Ah, I know them. They sit in a special bit of old America that is dissapearing. The series they race in - if you race in any pro series - you're no long able to race in this series. They work on their own cars, and know whats it like when they tear stuff up. Yes they ram cars under yellow, but its between a select few families, and not into any poor "up and comer". They and their family may have built the car or engine that is racing beside them.

The kids in the vids that were linked driving late models - are a totally different story, and are very destructive, with no thought to the consequences. They think they are the next great big thing, fortunately, the pro-race teams know the truth. With a big enough check, they can get into the pro level, but its millions/year to join the top three series of NASCAR without a sponsor, so that typically doesn't happen.

But Tony's car had a misfire. You can see the exhaust smoke skip a cylinder in the video. Everybody knows those cheapa zz Rockwell sprint car sound analyzer are no good. Just take an empty Busch beer can and hold it up to your ear. You can hear DW sayin' "boogity boogity boogity".

We are, especially with the more powerful cars. I don't see rooster tails, but there is a shower of dust when the cars come by and the smart money wears hats and goggles.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1407901724.jpg

Agree to disagree. It was clear as can be, and the results support the obvious.

Other than knowing Jason is just a really nice guy, I just learned more about him and his family's operation than I knew...Thanks! Naw, they're not "local legends" like the Petty's (I went to a b-ball camp that Kyle attended too when I was 12 yo....another SUPER nice guy imo) but they "are" local legends when folks like my parents know the "family name".

BTW guys...I read on the Internet ('cause I'm typing it now) that TS actually runs NGKs on the left side and Bosch plugs on the right side...gives him a distinctive sound that can be detected by astute folks LIKE ME from 1 mile away....it's gotta be true I'm tellin' ya....I wouldn't fib...HONEST :D

Sprint cars turn with the throttle. And you don't know what you are talking about.

I don't think anyone really clicked on the post without knowing who Tony Stewart is. He isn't that famous, but anyone familiar with pop culture recognize the name. I was poking fun at Denis for first thinking he was a chef. Denis is usually more hip than that. it wasn't the best Star Trek franchise ever, but it was fun and I'm sure plenty of people remember him fondly. I was sorry to hear about his accident.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1407939452.jpg

Obviously sprint cars use throttle to turn at speed.
But is it right to imply they "must" turn with throttle, especially when talking about something that happened at low speed?

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/KFGtphAMf6g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Also, anyone else shocked by the visibility in the video above (GP at eye-level).
Everyone's been saying these guys have to drive, essentially, by braille.
Confusing...

I read somewhere else that had a nice annotated video showing that Ward jumped and grabbed the wing of TS's car. I also found the below video on Rennlist from Monday where I kind of thought the same thing. It should be pretty easy to tell from handprints on the wing of that was the case.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/U5F8pP75vwc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>



<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1XvhrPu64Co" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I'm wondering what Gene Haas is thinking. The F1 community doesn't want the NASCAR mentality. And if they did, I doubt the fans would.

Anyhow, the Stewart-Haas roster may know how to drive but all are knuckleheads fighting among themselves and others on track. That Ward kid probably idolized these drivers and permitting hot-headed antics on track IS THE PROBLEM. The only way to solve it is a permanent BAN of these problematic drivers.

The thousands of vid clips between just the four hot-heads of the Stewart-Haas drivers (Tony Stewart, Danica Patrick, Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick) is ridiculous.

That doesn't look eye level to me, and it is forward of the screen.

This one is slightly above eye level:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfdNnyMuEMw

This looks pretty close to eye level, but offset to the right. The camera probably sees more to the right of the car than the driver can.:

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/...gbqv5vcgel.png

I knew who he was that day because he was all over the news. I could not have told you who he was the day before.

Fair enough.

It's too bad that you feel inferior to others. And yes, I noticed that you do not live in the south.

Remember the big brewhau on Fox News when they claimed that the NYT did not cover Dale Earnhart's death? I did know who he was, FWIW. It was in fact on the front page the next day, with a picture of the crash. They assumed that none of their listeners would try to confirm the charge with a couple mouse clicks because it played so perfectly into the whole "liberal elite out of touch with good old Americans" crock of schit they pedal everyday of the year. And they were right. None of their listeners fact-check anything, they just buy whatever soap they're hawking on the commercials and vote for the ass rags that Fox tells them to.

And post their message on countless internet chat boards. :rolleyes:

The arrogance is claiming that this schmuck is a "great man" when he appears to be anything but and assuming that average Americans watch or care about that stupid "sport".

I made my first posts without watching any footage. I don't like people making money off of death so refrained from clicking things. After some comments by someone, I did click and embedded video, and since it didn't post any adds, I watched it, and pulled frames into other software to measure things.

It is highly likely that Stewart saw Ward was out of the car. However, I doubt Stewart would of seen anything to enable him to dodge Ward.

The lights - are from the grandstands - behind the camera - we see Ward better than the people on the track do(IE, full moon) The people on the track, see a crescent moon, say, 1/4 moon or whatever they call it. As he's facing tony, and perpendicular to the lights, Tony would mostly see an outline of just his left side. Ward would dissapear completely in the shadow of the #45, and appear again with almost no time to react to anything Ward did after coming back into the light.

Tony enters the frame sliding quite a bit sideways with no acceleration - this means he got on the brakes suddenly.(First, car gets pulled to the right as the bigger tire has more braking force, then, the bigger tire looses traction, the inner rear tire rotates the car left, and the back end slides out.) Tony enters the frame as someone that got DEEP on the brakes in a hurry prior to entering the camera frame. To me, this indicates he saw Ward before the #45 put Ward in shadow, or Tony just got the message of the caution*(see note 1).

At this point, Ward has stopped, the #45 almost wiped out Ward from just how close they came. From Tony's perspective - if he follows the #45's path, he'll miss Ward. Problem is, Ward lurches farther, and then either trips, or jumps into Tony's path. The time to react vs ability to actually dodge Ward is extremely slim from this point on. If Ward did try to jump on Tony's car, or punch Tony, or just tripped, there is NO way Tony could react for this*(see note 2).

If Ward tripped, he likely would of tried to push himself back upright off of Tony's car. If Ward wanted to get physical, then this would also explain the sudden forwards momentum right as Tony gets up to Ward. Tony's car did not deviate up the track beyond how it enters the camera frame until after hitting Ward. Ward deviates into Tony's car.

Could I, in Tony's place, have been able to read the situation and dodge Ward's leap into my path? I doubt it. Crazy takes you unexpected.


*Note 1
We don't know when exactly race control would of gone to yellow. It takes time for race control to notice, and key the one way microphone to the drivers. With 15 second laptimes, the cars barely have time to group up/slowdown by the time they come onto a wreck that just happened. Typically, further collisions occur if cars are bunched up racing for position at this time.

*Note 2
This happened in a corner, a winged sprint car's suspension is setup for high suspension loads from a combination of downforce and track banking. A "soft" suspension at speed is rendered hard as rocks at lower speeds. This means that at reduced speeds, the driver's vision is impaired from extreme vibration of getting battered extra. This also means the car's handling is greatly impaired, any bump in the track will help launch the car in the air longer than when at race speed, as the downforce and banking force would normally plant it back again sooner. Steering, with an overstiff rear suspension will result in the car rotating more than it can grip. While lower speeds give more reaction time, the car's handling is also impaired.

I would furthermore like to note, that when Tony, or Danica are shown gesturing at a passing driver, that the safety vehicles have already arrived, and that the car's had time to group up, and come under control. When Tony threw his Helmet at Matt K, he did not immediately exit his car, and walk up the track to find Matt. Instead, he got out with the safety personal, and before getting in the ambulence that arrived, Matt K. conveniently drove by in the pit lane.

I was actually watching the Road America IMSA Tudor (United SportsCar Championship) race on Fox1 and it was streaming on the news feed footer that "Breaking news: Tony Stewart kills another driver during sprint car race" This sounded strange to me, so I googled to get a better idea of what the hell the news was talking about! Then I was gonna post it on Pelican and saw that someone else already started a thread.

A few things, the video skipdup posted shows the car dog tracking at slow speeds requiring some counter steer even in the corners and the other thing to remember is the driver has less visibility than the camera peripherally with a full face helmet on.

That said, I believe Tony saw the kid late (just as the driver before him did a split second before they almost ran over the kid) but the kid came further down yet making what happened inevitable. The one video you can clearly see the back end kick away from the kid.

As others have said, these cars do not have a transmission as we think of them. They are in gear or they are not and there is no clutch. They are geared to run over 100 mph in that one gear so idle speeds are pretty high. Pick the gear in your high strung car that will go 110mph and see how it does at low speed. How fast do you have to go to keep it running? My Cobra with the 2.72 rear end would idle at 18mph in FIRST gear at 1200rpm. Now put that in third where it would run 115mph and you are looking at nearly 40mph.

I think it was a stupid accident.

It's been reported and seems generally accepted the car was doing 35 - 40 mph.
From personal experience, 40 mph, after being in race conditions, feels like (literally) 5 mph, at least to me. With the heightened senses, it's hard to miss much at that speed - again, from my perspective (for whatever that's worth).

Too bad TS either wasn't running or hasn't released GoPro footage. I think that would answer all questions. Heck, any other camera view might help (though, I don't want to watch that poor kid die any more times).

I'm with you. They were under yellow and had been for some time.

A pro driver under caution is going to have his head on a swivel looking for obstructions.

I won't speculate as to what he saw or didn't see, or if it was avoidable from TS's perspective, but all this talk about reaction time and visibility is a red herring.

One thing is for sure. That kid should have never done what he did.

It is too bad that the poor kid didn't see what was about to happen.
This was a tragic end to inexperience.

There were so many alternate possibilities that were dependent on his decisions.
It started with the pass and his inability to judge where Tony's car was going after the apex.
Tony's wheels were ahead and his trajectory was towards the wall, the kid had already been passed but didn't let that fact go. Instead he waited until he ran out of room.

It is like the novice road racer trying an inside pass from too far away and T boning the leader at the apex.

He still couldn't let it go. Every decision that he made after that point was also terrible and tragic.

I wish there was a way to infuse experience into the young without them having to touch the stove to find out for themselves.

I hope Tony Stewart can eventually let this go.
I hope the boy's parents can eventually recover from this
i would hate to see anyone connect end up like Robin Williams.

I hate that this thread even has to exist.:(

I counted twelve cars making contact under yellow in this clip. Should they all be penalized for wrecking while the yellow is out?

The yellow came out seven seconds after the first wreck in this clip. Any collision in the first seven seconds is ok, any collision after those seven seconds should be a penalty then?

2009 NASCAR Kyle Busch causes big wreck at New Hampshire Motor Speedway - YouTube

There is an extremely chaotic time when a caution is called that is extremely unsafe. To think that this incident happened "under yellow" in conventional road racing circumstances of coming back around behind a pace car two minutes later in an orderly fashion is absurd.

Given a 7-10 second delay to yellow at a 15-17 second track, and a 2-3 second delay to hear the caution and process to slow down, Tony, who would not of known Ward spun and put a tire down, would be on the front straight setting up his turn by the time the caution comes up. Since you tend to look left going in - the driver's in front of tony would see the stopped car, and whoah it up, as they did indeed do, and as did Tony, however, this doesn't leave much room or time to slow down and move to the bottom of the track. When you expect the guy behind you(even if he isn't there) to run into you, you take a little extra time to slow down as well.

I think some here fail to understand the short time frame of a track like this, from when someone wrecks behind you, to when you come up on them again.

Just some food for thought here. This is my last post until the police close their case or receive new evidence.

Even at Watkins Glen this past weekend there was a wreck under caution. The leaders cross start/finish and the wreck happened in the back by pit in. They pulled the yellow and the pace car came out and almost got hit with the full field bearing down on it Then some more back of the back rounded 1 and hit the turn 2 flag stand.



Remember, this whole event lasted 30 seconds. From wreck to dead in 30 seconds.

Bad things can happen under yellow, even if the driver is inside the car.

In another thread I was flabbergasted when after an ALMS crash video, others criticized the spectators and camera man for not jumping in and helping the driver. The professional helpers are paid for that, and they know the risk, as well as when to wait for the action to settle down.

Then again even the pros make mistakes. This video isn't as bad, but it makes the point
(Skip the intro and fast forward to 1 minute in)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eGumLqAihI

How well do you see to the right? Ie; the side that Ward was on.
At night.

The Porsche Owners Club racing program drills one rule into students from the point you start DE's all the way through the Cup racing schools..."NEVER GET OUT OF YOUR CAR ON A LIVE TRACK UNLESS IT'S ON FIRE!". That rule includes full course yellow.

We may never know the full story in this case, but one thing is for certain...The kid should have waited for the pits to put his red mist to Stewart. The situation would have been avoided regardless of Stewart's innocence or ill intent.

From: Yes, Tony Stewart did run over a fellow driver, but understand the entire situation : Dunn County News


There is more to the article. Good read.

And Robin Miller chimes in:

Latest Stories - MILLER: Tony Stewart and the tragedy at Canandaigua

Another good read.

Nailed it.

He did nail it.

Quote "--- you can't help but wonder what might have happened if the kid had waited until after the race to confront Stewart.--- Stewart might have put his arm around Ward and given him a couple grand to fix the car because that's the way he can be at times" End Quote

I've been been cup racing Porsches on and off for 20 years. I've been both the aggressor and defender of track incidents many times...But always in the pits. I had one guy laugh at me and tell me to come back in exactly one hour when the "red mist" faded. He said if I was still mad in an hour, he'd be glad to yell back at me. He was right and we're friends now.

I'm truly sorry for Ward and his family, but all this judgment on Stewart, with VERY little on why somebody got out of his car on a hot track to fight a moving racecar...I don't get it.

The more I read, the more it seems getting out of the car and acting like a fool is common at these kinds of events. Part of the deal, if you will.
So if that's true, if it's in fact common, is it really so astonishing someone did it?

Ha! That's awesome!

Who are you quoting? Who are these mysterious "friends" of Stewart? How can anyone say that the throttle blip was Stewart, when the video is from a crappy cell phone camera 100 yards away, with ~20 other cars on the track? How do you "squirt" hard packed, rubbered in clay?

Watch the first 6 seconds of the original video again. Are you disputing the cars are spraying dirt/etc?

I was quoting the last article linked (the Robin Miller article). I should have clarified that.

Interesting that the driver of car #19 says he could see Ward "clear as day" when he passed him.
Driver on Tony Stewart Crash That Killed Kevin Ward: 'It Didn't Seem Real' - NBC News

ROFL!

wait... you're serious. :eek:

From the NBC link above...

My prediction is that there will be no criminal charges, unless Tony had a camera in his car, which will certainly show him hit the throttle and turn the wheel, but there will be a civil suit that results in a very large undisclosed settlement so the whole thing will go away. Tony will have to live with his stupid move for the rest of his life.

You know how I know you have read nothing in this thread? Or read anything posted on the topic by anyone who actually races sprint cars?

Short wheelbase, locked rear axle, 4 different size tires. You steer with the throttle as much as with the steering wheel.

Stewart's car is on the left, yeah, there is a little dust from the racing surface, when a car is at a 100+ MPH drift, but hardly a "squirt". Ward's car is on the right, almost off the racing surface, on the less packed "cushion", and yeah, once you are off the racing line they will throw some dirt.

So, if Ward had stayed up by his car, and Stewart had a reason to be mad (which based on the video he did not), and had Ward stayed up by the edge of the track, and Stewart threw it sideways well in advance of getting to him, he might have "squirted" him with dirt.:rolleyes:

A lot of drivers are morons evidently, and the various sanctioning bodies are morons for allowing it to happen long enough it has become part of the culture.

Ya think?

and lots of idiots on the internet.

Yet he still had to take evasive action to avoid him, and he didn't have another car right in front of him, like Stewart did. Nobody else hit him because he hadn't charged in front of any other cars.

Certainly:rolleyes: The police say they have another video, but have not made it public.

Probably. Lack of actual evidence fault has never stopped Fixed it for you.