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Nascar driver Tony Stewart will not race Sunday after killing racer in sprint
Nascar driver Tony Stewart hits and kills fellow sprint-car racer
(35 minutes later)
The three-time Nascar champion Tony Stewart will not race on Sunday, his team confirmed, after he struck and killed a sprint car driver who had climbed from his car and was on the darkened dirt track trying to confront Stewart during a race in upstate New York on Saturday night.
The champion Nascar driver Tony Stewart struck and killed a fellow sprint car competitor in a horrific accident on Saturday night that left spectators shocked and quickly led to the event being cancelled.
Kevin Ward Jr had crashed following contact with Stewart one lap earlier and got out of his car as it was stopped along the fence at Canandaigua Motorsports Park. Video of the incident showed Ward walking from his crashed car on to the racing surface as cars circled by – as he gestured at Stewart’s passing car, he was struck.
Stewart’s vehicle smashed into a young rival, Kevin Ward, as he walked out on to the track after their cars had collided on a bend at the Canandaigua Motorsports Park, near Rochester in upstate New York. Ward, 20, was thrown up to 50ft by the impact, according to eyewitness accounts. He was dead on arrival at the local hospital.
Authorities questioned Stewart but said no criminal charges were imminent. Stewart traveled to Watkins Glen International following the incident and initially planned to race for his Stewart-Haas Racing team in Sunday’s Nascar event.
Stewart, a 43-year-old three-time winner of Nascar’s premier event, the Sprint Cup Series, was unhurt.
Ontario County Sheriff Philip Povero said Stewart was “visibly shaken” and had been co-operative in the investigation. Authorities were asking spectators and others to turn over any video of the crash.
Some spectators said that Stewart appeared to aim for Ward, after the young driver strode across the track apparently to confront him over their crash. But the sheriff of Ontario County, Philip Povero, said the investigation into the incident was not criminal and that Stewart was “fully cooperative” and appeared to be “very upset” over what had happened.
“This is right now being investigated as an on-track crash and I don’t want to infer that there are criminal charges pending,” Povero said. “When the investigation is completed, we will sit down with the district attorney and review it. But I want to make it very clear: there are no criminal charges pending at this time.”
“He was visibly shaken by this accident,” Povero said.
Nascar said it would not prevent Stewart from racing Sunday. His team initially appeared to be trying to focus on the track, but later issued a statement saying he would not race.
A graphic video, filmed by a spectator, was posted to YouTube. It was taken down soon afterwards.
Stewart had been scheduled to start 13th on Sunday at Watkins Glen, one of just five remaining races for him to either score a win or move inside the top 16 in points to grab a valuable spot in Nascar’s Chase.
Stewart and Ward’s cars hit each other as they roared around a bend during the dirt-track race. Stewart was able to continue driving, while Ward’s vehicle was shunted to the side of the track. Spectators saw Ward climb, apparently unhurt, from his car and, as Stewart came around for the next lap, walk across the track. Witnesses said Stewart’s car appeared to go into a “fishtail” skid before hitting Ward.
A witness to the Saturday night incident said it appeared Ward was trying to confront Stewart, the three-time Nascar Sprint Cup Champion. The video showed Ward standing to the right of Stewart’s familiar No14 car, which seemed to kick out from the rear and hit him.
“They went into turn two and someone spun out and the guy, he got out of his car and then Tony Stewart came back around and he just fishtailed and just hit the guy. The guy rolled over on the ground,” one eyewitness told a local TV station, CBS 5.
Moments earlier, Ward and Stewart were racing side-by-side for position as they exited a turn. Ward was on the outside when Stewart, on the bottom, seemed to slide toward Ward’s car and crowd him toward the wall. The rear tire of Stewart’s car appeared to clip the front tire of Ward’s car, and Ward spun into the fence.
Stills from the posted YouTube video showed Ward in his helmet and fire-retardant suit striding across the track and pointing in the direction of other cars coming around the bend towards him.
Povero said Ward, who was wearing a black firesuit and black helmet, had walked into the racing area and one car swerved to avoid him before he was struck by Stewart.
Sheriff Povero said Stewart’s car was behind another as Ward stepped across the track. “The first car swerved to avoid the driver,” he said.
“The next thing I could see, I didn’t see [the other driver] anymore,” witness Michael Messerly said. “It just seemed like he was suddenly gone.”
Another eyewitness said it appeared Ward was heading out to confront Stewart. “The next thing, I didn’t see [the other driver] anymore. It just seemed he was suddenly gone,” said spectator Michael Messerly.
A spokesman for Stewart’s racing team called Ward’s death a “tragic accident”.
Povero said Stewart was questioned then released. The champion driver initially announced that he would compete in a Nascar race at Watkins Glen, also in New York, within 24 hours. This prompted complaints on social media; on Sunday morning his team, Stewart-Hass racing, released a statement saying he would not compete.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends,” the spokesman said in a statement. “We’re still attempting to sort through all the details.”
A spokesman for Stewart-Haas called Ward’s death a tragic accident.
The dirt track, about 30 miles southeast of Rochester, canceled the remainder of the race and later posted a message on its Facebook page encouraging fans to “pray for the entire racing community of fans, drivers, and families”.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends. We’re still attempting to sort through the details,” said the spokesman.
Ward’s website said he began racing go-karts in 1998 at the age of 4, but didn’t start driving sprint cars until 2010. The 20-year-old from Port Leyden, New York, was Empire Super Sprint rookie of the year in 2012 and this year was his fifth season racing the Empire Super Sprints.
Ward’s personal website said he began racing go-karts in 1998 when he was just 4 years old and he began driving sprint cars in 2010. Ward, from Port Leyden, New York, was Empire Super Spring rookie of the year in 2012.
Stewart often competes in extracurricular events. The multimillionaire is known to participate in races with purses worth less than $3,000 and drive alongside drivers of varying ages and talent levels.
Stewart was involved in another incident at the Canandaigua track in 2013, when he admitted he had triggered a 15-car crash in which driver Alysha Ruggles broke her back.
The accident came almost exactly a year after Stewart suffered a compound fracture to his right leg in a sprint car race in Iowa. The injury cost him the second half of the Nascar season. Stewart only returned to sprint track racing last month, and won in his return, at Tri-City Motor Speedway in Michigan.
Stewart suffered a compound fracture to his right leg in a race in Iowa last year. He did not return to racing until he began preparing in February for Nascar’s season-opening Daytona 500 race.
But the broken leg cost him the entire second-half of last season and sidelined him during Nascar’s important Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Stewart wasn’t cleared to get back in a race car until February, the day the track opened for preparations for Nascar’s season-opening Daytona 500 began.
The Stewart-Haas driving organisation features four drivers including the well-known female driver Danica Patrick, who is among the sport’s top 10 earners with income last year totalling $13.5m, according to Forbes. Nascar, (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing), attracts almost six million television viewers for every major race. Fox and NBC paid a total of $8.2bn last year for a new 10-year deal to televise it.
“Everybody has hobbies. Everybody has stuff they like to do when they have downtime, and that’s just what it is for me,” he said last month following his return to sprint car racing. “That’s what I like to do when I have extra time. I don’t think there is anything wrong with doing it. I feel like there are a lot of other things I could be doing that are a lot more dangerous and a lot bigger waste of time with my time off do than doing that.”
The Stewart-Haas organisation is worth $148m in earnings and endorsements, according to Forbes.
Stewart was a spectator at the Knoxville Nationals in Iowa on Tuesday, the one-year anniversary of the accident, and posted on his Twitter account: “Thank you to everyone that worked so hard to get me back to where I’m at today. It’s your life, live it!”
Among Stewart’s many business interests is his ownership of Ohio dirt track Eldora Speedway, which last month hosted the Nascar Truck Series, and his stake in Stewart-Haas Racing, which fields cars for Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Danica Patrick.
He has struggled a bit this year since returning from his leg injury, and heads into Sunday’s race winless on the season and ranked 19th in the standings.
The site of Saturday night’s crash is the same track where Stewart was involved in a July 2013 accident that seriously injured a 19-year-old driver. He later took responsibility for his car making contact with another and triggering the 15-car accident that left Alysha Ruggles with a compression fracture in her back.
