Circle track...

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Ahhh, the mall cop stopped the fight?

Backed when I worked at the Research Triangle fresh out of college, it had the highest concentration of advanced degrees of anywhere in the world (since surpassed by the Silicon Valley)...bunch of knuckle draggin' idjuts :D. Oh yeah...and the wimins....as I was in my last year of college, I "vaguely" remember this "hottie freshman"....(friend of a friend's g/f)....Sandy something...went out to Speeder's neck of the woods and did OK for herself imho. Oh yeah...it just came to me...Sandra Bullock :p.

I recently spent a day at Tony's house for a cookout, fishing, bowling etc. I was not a big fan of Nascar, and only met Tony because he grew up in Rushville when he was in midgets, sprints, down the street. Anyway, all day long I never got any impression of a bad attitude, pissed off guy. He was the best host and really made us feel like family the entire day. This is a trajedy in all ways. I really think he was trying to scare the young driver, NEVER should have got out of his car. Those cars are very powerful and viewed up close, they look hard to drive. I hope some better rules come out from this. ( sidenote: when I say "house", it was more of the size of a Bass Pro Shop, because they desinged it)

I personally owe you an apology for what? I've never heard anyone discussing a NASCAR race in my life. Or NASCAR in general, that I can remember.

You are correct that I do not know anyone at the space center or have many acquaintances in engineering in general. I was on the other side of the university.

There is certainly no reason to take my Nascar remark personally. No apology is forthcoming. :)

Reminds me of this: "So, Bubba J, what ya all doing on Saturdays?" "Watching NASCAR and drinkin´beer".

You're a VERY sharp guy Denis...just travelling a different "path" than I would choose or had an apptitude for. Have you ever even been to NC...the "heart" of Nascar origins? This state just might surprise ya btw....many folks with more money than god come from CA to "our finest" for medical care for example. I bet your dad doesn't underestimate those dumbasses from Duke's law school either. Have you ever had the pleasure of talking with Al Reed? I know he's EXTREMELY hard to reach on the phone....one of the reasons is he's a "talker" when you do get him...I remember one call where we spent probably 20 minutes talking Nascar after he noticed my NC location as he had been to the Fontana race the week before. You live in a "world" that is totally alien to me...though I've visited CA many times....love it (to visit), I wouldn't live there for anything...just not my "thang" and I talk funny :p. Different strokes man....

ps: I'll wager that one of the finest road coarses in this country is just an hour from from me....I'm not a "racer", but I'd bet VIR ranks up there with any of the CA tracks I hear about on Pelican. And one of those Nascar idiots lives within a few miles of me...on his "spread" he has built his own private track where by invitation only "the boyz" mix it up...totally out of the limelight and just for fun...'cause they are "racers". And being a car guy like you are....I'll bet you'd drool over visiting one of their shops (chock full of top notch engineers btw) and seeing what goes on behind the "Na$car $how". You don't "get" Nascar...I don't "get" Hollywood....again, different strokes ;)

Markus, I could teach you to "speel" y'all in just one sentence, but I'm sure I could never teach you to pronounce it properly like I do :D

I am pretty sure that is a fair assumption. :D

That's the problem with you Cali types......

Hey, I wasn't trying to start a pissing match. I was just being a smartass and having a little fun. And don't ever, ever visit the South, there are enough of you here already.

PS: That was just another lame joke. We would love to have you. I culd show you my banjo.SmileWavy

Show me your banjo?

Sounds fluffy enough! :D

That is how I see it. It looks like the guy was trying to commit suicide by other driver.

I am no Tony Steward fan and I would knot know him if we were in the same room. 99.9% of this is on the guy that got out of his car and ONTO the track.

After seeing the replay of what happened several times now and hearing drivers discribe what it takes to drive these cars, I'm changing my position on this. It is about 95% Ward's fault.

I also don't see why Ward got all p'd off in the first place.

What would be the ultimate in ****ty irony is if the young guy was trying to be "Tony Stewart" to Tony Stewart. Emulate what TS has done many a time. Nothing like getting your "street cred" with your home crowd like sticking it to the ringer pro who dropped in.

:(

There was a local track near me that had a big 100 lap race with a lot of "names"..mostly from the trucks series. Seemed that the regulars were gunning for them and I don't think any of them finished.

Phonetically it's y-awwwwwllll

Perhaps this is good cause for TS to maintain a sportsman like reputation going forward. Especially given the dangerous nature of motorpsorts. Likely if the first car had hit Ward or if any other local had hit Ward (we'll never know), this conversation would have stopped with it being Ward's fault, 100%! But Stewart brings with him the shadow of "intimidator-like" behavior. And so the world (or those that care) pause to question and cast doubt. If what others say is true about this type of "WWF behavior" being encouraged (wink-wink-knod-knod, don't ask, don't tell) or boosted for the fans, then that is really scary!!!

Captain Obvious, signing off!

To me it looks like Tony turns left and blips the throttle to miss Mr. Ward, but the right rear tire catches him and turns the car back to the right. As for criminal charges, TS can claim he didn't see him til the last sec then tried to avoid him using the throttle to help turn the car. Sad, but completely avoidable situation.

Thanks!

no, ward should not have gotten out and gone down to the inside or middle of the track. do drivers do it? yes. but that still does not mean he deserves to get killed.
as the saying goes, whatch the fights on the track then whatch them in the pits.

stop the video right when ward is at the rear of the race car. the car is already sideways and TS has already corrected the front wheels, as if to intentionally try to "dust" ward. also look at wards position when TS hits him, he has not moved down any further since the blue car passed.
TS has way too much experience to not have seen him.

my opion? TS was not going to take any lip from some "nobody" and TS was going to cover him with dirt.

i think TS will see an involuntary manslaughter charge, no time but lots of $$$$

i had to laugh at the pic someone posted asking if you could see the driver. no, but then look at the angle of the shot. could it have been any higher?

It's roundy-round racing.
It could have been all staged but poorly executed.

While everyone has an opinion and there is nothing wrong with that, most are drawn from "speculation" regarding TS's intent or an assumption of what it's like to sit in and drive one of these cars.
Unless one has at least some experience driving this type of car with an understanding of the driver sight lines as well as the handling and braking properties, these opinions and conclusions are, at the least, troublesome....
Whatever happened to fact based critical thinking?
To be more to the point, unless your a$$ has been in one of these cars these "opinions" are nothing more than baseless conjecture.
Flame away!

Here is a little better perspective - from the driver's seat. Note that the camera is mounted on the left side of his helmet, providing a somewhat better view past the right hand endplane on the wing than the driver himself enjoys. Put a guy in a black suit, pretty much in the dark, somewhere out past that endplane. Not hard to argue there was no way Stewart saw him.

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^^
Point is taken.
Cool video. Thanks!

thats in full race speed.

TS was going SLOW and going STRAIGHT.

The race was at NIGHT. So are so wrong on this issue. :rolleyes:

say TS did not see him. why would he accelerate just before he gets to a wreck? you can see the car is already sideways when he hits ward. WHY?

the body may have caused the car to change direction, but look how far up the track TS is AFTER he passes wards car.

you know, i just gave my opinion and prediction of the outcome. you guys gonna argue with EVERYONE that does not agree with YOUR point of view?

If you're going to have those standards, then 99% of the interwebs traffic will cease to exist.

I suspect the percentage of fault will probably be debated, using all the factors involved:
-Driving environment, point in race(fatigue), and TS's view of a pedestrian dressed in black.
-TS actions in following a driver in the center of the track.
-Track flag signaling(or lack of).
-The League's enabling of fistfights.
-Wards actions by getting out and walking into traffic

In the end it should boil down to 0-10% culpability during those last half-seconds:
-Did he even blip the throttle?
-Did he do it intentionally to avoid, to show off and scare/spray, or to purposely run Ward over?

Holy cow! That inside wheel seems to only loosely be tied to the steering wheel. It moves waaay more than the steering inputs.

Hmmm....Good Point. I retract my desire for deductive reasoning in problem solving and decision making.:D

I love the south, what I've seen of it anyways. Was just with someone from Nashville last night. I realize now that I might have besmirched an entire region of the country with my remark and for that I apologize, I'm just being candid when I say that I've never heard anyone talking about NASCAR at a BBQ or anywhere else in MN. or SoCal. And believe me, I've hung out with plenty of guys who are not exactly rocket scientists. ;)

I don't "get" NASCAR, it bores the living crap out of me. I watch one lap on a big screen and my mind goes numb. I don't watch TV at all unless it's on somewhere where I am, oddly enough NASCAR was on Sat. am on the TV on the wall at a friend's house where I was having breakfast. I don't think she was even aware of it, one of many people who just has a TV going in the background in the living room. I think it was qualifying or something, looked like interviewing drivers while cars whizzed by in the BG.

I'll stand by my remark that Tony Stewart is not well-known to the average person in wide swaths of the country. I'm a pretty major gearhead and I barely know who he is. I guess I've heard his name. When it comes to fame, it's all about whether the random person on the street has heard of him. Lot's of people are famous in their own little world, be it poker playing, hula hoop, Porsche parts, etc..

Approach anyone under 80 years old on any street in America. "Ever heard of Rod Stewart?" Yes. "How about Tony Stewart?" The guy on the cooking show? Sounds familiar. :)

He seems like anything but a great man to me, though I've not really heard of him.

OK, sorry I upset you. I shouldn't have added the "roll-my-eyes" icon.

But these car are steered by the throttle as much as the steeringwheel.

1. I don't really see from the video that TS did anything wrong to send the kid into the wall.
2. TS was past him when hit the wall. So TS may not have even known there was a problem until he came back around on the next lap.
3. Why would TS hit the kid? TS didn't even know the kid was in the wall.
4. Dark track, dark suit, can't see out of these cars, not ever thinking there would be a driver standing in the middle of the track.
5. Helmet tare off's greatly reduce vision at low speed. Ask any drive drive that uses them.

TS is getting blamed because he is the big star coming into the small town track and his past record of anger on track. The media is spinning this up. Don't buy into the media hype on it.

What next, Mister, rules in a knife fight?

Slim, sober and smart is no way to go through life, Son :D

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Ha ha! There are endless southern US dialects. From southern Ohio, where my family came from, it would be:
"So, Bubba J, what ya all doing on Saturdays?"
"Me and mom and them is watching NASCAR and drinkin´beer. Whach yuns up to?"

Most Southerns know that NASCAR races are on SUNDAY! ;)

I think the latter is more important than the former. Those of us who are at least a little familiar with Stewart wouldn't put it past him to blip the throttle going by and scare the guy or spray him with dirt. Of course, just because we can imagine or speculate that doesn't make it fact. The only person that's ever going to know his true intent is Stewart, and he's going to have to live with that for the rest of his life. Somebody already summed it up on the first page better than I ever could; there were two men there that made a bad choice. Unfortunately for both, its the biggest mistake of their lives and irreversible. Very sad.

But TS was not an aggressor here and no one can prove he had any anger at all toward Ward. Why would he be angered at Ward enough to try to spray him with dirt or hit him? There is no motive for TS to be angered a Ward. Strange how people keep bring up TS's "anger".

TS had just put the kid into the wall.

There's a reason the kid was so angry...