Tony Stewart kills another driver on dirt track

Damn... commonplace or not, walking down a live track is insanely stupid. Doing it with the intention of antagonizing a driver in motion is beyond moronic. Sad the kid died but it's hard not to think of him--and anyone else who does this--as an idiot. I don't like to generally call people idiots but I'm making an exception for this one.

This Stewart guy seems like a douche bag and it wouldn't surprise me either if it was a scare tactic gone wrong. However, from what I just watched that's pure speculation.
 
fastar1 said:
I think Stewart tried to give him a little scare and it went very, very wrong. There's no question that he saw him, either. At the very least Stewart made no effort to avoid, but more likely (in my mind) he did something stupid and it wound up a lot worse than he intended.
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This seems the most right and in keeping with that class of people. Thankfully, in the USA, this type of sentiment seems to be enough for the classic prosecutor/jury tag team effort. This thing with blaming the young victim is too much, does the caution flag have no meaning?
 
N3WMAN said:
You can hear him give it a shot just before getting to Ward. More than likely just wanted to roost the kid, but clipped him instead.

Both parties were partially at fault. A real shame as it could have been avoided.
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The more I see it I think this is likely.
 
RockerGuy said:
Does Zimmerman have really band temper?
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His eyes are freakishly close together and he's got the look of the permanently aggrieved party. That's a bad combo.
 
N3WMAN said:
You can hear him give it a shot just before getting to Ward. More than likely just wanted to roost the kid, but clipped him instead.

Both parties were partially at fault. A real shame as it could have been avoided.
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I think this, combined with this: "Stewart only returned to sprint track racing last month" would explain what happened.
He wanted to razz the kid, but being off for around a year, he probably misjudged the throttle by a fraction.
 
So only manslaughter then... Of course nothing will come of it though and as long as he has no conscience, he's good to go next race. He was going to race the next day until the team thought better of it... That could have been the heartless crew chief that spoke out of turn though.
 
N3WMAN said:
You can hear him give it a shot just before getting to Ward. More than likely just wanted to roost the kid, but clipped him instead.

Both parties were partially at fault. A real shame as it could have been avoided.
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I'm not sure you can hear that. It's on the far side of the track so I don't think that 'shot' was from Stewart's car. It seems to me that it's from a car on the front stretch much closer to where the person with the camera is. If you watch the whole video you can't really hear anything from the far side of the track, including the wreck. I think that it's a coincidence that it almost lines up with Stewart's car re-entering the frame.
 
When I was watching it, I almost wondered if Stewart just lifted a bit and started to lose the rear of the car when he saw the kid... started to go up the track and then tried to counter steer to avoid hitting him with the back.. really hard to say with that video either way.
 
You can hear him give it a shot just before getting to Ward
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no you can't.

if you watch the early part video, you can hear cars coming down the straight, and into the corner, you don't hear them leaving the corner.

when Stewart "guns it", is sounds exactly like the cars passing immediately in front of the viewr, not like the muffled sounds across the track.

when you hear what people refer to as stewart gunning it, its "suddenly" way clearer and louder than any of the other cars on the far side of the track.


but being off for around a year, he probably misjudged the throttle by a fraction.
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being off for the year doesn't mean being off the track/out of the cars for a year
 
Let me rephrase. It sounds to me like he gives it a shot before getting to ward. He would still be on corner entry when it would have happened and cracking the throttle would be noticeably louder than the cars idling by.

Either way, I still doubt he purposely meant to hit him and more likely tried to intimidate/scare him and it went badly wrong.
 
at sprint races on a yellow, cars are constantly pumping the accelerator checking grip and throttle response, it would be really hard to know which car was giving it a shot with many on a short track, and the camera was a fair way from the incident.
visibility isn't great in those cars with the roof wing and the roof board coming pretty low on the outside of the car, nobody is expecting to see somebody on the track in that (or any ) location. I don't think he meant to hit him.

In NY state there would need to be some evidence that would be hard to prove in court of it being intentional for a murder 2 or even manslaughter charge, but its the US so a civil suit will be coming, and the damage to Tony Stewart Industries, his career and team would lead to a quick settlement.

As a point of interest in the late 40's a midget car driver in NY was convicted of manslaughter and served time for trying to put a 4' car though a 2' gap and the result was the death of another competitor. It can happen.
 
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