringing up that he's a hot head. Stewart had no reason to be mad. Its possible he didnt even know he wrecked the guy. The wreck was simply a product of racing. They dont have spotters like they do in Nascar. So when Tony came around he likely didnt even know if the kid was mad at him except for the fact he was pointing at him.

I also see a lot of people saying Tony was speeding under caution. These cars were going no more than 35 to 40 mph, and that has been documented. It doesn't take much to kill someone with these machines.

It was an accident plain and simple. An accident that could have been avoided if the driver followed the rules and stayed in his car. It doesn't matter if other people have done it in the past, or if nascar drivers do it. When a Nascar driver does it, he's usually surrounded by officials, and the track's are well lit and wider. I promise you they wont be doing it anymore, and if they do they will be punished severely.

 

[MongGrel]

Go watch a sprint race, then come back and tell me which way the wheels are always turned.

Left, 99% of the time.

*edit* I'm admitting I'm wrong, haven't even watched or been to a race in many years.

I know the physics just had the steering backwards in the head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qtaTlLVZ2E

Tony seemed to find right there a bit.

 

[SSSnail]

Left, 99% of the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qtaTlLVZ2E

Tony seemed to find right there a bit.

In case you're intentionally being obtuse, the front wheels are turned to the RIGHT, the rear wheels are power steering the car around the LEFT turn, which is pretty much the entire track.

So it appears you don't know shit about the sprint cars, at all.

 

[KillerBee]

OP video
Tony Stewart HITS Sprint Car Driver Kevin Ward Jr (RAW VIDEO) Canandaigua Motorsports Park 8/9/1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_QJdBd0437U


then watch this one - he appears to run over his foot then accellerates
the sound seems to match up better with this video

Edit - link quit working for me - it did have comments disabled for some reason
but here's another with same difference audio-wise to match up when he accelerates
it paints a different picture - like it wasn't as intentional as the original

Still can't explain why he accelerated at all though - if it was after he hit him
except some type of sudden reaction after running him over ?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJWTauPGp9g

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Then you dont know anything about sprint cars.

Wow, clever. Thanks for your brilliant insight. You're utterly, completely, cluelessly, wrong. Sprint cars are set up to turn left. Period. That's what they do. Tires are staggered to give the car a default left turn bias. If you don't understand even that simple concept you should not be arguing in this thread.

http://www.world-sprintcar-guide.com/sprint-car-tires.html

http://iracing.wikidot.com/components:tire-stagger

http://books.google.com/books?id=Uz...sprint cars tire stagger to turn left&f=false

http://coolchassis.com/coolchassis.pdf

Go watch a sprint race, then come back and tell me which way the wheels are always turned.

I can tell you that you're completely ignorant about the physics of handling. The wheels are turned to the right to properly manage drift. It's called opposite lock. Look it up and try to understand what it does and how/why it's used. They perhaps you'll be embarrassed enough to delete that drivel. The wheels are turned that way to balance the cars natural bias towards oversteer, that is, the front end wanting to dive left while the rear swings right.

 

[MongGrel]

In case you're intentionally being obtuse, the front wheels are turned to the RIGHT, the rear wheels are power steering the car around the LEFT turn, which is pretty much the entire track.

So it appears you don't know shit about the sprint cars, at all.

Yep, ok, I'm done with this thread anyway.

I don't know a thing about em, later.



You're actually right about to the RIGHT, must be a beer thing tonight.

I'll admit it, I still say he gunned it and killed the kid.

*shrug*

 

[SSSnail]

Wow, clever. Thanks for your brilliant insight. You're utterly, completely, cluelessly, wrong. Sprint cars are set up to turn left. Period. That's what they do. Tires are staggered to give the car a default left turn bias. If you don't understand even that simple concept you should not be arguing in this thread.

http://www.world-sprintcar-guide.com/sprint-car-tires.html

http://iracing.wikidot.com/components:tire-stagger

http://books.google.com/books?id=Uz...sprint cars tire stagger to turn left&f=false

http://coolchassis.com/coolchassis.pdf




I can tell you that you're completely ignorant about the physics of handling. The wheels are turned to the right to properly manage drift. It's called opposite lock. Look it up and try to understand what it does and how/why it's used. They perhaps you'll be embarrassed enough to delete that drivel. The wheels are turned that way to balance the cars natural bias towards oversteer, that is, the front end wanting to dive left while the rear swings right.

Just stop it dude, you're embarrassing yourself. I quoted your entire post so that other people see how stupid it really is.

Staggered tires to give left turn bias... BWWAAAAAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HhhaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHA,,HHAAHhaa hA ha ha AaHAHa ha HA ha HA HA HA ha HAA h AH HAA ha ahH AH aH AH ha ha AH AH ha hA HAHA.

OK, I am too, done with this thread full of idiots.

Yep, ok, I'm done with this thread anyway.

I don't know a thing about em, later.



You're actually right about to the RIGHT, must be a beer thing tonight.

I'll admit it, I still say he gunned it and killed the kid.

*shrug*

It's OK man, just sleep it off.

 

[MongGrel]

You're going a bit out of your way there too, they are staggered to veer into left turns, even it the front tires are turned right...

You're embarassing yourself now.

Adding a quote about a slight misjudgment in a post does not negate the fact you're wrong.

I do not know where the "I don't know a thing about em" even came from, I grew up in Indiana going to Sprint car tracks.

Winchester, Anderson, etc I forget a few others.

That seemed to emerge from nowhere, unless you have the ability to edit posts.

 

[SSSnail]

You're going a bit out of your way there too, they are staggered to veer into left turns, even it the front tires are turned right...

You're embarassing yourself now.

Adding a quote about a slight misjudgment in a post does not negate the fact you're wrong.

In automotive, when people say "staggered", it's generally referred to the difference in tires width between the front and the rear tires. What you're talking about, is the diameter differential. Just because some idiots used the wrong term, doesn't means you should too.

Diameter differentials are used most in left turning races such as Nascars because the tracks, most of the time, are on an incline. In the case of sprints, you steer with your rear wheels, the left leaning bias has little to do with it.

I do not know where the "I don't know a thing about em" even came from, I grew up in Indiana going to Sprint car tracks.

That came from reading your post, because you posted the blatantly wrong info, one can deduce that you didn't really know what you're talking about.

OK, now I'm really done.

 

[MongGrel]

Have a good nite anyways even if I agree to disagree a bit.

 

[Wreckem]

There will be a civil suit. The question will be comparative negligence, how much fault will be placed on Ward. It wont likely be 51%, so the suit will go forward but anything will be cut substantially because ward bares a lot of responsibility for his own death. If i had to guess 40-50%. Frankly, Id argue he's more than 50% because he'd be alive if he didn't get out of his car and walk towards oncoming traffic.

 

[Humpy]

In automotive, when people say "staggered", it's generally referred to the difference in tires width between the front and the rear tires. What you're talking about, is the diameter differential. Just because some idiots used the wrong term, doesn't means you should too.

Diameter differentials are used most in left turning races such as Nascars because the tracks, most of the time, are on an incline. In the case of sprints, you steer with your rear wheels, the left leaning bias has little to do with it.

:biggrin: How did you come up with all of that?

It's weird to me that people would post "facts" as if it is impossible for anyone else to just use the google to instantly expose the BS.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

We should all be happy Danica doesn't race those cars.

 

[Miramonti]

seems to me a bunch of people are jumping to conclusions based off a 2 second clip.

I'd love to see it. I'm sure there are more than two submittedas well.

 

[kevman]

I don't get why he gunned it. He must have been so damn angry in the moment that he was not thinking clearly and tried to nick the kid. fucking idiot. a normal, rational , logical person would slow down...

 

[LTC8K6]

I saw him back up and run him over again...

 

[darkswordsman17]

Then you dont know anything about sprint cars.

Also people keep bringing up that he's a hot head. Stewart had no reason to be mad. Its possible he didnt even know he wrecked the guy. The wreck was simply a product of racing. They dont have spotters like they do in Nascar. So when Tony came around he likely didnt even know if the kid was mad at him except for the fact he was pointing at him.

I also see a lot of people saying Tony was speeding under caution. These cars were going no more than 35 to 40 mph, and that has been documented. It doesn't take much to kill someone with these machines.

It was an accident plain and simple. An accident that could have been avoided if the driver followed the rules and stayed in his car. It doesn't matter if other people have done it in the past, or if nascar drivers do it. When a Nascar driver does it, he's usually surrounded by officials, and the track's are well lit and wider. I promise you they wont be doing it anymore, and if they do they will be punished severely.

That's total BS, there's no way Stewart didn't know that he put the guy in the wall. He made a deliberate move to do it. That generally pisses people off. From what I'd read Stewart and this guy had already had something between them, they had a history and didn't like each other.

Product of racing my ass. This also could have been avoided if Stewart had not done what he did. I agree Tony had no reason to be mad, but that doesn't matter. He had no reason to run the guy over either, but fact is he did that.

That might have been the speed most were going (although there's noticeable speed discrepancies) but they also accelerate very quickly (1400lb cars with 850hp engines, don't care if its on dirt or not they will hustle) and everything indicates that Stewart accelerated.

OP video
Tony Stewart HITS Sprint Car Driver Kevin Ward Jr (RAW VIDEO) Canandaigua Motorsports Park 8/9/1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_QJdBd0437U


then watch this one - he appears to run over his foot then accellerates
the sound seems to match up better with this video

Edit - link quit working for me - it did have comments disabled for some reason
but here's another with same difference audio-wise to match up when he accelerates
it paints a different picture - like it wasn't as intentional as the original

Still can't explain why he accelerated at all though - if it was after he hit him
except some type of sudden reaction after running him over ?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJWTauPGp9g

Damn that looks worse because that pretty clearly shows that he did accelerate. I thought the one that was going around before was off as the stuff I'd read the witness reports were that he gunned it right near where the collision happened which is why people were saying he did it on purpose.

Definitely looks like Stewart was trying to buzz the guy or maybe throw dirt on him by gunning it right as he went past but he fucked it up and hit him.

That does also answer what I was wondering before, Stewart did pull over and stop very shortly after.

 

[HumblePie]

Now my time to act like a dipshit. Ya see, the thing is, they have this stuff called eyewitness reports (you know when police are investigating, they sometimes like to ask people that were there what happened). I believe they have people saying that Stewart gunned the engine there.

The video doesn't provide enough to say how things went exactly since his car appears onscreen just after the engine revving noise, which looks to me that he accelerated just before the car is onscreen in that clip. You should notice how much his car moves up the track as he struck him, which generally is a sign that the car was steered there. Its a drastic move and is not just from the change in drive from when his tire struck the guy. Watch the video again, at the start Tony's car is fairly low down on the track (bottom half easily) but within a very short length its up almost as high as the guy's wrecked car is, partly because hitting the guy caused the car to shift, but it was already moving up the track, which definitely looks like he was steering at the guy (considering the wrecked car was also up there, which he'd be steering away from). Actually just the fact that the car immediately pitched the way it did indicates to me he was steering it right, as if he was steering away from the guy the car would have smeared him even more, or would have oversteered in the opposite direction once he hit him). As for the sound, it sounds like a quick stab of the throttle. The sound is definitely not emergency personnel, that is how those (sprint) cars sound under throttle. Plus its a quick stab of throttle, which the emergency vehicle you'd hear a sustained sound of the engine as it roared down the track.

The other thing, and again we can't tell from the video but I'd be curious what Stewart's reaction was. He had to know he hit the guy. My first reaction to hitting someone, regardless of it being on a racetrack or on a normal road, would be to pull over and stop ASAP. Maybe he did, or maybe he wanted to be out of the way of emergency responders, so it might not be a big deal.

Another driver that was there said he saw the guy clearly so I don't buy the visibility aspect unless Stewart wasn't paying attention (in which case he should not be on a track).

Dipshit tone? Okay if you want to take a correction to your statement in your previous post as a dipshit tone, then you are being way too defensive. Someone bully you too much as a kid or something?

As for the gunning of the engine, do you know how engines works? If you watch the video, Tony's car does not move of it's line until it makes contact with Ward. Ward directly steps into the path of Tony's vehicle. That is blatantly obvious from the frame by frames. Of which the video DOES show 100%. If you watch it too fast, it can be hard to miss where the impact with Ward is made and when the car swerves off its line. The swerve is cause by direct contact with Ward's body as he is dragged under the tire. Had Ward only made incidental deflection contact, he would have been knocked to the side of the vehicle. Which would have caused injury, but been unlikely to kill him. It was the fact that Ward's body was dragged under the tire that killed him as the whole weight of the vehicle while moving crushed his body.

Now, because the tire drove over his body, it cause a difference in surfaces for the tires. Tires on the left are drive on track, and tires on the right are drive on the wards body. This difference of surfaces is going to cause a difference in friction for the tires. Which is going to cause two different things to happen. It will cause the tires which have lost friction due to being in contact with wards body to spin out. The spin out on the right side means that the tires there are exerting less force to the ground and thus the tires on the left are going to power the car to the right. Which is what is viewed easily on the video. Ward's body makes the car swerve to the right.

The second thing that Ward's body does with that loss of friction is going to cause the engine to try to compensate for the loss of friction to the tires. It will make the engine sound like it is being "gunned" because of the lack of drag the tires would normally be putting upon the axle to the engine.

At no point does Tony swerve to make direct contact with Ward. He maintains his line in the track all the way up until the point of contact is made with Ward's body. That is clearly visible in a frame by frame replay of the incident. That is evidence enough to prove that Tony did not take any actions which could be construed as criminally culpable in Ward's death. It is clear that Ward was the one to make the mistake by walking directly into the path of Tony's vehicle.

Even if Tony did put more acceleration into the vehicle, the argument his lawyer would make is that he was trying to speed up past Ward who looked to be trying to get directly in front of his vehicle. That he couldn't stop nor make a correctional swerve in time. Which left his only recourse as being to speed up past Ward for Ward's own safety as he was coming directly in front of his vehicle. Again, all the videos show that Tony did not move off the line his vehicle was making in the track until full contact was made with Ward's body.


*EDIT* actually rewatching the video several times for the "gunning" sound you hear I figured it out. First off, the engine gunning sound comes well before Tony's vehicle is in frame or near Ward. You actually hear it coming from the LEFT of the camera where Tony's vehicle is on the right. The blue vehicle that goes around Ward is seen to actually accelerate AFTER passing ward. Just watch it again. The gunning engine noise comes from the blue vehicle that passed ward well before Tony's vehicle is in frame in the video. There is no other gunning engine noise prior to contact from Tony's car and Ward's body.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

I saw him back up and run him over again...

BUT, did you hear the beeper go off that warns people he is backing up?

 

[waggy]

There will be a civil suit. The question will be comparative negligence, how much fault will be placed on Ward. It wont likely be 51%, so the suit will go forward but anything will be cut substantially because ward bares a lot of responsibility for his own death. If i had to guess 40-50%. Frankly, Id argue he's more than 50% because he'd be alive if he didn't get out of his car and walk towards oncoming traffic.

i would argue ward is 99.9999999% at fault. if he didn't get out of the fucking car he would still be alive. If he didn't get into the pathway of oncoming racers (notice one guy had to swerve to miss him) he would still be alive.

 

[LTC8K6]

BUT, did you hear the beeper go off that warns people he is backing up?

It was found unplugged...

 

[darkswordsman17]

i would argue ward is 99.9999999% at fault. if he didn't get out of the fucking car he would still be alive. If he didn't get into the pathway of oncoming racers (notice one guy had to swerve to miss him) he would still be alive.

That still doesn't absolve Stewart's actions.

It didn't look to me that the other vehicle "swerved", but it did noticeably slow down and move down the track, clearly trying to avoid the guy, and then Stewart did the complete opposite of that. He moved up the track towards the guy and accelerated.

There's no reason whatsoever that Stewart should have accelerated or moved up the track. The car in front slowed, there was a guy on the track and a wrecked car higher up the track. He should have moved down the track while maintaining his speed or slowing down. He's a very experienced driver and would have known that (it seriously is every bit as much of "standard operating procedure on a track" as the guy not getting out of his car).

 

[Humpy]

*EDIT* actually rewatching the video several times for the "gunning" sound you hear I figured it out. First off, the engine gunning sound comes well before Tony's vehicle is in frame or near Ward. You actually hear it coming from the LEFT of the camera where Tony's vehicle is on the right. The blue vehicle that goes around Ward is seen to actually accelerate AFTER passing ward. Just watch it again. The gunning engine noise comes from the blue vehicle that passed ward well before Tony's vehicle is in frame in the video. There is no other gunning engine noise prior to contact from Tony's car and Ward's body.

You figured it out?

Are you certain that the audio is completely in sync with the video? How did you confirm that the sounds you hear from the left actually originated from the left? How did you eliminate the possibility that the engine noise came from any of the other vehicles on the track?