WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — A law firm representing the parents of Kevin Ward filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Sprint Cup owner-driver Tony Stewart Friday in an upstate New York courthouse.
The suit, filed by New York City-based Lanier Law Firm, asks for unspecified damages. The suit alleges Stewart “climbed up (the track), gunned his engine, causing the 700-horsepower vehicle to slide and strike Ward with the right-rear tire.”
Ward was killed in the Aug. 9, 2014, incident at Canandaigua Motorsports Park, during a 12-mile sprint car race in which Ward and Stewart both drove. Ward’s car made contact with an outer wall. He exited the vehicle and was standing on the track with the race under caution when he was struck.
Stewart has maintained his car hitting Ward was an accident and that he had no intention to harm Ward.
Stewart was asked Wednesday about the one-year anniversary of the accident during a media availability at Texas Motor Speedway.
“I don’t think how anybody could be exactly back to where they were,” after being involved in a fatal accident, Stewart said then. “That doesn’t mean I’ve become better, but there are always positives that come from any scenario.”
The lawsuit says Ward suffered “blunt-force trauma to the chest resulting in a transcended aorta, a transected vertical spinal cord, crushed ribs and a hemothorax.”
The suit said other drivers demonstrated more caution under the yellow flag than Stewart did and said Stewart has a history of “temper and outbursts both on and off the track.”
Stewart is competing in Sunday’s Cheez-its 355 Sprint Cup race at the Watkins Glen International. Neither he nor his spokesperson offered immediate comment.
Stewart, 44, has struggled the past three seasons. Three years ago he broke two bones in his lower right leg while driving a sprint car, causing him to miss 17 NASCAR races.
He missed three more races after last year’s incident with Ward.
This season he has no wins and no top-five finishes in 21 Sprint Cup races. In danger of again missing the Chase, he approaches a Watkins Glen International road course where he has won five times since 2004.
His ninth-place finish at Pocono on Sunday was just his second top-10 finish this season.
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