14 DAY TRIAL // Amidst the controversy surrounding the suspicious and tragic accident in which race car driver Kevin Ward Jr. lost his life, one other driver has come forward to point a blaming finger at Tony Stewart, the man behind the wheel of the car which caused the accident.
Paul Kinney was also on the track at the time of the accident, speeding in another car, and he makes the most worrying accusation: that Tony Stewart's crash was not accidental and that there was, after all, some form of criminal intent.
Kinney told NBC News that he saw Kevin get out of the car and run on the track, but that he didn't find it difficult to go around him. He claims that he didn't see the fatal collision but that Stewart should have been able to dodge Ward as easily as he did in his speeding car.
“I drove right by him,” Kinney said matter-of-factly. “He looked a little bit angry. I didn't think much of it. A lot of drivers do that,” he points out, hinting that it's not that uncommon in the sport and that accidents such as this almost never happen.
The incident looks common enough: Ward and Stewart have a run-in and Ward's car spins out of control and out of the race. A furious Ward then gets out of his car and runs towards the middle of the track, where he stalks Stewart's car, pointing his finger menacingly at him.
From a recording done by a fan in the stands, we can see that Ward's car seems to fishtail at the last moment, sucking Ward under the wheel and throwing him in the air. Ward made it to the hospital alive but was later declared dead due to his injuries caused by blunt trauma.
Kinney says that he can't look at the video in question anymore after seeing it once. He claims that “It’s not a good idea to get out of your car and run towards other cars. But nobody can speak for Tony. Only Tony knows exactly what happened.”
But he does conclude with a chilling statement, “I seen Kevin clear as day. Nobody else ran into him, either,” which leaves to interpretation the fact that Stewart might have acted with criminal intent at the time of the crash.
Since the accident, Stewart has expressed regret “there aren't words to describe the sadness I feel about the accident that took the life of Kevin Ward Jr.” But his statement offered little consolation to Ward's family, which yesterday took to blasting the driver on social media, “Thanks for thinking of our family [Tony] Stewart when you decided to be a [expletive]!” said Ward's aunt on Facebook.
Kinney also tried to explain a driver's mind set in the middle of the race and how that could have been an influencing fact in Ward's decision to exit his car and walk the track, “People get a little carried away. I actually got a little bit angry at a fellow racer last year. You don’t really think when you get out of the car. You just want to let ’em know what you’re thinking.”