NRR: Tony Stewart ran over a guy on a racetrack

A quote wrote:

yhrebray wrote:

Furthermore, that ("business as usual") was not a quote by Stewart. I don't like Tony, but I loathe liars.

The quote was from STEWART'S team: the people HE PAYS to present his opinion. Stewart is 100% responsible for the statement.

No he is not 100% responsible for the statement.

1. He is not 100% owner of the team. It is a parnership with Haas racing.

2. He could simply fire the guy for making an unauthorized statement.

You way too dramatic to be taken seriously in this issue. You have an obvious bias that is not based in fact.

Conundrum wrote:

You seriously don't think there was any way Tony could have moved further from Ward to minimize risk? Really?

Also Tony did plan to race the next race and his spokesperson did say that the team would go on with "business as usual" Where do you think that take came from?

I loathe people who don't seem to care about others lives.

yhrebray wrote:

It's okay to have a different opinion. It is absolutely false to say that anyone watching the video would conclude that Stewart did nothing at all to minimize any risk to Ward.

Furthermore, that ("business as usual") was not a quote by Stewart. I don't like Tony, but I loathe liars.

You may loathe people who do not care about others lives but that does not make it right to make up BS and spread lies.

Right now, the people who know the most about the incident are the police. They have yet to press charges meaning they have not seen anything to make them think Tony hit Ward intentionally or showed any malice.

You are either trying to convince yourself Tony murdered Ward or just trolling.

Conundrum wrote:

You seriously don't think there was any way Tony could have moved further from Ward to minimize risk? Really?

Also Tony did plan to race the next race and his spokesperson did say that the team would go on with "business as usual" Where do you think that take came from?

I loathe people who don't seem to care about others lives.

yhrebray wrote:

It's okay to have a different opinion. It is absolutely false to say that anyone watching the video would conclude that Stewart did nothing at all to minimize any risk to Ward.

Furthermore, that ("business as usual") was not a quote by Stewart. I don't like Tony, but I loathe liars.

I didn't say there was nothing else he could've done to minimize the risk further you blithering idiot. Your teachers and parents failed you on the comprehension front. You said that ANYONE viewing the video would agree that Stewart did NOTHING (0 things at all) to minimize the risk to Ward. Even in your fantasy world where Stewart attempted to scare Ward, by your own admission he turned the wheel at the end so as not to plow straight into him, thereby minimizing the risk. It is your definitive, embellishing language I'm taking issue with here. Such as disingenuously saying Stewart's statement before being corrected.

Conundrum wrote:

You seriously don't think there was any way Tony could have moved further from Ward to minimize risk? Really?

You don't know what Tony did or did not see any more than I do, so stop pretending that you do. The only thing we can be reasonably certain of is that Ward would be alive today if he didn't throw a hissy fit.

Can Stewarts past actions (prior to Ward incident) have an impact if he goes to court? This is a guy who has had numerous confrontations & incidents with other drivers.

Oh, & he assaulted a female fan as well as hit a cameraman in the past. Nice guy.

Conundrum wrote:

Seriously now, Ward did not rush the car to damage the car so its nothing like your example.

]

How can you be sure?

I really don't think the previous car does anything to avoid Ward either. He just moves a few inches back down the track after dodging the first car and Stewart is a few inches higher on the track. That made all the difference.

I'd love to hear what you think he was going to do if it wasn't kicking or punching Stewarts car.

I'm sure you'll say only an idiot would punch a vehicle moving at speed but that's the same kind of person that runs into traffic recklessly.

See

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/where-theres-smoke-up-close-with-tony-stewart-nascars-nastiest-driver-20140810

for a long profile of Stewart from 2008. Two opinions I've formed after reading the article:

If the roles had been reversed, Stewart would have behaved the same way Ward did;

Now that Stewart has had a little bit of time to take in what happened, he realizes he killed a younger version of himself.

I don't think there's any way to know from the publicly available video what Stewart was thinking as he was approaching Ward, but my own best guess puts me in agreement with those who think Stewart saw Ward, intended to scare him and accidentally ended up killing him.

I don't know the law well enough to know whether that's criminal, but I'm pretty sure it's going to expose Stewart to a pretty nasty civil suit [in which Ward's potential contributory negligence may be a mitigating factor but not sufficient to prevent a judgement against Stewart.]

The kid should have stayed in the car. In any event, Stewart would have kicked his ass anyway. And for the record, too many of you F. Lee Clueless'es believe you can read minds as in Stewarts. You can't, stop trying.

dats da fact jack wrote:

The kid should have stayed in the car. In any event, Stewart would have kicked his ass anyway. And for the record, too many of you F. Lee Clueless'es believe you can read minds as in Stewarts. You can't, stop trying.

I can't read Stewart's mind and the video is inconclusive but I can guess, and as I said before, my guess is that he saw Ward, meant to scare him and ended up killing him.

dkny64 wrote:

See

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/where-theres-smoke-up-close-with-tony-stewart-nascars-nastiest-driver-20140810

If the roles had been reversed, Stewart would have behaved the same way Ward did;

Now that Stewart has had a little bit of time to take in what happened, he realizes he killed a younger version of himself.

Good point.

Does this recap of him sound familiar?

"When that happened, Stewart's No. 20 car came to a smoldering stop across the center of the corner. He got out and stood angrily on the track waiting for Irwin's car to pass under caution. The crowd erupted: The balls on this rookie!"

Gracie wrote:

You are right. He could have stopped his car immediately at the caution flag on the other side of the track. Anything he did after the accident was reckless and endangered Ward.

He could have but he was under zero requirement to do so.

An absolutely level headed and logical response. I tend to think Tony didn't see him until the last minute though but as you said none of us know that for sure.

As for the civil suit, I think the family gets paid one way or another. More than likely a sizable out of court settlement. That is the nature of our court system.

Imagine if Tony Stewart had run over Robin Williams???

BOOOM! Mind blown!

dkny64 wrote:

I can't read Stewart's mind and the video is inconclusive but I can guess, and as I said before, my guess is that he saw Ward, meant to scare him and ended up killing him.

I agree with everything you have written dkny64, including your point that Ward acted in much the same way as a younger Stewart likely would have.

When it comes to charging Stewart with anything though, it seems all he has to say is "I didn't see him until it was too late" and then the onus really falls back on Ward's initial contributory negligence. I'd think 'involuntary' is the only thing that would stick.

Just to clarify... the "business as usual" quote was from Greg Zipadelli, VP of Stewart-Haas racing. It was made Sunday morning.

There's no transcript to determine the context of the remark, but he appears to be referring to the Stewart-Hass #14 car team, not Stewart himself, because Zipadelli goes on to state the decision by Stewart not to race and to be replaced by Regan Smith was made on Saturday night.

There are conflicting reports on which parts Zipadelli said first, but the media constantly screws up stuff like this.

It was a stupid, insensitive remark, but it wasn't made by Stewart.

I am going to ignore your personal attacks and I'll take a little responsibilty because my tone and my "really" might have precipated your type of response but you do have a tendency to be somewhat of a hothead and get personal quickly.I will follow up with you because I think you might have the potential for logical point counter point. We have a record of our comments and your posts seem to be distorting my statements.I stated "Did Tony do every he could to avoid risking hitting Ward?" Your comment, "I didn't say there was nothing else he could've done to minimize the risk further you blithering idiot" is interesting. Are you now saying that there was more Tony could have done to minimize risk?Are they things that a reasonabler person would have done in that situation?Answer yes and your general point is refuted.Answer no, then tell me what things Tony could have done to minimize the risk.

I never implied that Tony tried to murder Ward.This would be a hard case for the police to prove. Not pressing charges does not mean Tony was not reckless.

driving in circles wrote:

Conundrum wrote:

You seriously don't think there was any way Tony could have moved further from Ward to minimize risk? Really?

Also Tony did plan to race the next race and his spokesperson did say that the team would go on with "business as usual" Where do you think that take came from?

I loathe people who don't seem to care about others lives.

You may loathe people who do not care about others lives but that does not make it right to make up BS and spread lies.

Right now, the people who know the most about the incident are the police. They have yet to press charges meaning they have not seen anything to make them think Tony hit Ward intentionally or showed any malice.

You are either trying to convince yourself Tony murdered Ward or just trolling.

Conundrum wrote:

I never implied that Tony tried to murder Ward.

This would be a hard case for the police to prove. Not pressing charges does not mean Tony was not reckless.

You said earlier in this thread that Tony was trying to 'scare' Ward by spinning his tires and ran him over. That would be murder. Murder 2 or something along that lines but murder nonetheless.

Tony won't be charged and will be back to racing in NASCAR in no time.

I get hotheaded when people change what I am arguing. Issue 1: Did Stewart do everything reasonable to avoid endangering Ward? We came to an impasse on this - which is understandable. I understand people disagreeing on whether or not he did everything reasonable to avoid endangering Ward. See discussion:

Issue 2: You made a false claim, which I disagreed with and called you out on, and then you misstate/change what I called you out on, and thus I got hotheaded. I won't bother reposting the "business as usual" section of this discussion as I feel that has already been addressed by other posters and has been evidenced that it was unfair to say that Tony Stewart said that, as you claimed. The other part of the discussion below:

The key difference here is you are saying he did NOTHING at all to minimize his risk, NOT that he didn't do EVERYTHING. Big difference and patently false. Back to the quotes...

See how now you've changed back to saying that Tony didn't do EVERYTHING in his power, while I was calling you out on saying that Tony did NOTHING in his power to minimize the risk? This is what upsets me.

I know you think he was wreckless while I don't. That's fine and really it doesn't matter. The civil suit will settle out of court, Tony will still be a free man, he will keep driving, and no one will ever know his intentions. But don't pretend that it is CERTAIN that he wanted to scare Ward. Don't pretend he did NOTHING evasive. Don't pretend he said things that he didn't say. Is that too much to ask?