I was 8 when the 1999 NASCAR racing season rolled around.
I still remember the buzz as the Daytona 500 was quickly approaching. It was all about Tony Stewart, the rookie from Indiana who qualified second for NASCAR’s biggest race of the year, an unprecedented accomplishment at the time.
Flash forward 16 years to the present day. I’ve invested a lot emotionally into my driver; we’ve had our ups and downs, from the highs of three championships to the lows of last weekends accident.
UNDERSTANDING A SPRINT CAR
If you don’t know racing, not NASCAR, racing, then you have no clue how sprint cars work. They are push-started because they have no transmission and there are several blind spots in the cockpit of the racecar.
You turn more with the gas and brake than you do with the steering wheel. When a sprint car comes out of a turn, the driver points the car to the general direction that he wants the car to go. You don’t just turn the car on a dime with the steering wheel. For example: When you are driving at slower speeds in order to turn left you would hit the gas bringing the back of the car around and pointing the front of the car left.
If you didn’t know this, then you shouldn’t be reporting on the incident.
WHY DOES TONY RACE AT THESE EVENTS?
I’ve heard the comparison that Tony racing at a dirt track is like Mike Trout playing legion baseball. This is like comparing cricket to baseball, and once again proves that certain media outlets should not be covering this event, without a better racing education.
Tony races these cars because they are different and provide a challenge. He isn’t racing a 5-year-old child; he is often times racing some of the best drivers in the world.
Let’s get one other thing straight: You’ve been taught that the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has the best 43 drivers in the world. This is a statement that carries no merit. Half of NASCAR’s drivers make it to the league because they had more funding than their competitors and the other half caught a lucky break. Look up Donny Schatz, Steve Kinser, Teddy Christopher, Jamie Knopf, Jerry Mullis, Scott Bloomquist, Steve Francis or Earl Pearson, Jr. these guys have more talent in one fingernail than Danica Patrick or Paul Menard have in their whole bodies.
Point being, Tony is racing against these people because he wants the thrill of racing against another group of guys who are often times some of the best in the world. Tony is also known to quadruple the revenue of these mom-and-pop tracks around the country.
IT WASN’T A MALICIOUS ACT
I won’t spend much time on this. Tony isn’t a murderer; rather, he was an unfortunate person that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR OPINION IF YOU’RE NOT A PART OF THIS WORLD
I’ve been involved with racing all my life. I grew up at local tracks and I’ve been apart of race teams. This is my world, and I don’t like you in it.
Anyone who understands this dynamic of racing understands this incident. We understand that it was Kevin Ward that put himself in the line of fire when he got out of his racecar and walked across the track.
Timeout: There is nothing wrong with a NASCAR driver getting out of his car and showing frustrations. NASCAR races are well lit and have spotters. Dirt tracks are a different story.
When things are spoon-fed to the uniformed masses, it makes situations worse. If large media took the proper steps to have a sprint car driver on their broadcast – like Dave Blaney – then the situation would have been covered with a different light.
The situation is bad, but it has been made worse by large media outlets not understanding what they are covering and not asking people who do know the subject matter to help them cover the situation. Understand that Tony Stewart is not a murderer: He shouldn’t be persecuted for what happened. Instead, he should be lifted up in your thoughts as he goes through a traumatic and dramatic event in his life.
Ted E. Spencer is the production manager at the Manning Times.
He is also a racing lifer.
