A racing event turned tragic when an on-track incident resulted in a fatality. Also tragic is the public reaction.
On August 9, 2014, an incident at a Sprint car event involving NASCAR’s Tony Stewart resulted in the death of driver Kevin Ward, Jr.
There are a few things we know for sure. Stewart’s car made contact with Ward’s, and Ward’s spun into the wall. Ward got out of his car and went on to the track where cars were still running, in the direction of Stewart’s car. Stewart’s car clipped him with a tire and Ward landed a distance from the car. He was later pronounced dead. The local Sheriff’s office is investigating, as it does with any death investigation.
There are videos from the track, but I’m not going to link to any of them, because each one only shows a portion of the story, from a limited perspective, and several that I watched have commentary from the people taking it.
And that’s part of the problem.
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Almost immediately after the incident, the NASCAR racing portion of the internet lit up, and it got brighter after the news of Ward’s death was released. It was front page news on several major news outlets, including CNN, ABCNews, NBCNews, FoxNews, Yahoo, and I’m sure plenty more.
And if a sample of several hundred comments and tweets are representative, the comments are largely appalling, directed towards Stewart, NASCAR, Stewart’s fans, auto racing fans in general.
The public has, as it often does where tragedy is concerned, looked for a bad guy, found him, and judged and sentenced him. In the absence of facts, rumor and supposition are filling people’s need to Know What Happened. Tony Stewart’s history of anger and confrontation is not helping his case with the armchair legal community. It seems like everyone knows what happened, or someone else does, and the game of Who’s More Right has begun.
This, in the near absence of real information and hard facts, and with the presence of inflammatory headlines, like NASCAR’s Tony Stewart hits, kills driver at dirt-track race in New York.
The incident was horrifying, no question. But until we know what happened, there is absolutely no reason for a rush to judgement. We don’t have all the angles. We don’t know what Stewart did or didn’t do or see.
People want to solve the case, get it right, earn the “I knew it, I told you so!” badges. But tragedies like this are not the time and place for this.
The open platform of the internet, combined with the 24/7 news cycle, has given anyone who wants it a place to speak their minds. But how many people really think about what they are saying when they comment on someone’s life, or make assumptions about events?
How many times have we heard this, or a variation, on the news: “We don’t have any more information, so we’ll have to speculate that ______”, “We’re waiting for _______ to speak, so let’s recap what we’ve been told.” ‘We’ve heard, and this is unconfirmed, that _____.”
If we’re following the example of the people who give us the news, we’re doing a pretty good job of it.
The comments of guilty-guilty-guilty far outnumber the comments of wait-wait-wait, the opinions outnumber the facts, and the people who know Sprint car and dirt track racing and are trying to explain what conditions might have been, what could have happened, why cars were still running, are being attacked as well and drowned out by anger. A good number of commentors do include statements like, “I’ve never watched this before, I don’t know anything about racing, I never seen these cars, I didn’t know people raced on dirt, but….” before offering their expert judgement on exactly what happened.
No one was in car with Stewart. No one was at that spot on the track. There was a revving sound, Stewart’s car did fishtail. But right now, we don’t know why. That’s what investigations are for. Stewart is cooperating.
Let the people who need to figure this out do their jobs.
Tony Stewart chose not to race the day after the incident. He’s staying out of the spotlight. It was probably a good choice, because the harsher light of public judgement will be on him for a long time.
Photo: AP/Derik Hamilton
I remember a similar article sparked by a Matt Cooke incident in this past NHL season. If one spends an entire career laying the foundation for people to believe that you are a monster then one should not be surprised when they do believe such.
The real villains are the sponsors and people who run NASCAR. As driving became safer the authorities basically began looking the other way when ‘rubbing paint’ began to occur more and more frequently. The fans love crashes and the love from fans brings in more dollars. Competition always goes exactly how far the rules allow it to. You start suspending people for a year for getting out of a perfectly safe car. You hand out more heavy fines and suspensions when people bang into one another. You get the message out there that this isn’t demolition derby, and you take… Read more »
When a statement is made and followed by a “but,” … why bother making the statement in the first place? SMH. I agree w/ JJ Vincent; we don’t know the facts. People tend to rush to name calling & judgement before all the info in is. I feel so bad for Tony, he’s got to be hurting bad enough with this incident not alone this unfair treatment. Yes, a man died and it’s tragic but, already judged with the headlines ” …killed…” …such a waste of intelligence. btw…NOT a Tony Stewart fan, just a human being fan waiting for the… Read more »
I’m not passing judgement, as a motorsport fan I want them all to be hero’s. I want Kevin Ward to still be alive and I want Tony Stewart to be innocent of any malicious act. But here are some facts I’ve watched several camera angles as well. Unfortunately its pretty damning when you know how these machines work. Ward: Just had a crash, his heart rate before crash would have been anywhere over 140bpm. Due to the crash he would have had elevated adrenaline levels, leaving him at risk of bad judgement. Hence his approach towards moving vehicles. It was… Read more »
It boggles my mind that after reading a blog in which the main take away is that people, who have little authority and/or expertise on the issue, jump onto the internet and post their two cents. You do not know what happened, you were not there, and you do not have all the facts. All you did is do exactly what this blog was pointing out.
Josh, thank you for your insight in to this type of racing. Whatever comes of this, lives (and I suspect motorsports) are unalterably changed.
jj, there is a megathread about this incident on reddit nascar, have you been reading it?
i dont know much about motor sports, so it has been interesting reading listening to those with knowledge about sprints discuss
Jameseq, I have not, but I’ll have a look. Thanks for the tip.
Seldom has missing the point been so thorough.