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Ward: A
senseless death
by Don McDermott
Special to County Online News
I have been attending auto races since I was a kid who watched
the old Triple A midgets compete at the Akron Rubber Bowl in eastern
Ohio in the late 1940s. I smelled the castor oil and was hooked.
Fast forward to 1962, when I first traveled from Greenville to Eldora
Speedway, located a few miles outside the quiet village of
Rossburg...and was hooked again by the speed of the cars and the
bravery of the drivers.. I was at Eldora the day Johnny Rutherford's
sprint car vaulted over the fence in turn two and Lone Star Johnny
sustained two broken arms and was rushed to the Greenville hospital.
Several years later, I was at a winged sprint car race when Brad Doty
crashed and he sustained paralyzing injuries by a rival's car that
smashed into his roll cage.
It was in 1962 that I first visitd the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to
see an Indianapolis 500. It was the first of 32 trips I made to the old
Brickyard. I was there in 1964, the year of the fiery and fatal crash
in turn four and again in 1973, when Swede Savage was fatally injured
in a horrific crash. And I was at the speedway on the day Scott Brayton
died in a practice session.
Fast forward again to Saturday, August 9... What happened at a
Cananaduiga, N.Y. track on Saturday night was heartbreaking,
tragic... and so unnecessary. A 20-year-old driver, Kevin Ward Jr., was
killed when he was struck by a racecar driven by NASCAR star and Eldora
Speedway owner Tony Stewart. Ward was not safely belted into his car
after it spun out and crashed into the retaining fence in the
backstretch of the poorly-lighted dirt track.
He had unbuckled himself and left the security of the cockpit to charge
onto the track after a yellow flag had been unfurled. His apparent
intent was to wave at Stewart in an expression of anger and frustration
of being knocked out of the race.
For reasons none of us will ever fathom, Ward, still agitated, wandered
into the traffic of race cars trying to slow down.
Inexplicably, he was struck by Stewart's race car and sustained fatal
injuries.
Read the headlines, "Stewart car strikes, kills driver walking on
track." That, thought this reader, could not be the whole story.
Even watching the YouTube replay of the mishap was unbelievably
shocking. Stunning, sad, tragic. My first thought was, why did the
driver leave the safety of his car to walk into harm's way? My second
thought, how did Stewart miss seeing him? It was explained that Ward
was wearing a dark driver's suit and the track's lighting was poor.
OK...but the questions persist? Why did Ward ignore the danger and why
was Stewart unable to avoid hitting Ward?
We may never know the truth...the whole truth and nothing but the
truth. We can only hope that such an tragic incident never happens
again...that common sense will prevail through prayer and a careful,
thoughtful, in-depth inquiry is conducted in rural New York and a
decision is not influenced by anger and heated rhetoric.
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