ug 12, 2014 at 3:19pm
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Post by Pizza Man on Aug 12, 2014 at 3:19pm
As millions of people have, Steve Sinclair watched the video from Saturday night in upstate New York, just from a slightly different perspective.
In addition to being a lifelong fan of racing, Sinclair operates a racing series for winged sprint cars, and his day job is as an agent for the largest insurer to the motorsports industry.
So in a 45-minute conversation Monday about the incident at Canandaigua Motorsports Park that left Kevin Ward Jr. dead, one phrase came up repeatedly.
"You can't leave your car," Sinclair said.
And said it again. And again.
Those are likely to be among the first and most important words to come out of his mouth Friday night at Wilmot Raceway when the Interstate Racing Association competes for the first time since Ward's death.
Ward was walking on the track when he was struck by the right rear tire of a car driven by NASCAR champion Tony Stewart. The two had fought for space on the racetrack, Ward spun and stopped with a flat tire and then got out of his car, apparently to confront Stewart, as the field lapped under caution.
"We're definitely going to address it at the drivers' meeting," said Sinclair, the president of the IRA since 1994. The organization sanctions about two dozen events annually, mostly around Wisconsin.
"Probably two to three times a year a guy will get out. He doesn't usually come down the track. It's a little different. He might just stand there, try to get the guy's attention, flip him off or something."
Three years ago, the series suspended a driver who had tried to slam his hand into the wing of a car that was still moving.
"We're going to tell them (Friday), you get out of the car and it's not on fire, you start walking on the racetrack to another competitor, you're going to get a night off," Sinclair said.
"If anybody wants to have discussion about what more we can do, let us know, but we're starting with this."
The same rule will be in place for lower divisions that run at Wilmot, Sinclair said.
The cars that raced with the Empire Super Sprints series Saturday night at Canandaigua are essentially the same as IRA's, except with 360-cubic-inch engines rather than 410s. Most regional sprint-car sanctioning bodies and tracks use a framework of specifications and rules from the World of Outlaws, the premier national series, Sinclair said.
Sprint cars drivers have limited visibility, particularly to the right, because of the cars' construction with a containment seat designed as a protective cocoon and because of the end plate of a large wing that sits attached to the frame above the cockpit.
Opinions vary on exactly what happened Saturday, such as whether Stewart saw Ward — in a black uniform and black helmet — or whether Stewart hit the gas either to try to intimidate Ward or to try to avoid him.
"I learned something, too," Sinclair said. "After seeing what getting caught up in a right rear can do to you, I will no longer be giving signals... on the racetrack. I'm doing it all by radio now. I'm not touching the racetrack.
"My officials will be instructed not to go onto the racetrack unless it's a safety issue, and those guys are in orange fire suits. It's a different story."
Stewart has driven in races promoted by Sinclair. Although Canandaigua is a client of K&K Insurance, for which Sinclair works, the track is not his account. K&K caters to the sports and entertainment industries and started more than 60 years ago with motorsports.
Ontario County (N.Y.) Sheriff Philip C. Povero said Monday that investigation into the incident continues, but no facts at this point support filing criminal charges against Stewart.
Stewart has withdrawn from a sprint-car race Saturday in Plymouth, Ind., and has not said whether he'll return to NASCAR action this weekend in Brooklyn, Mich.
While Stewart was competing in New York on Saturday night, sprint car racing's biggest event was being contested in Knoxville, Iowa, and was won by Donny Schatz, who drives for Stewart.
Sinclair worked as an official at Knoxville, and among his duties was to communicate instructions to drivers via one-way radio.
Drivers don't have team-employed spotters the way NASCAR and Indy-car drivers to do, but most sanctioning bodies require radios over which information such as positions in the lineup and the location of trouble or safety workers is relayed.
Nearly every organization uses the same radio frequency, Sinclair said. Some drivers tuck their radios into their uniforms, while others have them mounted in their cars.
Sinclair said he had no idea of the specifics at Canandaigua, what officials saw, what instructions were given, where Ward's radio was or even if he had one. But ideally, Sinclair said, communication between officials and a driver in a similar situation would go something like this:
"The guy crashes in (Turn) 2, I would have said, 'There's a yellow in 2,' and if the guy got out of his car in a rage, hopefully you'd be telling him not to do it."
That also will be Sinclair's message Friday.
Read more:
http://motorcitytrikes.proboards.com/thread/4446/tony-stewart-info-night#ixzz3ANlniQT9
