It would be exciting to hear what Abraham Zapruder would say about the video that shows NASCAR racer Tony Stewart hitting 20-year-old sprint-automobile driver Kevin Ward, Jr. on August 9, killing him.
Zapruder, of course, took his Bell & Howell Model 414 PD Zoomatic Director Series movie camera with him when, on November 22, 1963, he went to see President John Kennedy travel in his motorcade by way of downtown Dallas. His 27-second film has been analyzed continually because, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that President Kennedy was assassinated by one individual and multiple individuals, shooting from the Texas School Book Depository and the grassy knoll— and if you squint perhaps you can see Fidel Castro in the crowd.
Zapruder died of stomach cancer in 1970, probably possessing no notion what he began. Certainly George Holliday knows: On March 3, 1991, he looked out his apartment window and saw police attempting to arrest—and then some—a man involved in a site visitors cease named Rodney King. Thirty-a single-year-old Holliday, a plumber, took his new Sony video camera out of the box, pointed it at King and the Los Angeles police, pressed “record,” and changed history.
The grainy video shot from the Canandaigua Motorsports Park grandstands in upstate New York will not have the exact same historic impact as the Zapruder or Holliday recordings. Unless your name is Tony Stewart.
The accident occurred at about 10:30 p.m. the night of August 9. Forty-5 minutes later, Ward was pronounced dead at the nearby hospital. The video was posted on YouTube even before Ward’s death was confirmed by the sheriff of Ontario County, New York, about 3 a.m. on Sunday, August 10, at which time the sheriff declined to recognize Ward, even even though Ward had currently been identified by fans in the grandstands through Twitter. This is how it functions in the age of social media: The world is notified prior to the subsequent of kin.
The incident itself is a tragedy: The video of it is totally devastating. As was the case with the Zapruder film, the video from the speedway proves conclusively that Stewart meant to hit Ward that Stewart did everything he could to stay away from Ward that Ward committed involuntary suicide by climbing from his disabled sprint car and going following Stewart, traveling 40 mph in an 800-hp race vehicle with a 20-inch-wide Hoosier right rear tire, and there is absolutely nothing Stewart could have accomplished.
Stewart goosed the throttle to hit Ward or, at the extremely least, scare him. And Stewart goosed the throttle as a desperate try to turn the car away from Ward. That’s since sprint automobiles, with a correct rear tire that is a lot larger than the left rear tire—which, along with the track banking, assists turn the automobile left at 100 mph but needs the driver to steer to the appropriate a bit in order to go straight—you turn appropriate and hit the throttle to swing the vehicle left.
Or so analysts—which involves anyone who either saw the video . . . or heard about it—are saying. So far, then, here is what we know totally, for positive: Tony Stewart’s sprint car went wide in Canandaigua’s Turn 2. Ward’s automobile was on Stewart’s outdoors. Ward ran out of area and hit the wall, flattening his appropriate rear tire. The yellow flag went out, slowing the field to about 40 mph. Ward climbed from his car, walked with excellent purpose down the banking of the track, pointing at Stewart’s approaching auto. Ward crouches slightly as Stewart approaches. The proper side of Stewart’s car, including virtually certainly the enormous correct rear tire, hits Ward. Ward’s body tumbles up the track, coming to rest prone, on his back, almost certainly currently dead from what the coroner later termed “blunt force trauma.” Stewart’s car comes to a cease about 150 feet farther down the track.
There are 3 interpretations of the video.
A single, that Stewart—on a dusty, poorly lit track, peering by way of a number of layers of plastic “tear-offs,” which permit the driver to rip off a single layer when it gets dirty—saw Ward at the last second and tried to keep away from him by either swerving and/or gunning the throttle. There is no question that at or close to the time of impact, the front wheels of Stewart’s automobile turn to the proper for a moment. Those convinced that Stewart did practically nothing wrong cite the fact—and it is a fact—that sprint vehicles handle marvelously at 100 mph, when all that winged downforce and massive tires and “stagger,” which is when the tires on one particular side are of higher circumference than the other, come into play. At decrease speeds, it is frequent for a sprint-vehicle driver to use the throttle to turn the automobile but not the way you may consider: To make the rear swing to the left, you steer to the appropriate and hit the gas. Stewart’s defenders say that is what he was carrying out. The verdict primarily based on a grainy video: innocent.
In the second interpretation, advocates insist that Stewart—who has shown emotion on and off the track to a degree that possibly supports this conclusion—was attempting to “dust off” Kevin Ward, to “teach him a lesson,” to brush him back the way a baseball pitcher does to a batter crowding the plate. Similarly, some recommend that Stewart was trying to spray Ward with dirt, sort of like you may possibly drench an individual with a Jet Ski. But on a track that has taken rubber and become what is called “dry slick,” there is no loose dirt in the groove obtainable for spraying. So, to these correct believers, Stewart was trying to teach Ward a lesson, and either he or Ward, or each, misjudged, or Ward lost his footing, or all of the above. The verdict: manslaughter, most likely of the involuntary nature.
Ultimately, in the third interpretation, Stewart aims for Kevin Ward, Jr., and runs him down: basic as that. These advocates argue that the quantity 45 auto in front of Stewart managed to avoid Ward and that Stewart steered to the appropriate and gunned the throttle not to stay away from Ward, but to hit him. They bolster this argument with history, such as the time in August 2012 that Stewart threw his helmet at Matt Kenseth’s car and that in January 2011 Stewart got in a fight with a track promoter in Australia over the track’s unsafe circumstances. From there, insist these theorists, you can draw a quick line to Stewart willfully killing a 20-year-old driver whom he didn’t know and was presumably unaware had crashed because of a move Stewart created on the previous lap. Verdict: murder.
And those individuals exist. In a recent post on a column that I wrote for Motorsport.com, a commenter posted this: “BAN STEWART AND THROW HIM IN PRISON so he can be treated like the bitch he is!!!” The capitalization and exclamation marks are the commenter’s, not mine. In the thousands of comments on that story, there are a lot of much more posts that express that identical sentiment.
As difficult as it is to figure out what occurred from that video, there is one extremely clear aspect that is not possible to ignore: Kevin Ward, Jr., climbed from his automobile, thereby putting himself in harm’s way. Neither Canandaigua Motorsport Park nor the Empire Super Sprints sanctioning body had a rule particularly addressing such an action, but several tracks and series will soon.
The funeral for Kevin Ward, Jr., was held on Thursday, August 14 at a higher-school auditorium, because it was clear the church where it was initially to be held would be far as well modest. The sheriff of Ontario County, New York, mentioned it will likely be yet another 2 weeks ahead of his investigation is complete. Police are also reviewing a second video that hasn’t been seen by the public undoubtedly there are multiple approaches to interpret that video, too.
At this writing, Tony Stewart remains in seclusion, reportedly staying with close friends. His group announced that he will not participate in this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup event at Michigan International Speedway. And the Empire Super Sprints are back in action the Friday night soon after Ward’s funeral—tonight—at Brewerton Speedway in New York for the “Wings and Warriors” show, exactly where the rules had currently been rewritten to discourage drivers from leaving their cars right after an accident. (This morning, August 15, NASCAR announced a equivalent rule, declaring that drivers in wrecked cars are to stay buckled in “unless extenuating emergency conditions exist with the racecar.”)
Fans and racers are encouraged to put on orange to honor Kevin Ward, Jr., whose vehicles usually had orange highlights. From the track website: “Race fans of the Brewerton Speedway. We are asking for your assist. As you know the Empire Super Sprint family members lost one particular of their own this previous weekend. In honor of Kevin Ward Jr. we ask you for a modest favor. Each and each and every one put on orange, shirts, pants, hats . . . anything you have. Let’s make this the biggest Orange Out dirt track racing has ever seen.”
Canandaigua CSI: Investigation Into Kevin Ward, Jr.’s Death Likely Hinges on Shaky 65-second Video
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