Tony Stewart and Kevin Ward Jr. tragedy dividing opinions

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Barely two days removed from the tragic incident between NASCAR Sprint Cup star Tony Stewart and young Kevin Ward Jr., we're still far from certain of the particulars of the events that led to Ward's death. What is certain, though, is that the Internet's proselytizing of the incident has hit its stride.

It seems that on the one hand, we have those that urge caution in jumping to conclusions, like Steven Cole Smith, who wrote up the initial story of the incident for Motorsport.com and who has also penned a must-read follow-up missive on the incident and on Stewart as a man and racer. Both pieces are available at Car and Driver.

On the other, there's New York Times writer Juliet Macur, who looks to both Stewart's hot-headed nature and NASCAR's confrontational roots to speculate as to what could convince 20-year-old Ward to step out of his car on a hot track, at night, while wearing a black fire suit to try and confront the 43-year-old Stewart.

The sad truth of the matter is that we're not likely to ever know exactly what happened on Saturday night. We won't know what either driver was thinking, whether the Sprint Cup champ could see the young racer, clad in black, against the darkness of the dirt oval or whether the revving of the engine we hear in that seemingly damning video was a tragically timed attempt at intimidation or a last-ditch maneuver to swerve the car out of the way.

Head over to the NYT and Car and Driver to give both pieces a read.Tony Stewart and Kevin Ward Jr. tragedy dividing opinions originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 11 Aug 2014 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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