Tony Stewart reportedly strikes driver Kevin Ward Jr. with sprint car
By Jack Crosby
More and more on Saturday night, we’re beginning to learn more gruesome details about an incident at a dirt track in New York involving NASCAR’s Tony Stewart and 17-year-old Kevin Ward Jr.. Now while most of the reports have been twitter accounts of what happened, the Sporting News was able to get a hold of one of Ward’s close friends regarding what happened at the track in Canandaigua, New York.
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And the details are rather startling.
As we were hearing, Stewart apparently did indeed strike Ward with his sprint car at the track after an altercation. According to Ward’s friend and fellow driver, Tyler Graves, here’s supposedly what took place.
“Tony pinched him into the frontstretch wall, a racing thing,” Graves said. “The right rear tire went down, he spun on the exit of (Turn) 2. They threw the caution and everything was toned down. Kevin got out of his car. … He was throwing his arms up all over the place at Tony for most of the corner.
“I know Tony could see him. I know how you can see out of these cars. When Tony got close to him, he hit the throttle. When you hit a throttle on a sprint car, the car sets sideways. It set sideways, the right rear tire hit Kevin, Kevin was sucked underneath and was stuck under it for a second or two and then it threw him about 50 yards.”
Now whether it was intentional or not, we don’t know at this point. From this account, it certainly seems as if there’s a good chance it could have been an accident that unfortunately turned out horribly.
As of this time, there is NO official word on the condition of Ward.
UPDATE: At around 3 AM ET on Sunday morning, it was confirmed by the Ontario County Sheriff’s Department that Ward had died from the injuries that he sustained from the incident.
They also stated in the press conference that, at this time, Stewart is not under arrest, and the investigation is still ongoing as he continues to cooperate.