NASCAR driver Tony Stewart ran over a competitor, 20-year-old Kevin Ward Jr., during a confrontation at a sprint car race on Saturday night at Canandaigua Motorsports Park in New York. Ward was killed.
In the video above you can see Ward apparently confronting Stewart on foot after Ward's car is run into the wall. He is struck, dragged, then thrown a number of feet. According to Ontario County Sheriff Philip C. Povero, Ward was dead on arrival at the hospital.Tyler Graves, a sprint-car racer and friend of Ward's, told Sporting News in a phone interview that he was sitting in the Turn 1 grandstands and saw everything that happened.
The accident came just four days after Stewart marked the one-year anniversary of an accident in a sprint car race in Iowa, where he suffered a compound fracture to his right leg. The injury cost him the second half of the NASCAR season.
The track, about 30 miles southeast of Rochester, canceled the remainder of the race within five minutes and later posted a message on its Facebook page encouraging fans to "pray for the entire racing community of fans, drivers, and families."When the initial reports came out, it was just a myriad of people on twitter that claimed to be in attendance. However, more and more details were revealed, including some very graphic footage of the incident, which was too graphic to show on here at this time, out of respect for the Ward family at this difficult time.The incident was prompted by Stewart pushing Ward’s car into a wall coming around a turn, effectively knocking him out of the race.The Ontario County Sheriff’s Office has confirmed that Kevin was declared dead upon arrival at the hospital, which was 45 minutes after the accident happened.
“Mr. Stewart has cooperated with the investigation, which is ongoing,” the release stated. “He is very upset and confirmed his continuing cooperation.”
An eyewitness detailed the tragic crash after it happened and told of a horrible scene that he saw. Video also surfaced from the accident.
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