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I think Tony Stewart will have criminal charges filed against him because deliberate or not, his car hit Kevin Ward Jr.'s. I think he could get charged with involuntary manslaughter, if the investigation finds that this was unintentional. This whole incident is something that Tony Stewart is going to have to live with for the rest of his life.

Please, this is the same hypocrite that turned Kenseth around deliberately right into the path of oncoming traffic in the 2006 Daytona 500 after complaining about driving standards leading up to the event.

Or flipping out about Logano trying to block him at Fontana, when he pulled an even more stupid move himself at Talladega and wiped out the whole field. (Ok, maybe not totally relevant to what's happened, but it's just his attitude of bitching about others when he has a whole career full of reckless moves). If it had been somebody like David Ragan or Greg Biffle, there would probably be a little more benefit of the doubt.

Seems like people already forgot his helmet chucking incident at Bristol as well. I mean what if Matt had hit the gas on the pit lane spun his tires and mowed down Stewart...sounds crazy to think about but so does last nights incident.

I put a bit more blame on the kid, when he exited his car, the safety crew had yet to arrive. It was the first time the cars had passed the scene of the crash after the yellow was displayed, so many of them were still somewhere between race speed and pace speed, it was not particularly safe to be standing on the track at that time. The video focused on Ward so we don't see much of Tony until a second before the accident so it's hard to tell if there were other mitigating factors that led to tragedy but, it certainly seemed as though Tony hit the gas just before impact but I can't say for certain one way or the other if he had a good reason to do so or not. What I do know is that if Ward had shown a bit more restraint with his temper he wouldn't have put himself in the situation that led to his death.

Another thing that bothers me is the video itself, I record races every week and I decided long ago that if I ever record an incident that results in the death of a driver it will not be made available the public at all, only to the police for their investigation. I find the video to be disturbing and disrespectful to the Ward family and I wish it could be removed, but since it's gone viral it's too late now.

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This is my position on the accident.

I know exactly what you mean and agree with you, however sometimes it's better to have the truth out there and have people able to witness it for themselves then having to piece together the incident from half truths and furious reactions on social media.

Everyone has a camera with their phones these days, you can't contain something like this any more.
If Warwick, Renna etc had their incidents today, there'd probably be footage on YT within the hour.

I don't like the blame game at times like these. Mistakes were made, a man is dead. It just feels ghoulish and disrespectful to be throwing around blame right now when the family are in the height of their mourning.

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It's an awful situation but it doesn't need retribution. Both were stupid but ultimate responsibility lies with NASCAR and the other governing bodies involved in fostering a culture of unprofessional behaviour. Their obsession with deliberate collisions and running on the track in the name of "the show", leaving really stupid dangerous acts go unpunished, was always eventually going to lead to a serious incident. Kevin Ward might have been stupid to run onto the track and Tony Stewart might have been equally stupid to hit the gas but the problem is that clearly neither felt any threat to them, otherwise they wouldn't have done it. They aren't innocent but they are both victims

There's no point charging Tony. He has to live with that for the rest of his life which is punishment enough. Same for Ray Paprota. This won't be solved by locking anyone up or blaming a dead guy who is no longer here to defend himself, because it is a far bigger issue than just this one incident

Best post in 11 pages...not nearly the same situation but think how Ricky Rudd must have felt after loosing control on pit road and killing Mike Rich...Tony's act I feel was more malicious (I'm convinced he wanted to scare the shit out of ward and fucked up). Tony needs to take a week off let chill cool down but he will be back...less the same than he was even after breaking his leg? No doubt in my mind

For me, Tony did not see the driver until the blue car passed, witch was blocking the way, and he throttled up in order to go away from the kid, because he was past the safe side, or he knew they were in a crash course already.

The police report stated it was deemed a non criminal incident. So unless the family decides to press charges, or the race track, I don't see how Tony would be convicted of anything.

Just reading back through some of the posts since I went to bed last night, it's clear some of you have a lot of angry feelings towards Tony and the entire situation. Imagine being in a race car that you work your ass off for, to keep it running and make it to the track every week… then feel like you've been run into a wall by someone who makes 8 figures a year. Take the anger you've been feeling about what you saw in the video and add on those kind of feelings. Would you have done the same thing Ward did?

Anger makes us do a lot of things we wouldn't have done otherwise. Unfortunately I believe that's what took Kevin's life.

Collectively I think everyone has voiced solid opinions, minus a select few. But my main argument for Tony is this chain of events that took place: Tony ran Kevin up the track slightly, into the cushion, causing the car to go up into the wall in turn 2… This would in no way give Tony any reason to be angry himself, his car was fine, it was a racing incident. Why would that give him any reason to run someone over. Secondly, the 25 car nearly ran Kevin over first and had to swerve to miss him. The wings from these things would cast a shadow especially being that close to a car, and the dark suit the driver was wearing.

I believe this was a terrible accident… and in no way did Tony run him over intentionally OR out of anger, because he had no reason to BE angry at all.

Prayers to both families.

That's how I see it. But it is a difficult angle for the viewer to make any sort of judgement. What you can see though is that the kid walks down a hot track waving angry and coming down into the second groove. Cars are still going by at high speed and it looks like the car before Tony came close to hitting the kid, you can even see the kid step back as he notices himself he came pretty close to that blue/white car.

I guess Tony himself knows what happened but I can't imagine it was on purpose or anything. Just a real sad situation and this might bring Cup drivers racing on short tracks to a stop. Sponsors with million dollar contracts probably don't want Cup guys out there when stuff like this can happen or that serious wreck when Tony broke his leg.

And ESPN just showed it again.

What bothers me the most is I can't help but feel serious bias towards the whole situation from numerous individuals based solely on the fact that it was 'Tony Stewart' behind the wheel of that car. I think opinions would be MUCH different if the roles were reversed or if it was someone else behind the wheel. It's that attitude of 'star athletes can never do wrong' bullshit that plagues so many of these type of situations. And it's also that attachment to a certain individual, whether it be because you own his jersey or shirt or have some admiration for them in some way, that makes people become defensive. Not because they actually believe their favorite race car driver didn't do anything wrong, but because they insist that 'There's no way MY guy can do something like that.' Apparently as long as a person is good at a sport it is somehow, someway simply impossible for them to make mistakes. And when they do, the excuses come flying from every direction. And the hypocrisy of that bias is downright stupid.

I don't think Stewart did this on purpose. Not one second. What I do believe is that Ward got out of his car, was going to flip off Stewart, and Stewart was going to spin his tires or dirt at him. But it was in that decision, in that split second moment, that Stewart made his ultimate mistake. We all do this. Unfortunately in Stewart's case it took someone's life.

Maybe I'm wrong. Whatever the case is, it's a shitty situation, and Stewart's biggest punishment will be living with this for the rest of his life.

The fact that he was still considering racing until late in the morning is pretty disturbing to me.

Indeed, Dutch media is typing so much bullshit about a sport they have no knowledge of. Hell even the sewage rats of TMZ are reporting about it. All because it's Tony. It's a sad situation, but with all sensation media it looks like they have already formed an opinion about the whole thing.

If it was me, I would want to race just to have a few hours to escape what had happened and not have it be the only thing on my mind. But ultimately not racing is the more respectful choice.

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Yeah the fact that he had to be talked out racing today shows a typical celebrity lack of remorse IMO. If this was the other way around and Tony was killed by Ward, he would definitely be locked up with the media ripping him to shreds.

Tony had to be running on a gigantic amount of adrenaline last night before going to bed too.

Good points brought up here.