The tragic death of a race-car driver has some looking at the angry example provided by Tony Stewart leading up to it.

Kevin Ward Jr.’s dispute with Tony Stewart was crazy, senseless and tragic. But that type of aggression is what the sport was built upon

Nobody will ever know exactly what led the young Kevin Ward Jr. to climb out of his crashed sprint car and, in the middle of his dirt racetrack on Saturday, to try to confront Tony Stewart as Stewart continued to circle the track.

We do know, because it was captured on video, that Ward seemed to be looking to make his feelings knows. He walked toward Stewart’s car, which fishtailed, the right tire hitting Ward and dragging him under the car before throwing him several feet up the track. Ward, 20, was pronounced dead at the hospital.

What made Ward consider it OK to walk away from relative safety and chase down another driver, who was in a moving car? To the public, it might seem a crazy decision. It might seem even crazier than driving a race car in the first place.

But in racing, a sport founded by tough guys who often liked to settle their disputes with their fists, it has been part of the sport for generations. And it has nearly been Stewart’s calling card. For almost a decade, even now, at 43, Stewart has been NASCAR’s resident hothead.

Like many other drivers over the years — both at the top level of auto racing, and on dirt tracks like the one Saturday that was the sight of the fatal confrontation — Stewart has gotten out of his crashed cars and has wagged his finger at other drivers, warning them that a flogging could come for causing him to wreck. Verbal and physical altercations also have unfolded in the garages or on pit road.

In 2012, during a Sprint Cup race in Bristol, Tenn., Stewart climbed out of his crashed car to track down Matt Kenseth on foot. When he reached him at the exit to pit road, Stewart threw his helmet at Kenseth’s front end as Kenseth’s car. Kenseth passed within three feet of Stewart. Maybe then Kenseth would think twice about going anywhere near Stewart’s bumpers during a race. Sure, that will teach him.

So where did Ward get the idea that going after a driver in a car was a good idea? It’s no longer so hard to see where. Maybe Ward never looked up to Stewart or took cues from his aggressive behaviour. But professional athletes, like it or not, are role models, and Ward was four years old when he started racing go carts, just when Stewart’s career was taking off.

In 1998, Stewart raced in the Busch Series, which was one level below what is now the Sprint Cup, and he was the defending champion in the Indy Racing League.

When Ward was age five, years before he would be named rookie of the year in his own racing league, Stewart took rookie honors in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup, and finished fourth in the points standings. He was one of the sport’s stars.

Stewart had talent and a nasty temper. It was a pairing that many enjoyed, and his fan base grew. They liked him because he was old school, and nothing like the new era of drivers who strived to be squeaky clean to please their sponsors.

Drivers like Stewart have been both NASCAR’s boon and its problem.

Being aggressive in one way or another has always been part of the sport’s fabric. Even early on, drivers who caused crashes were paid back with bare knuckles. I have to think that if iPhones existed when NASCAR was born in 1948, on the hard-packed sands of Daytona Beach, YouTube would likely be teeming with videos of men beating the heck out of one another as the waves lapped at their feet.

Fighting even helped lay the foundation for the sport’s popularity. In the 1979 Daytona 500, the first 500-mile race broadcast in its entirety on national television, Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough crashed on the final lap of the race, and they ended up in the infield grass, with Donnie’s brother, Bobby, exchanging punches and kicks and attempting chokeholds as the cameras rolled. The brawl made bigger news than the race, and the publicity was priceless.

NASCAR has tried to keep drivers from making similar news, especially now that sponsors are so sensitive to negative publicity. It has fined drivers for pushing each other, it has fined them for cursing in their cars (because fans can listen in on radios) and it has fined them for “actions detrimental to the sport” — which are basically defined as whatever NASCAR officials say is detrimental.

But a sport’s roots are hard to shake, and tempers are hard to change.

In April, Casey Mears and Marcos Ambrose were fined for fighting after a race in Richmond, Va. Am- brose threw a right hook to Mears’ face, and Mears later said he was impressed because punches often thrown in the sport, are not often landed.

No matter how much racing tries to escape its heritage, a gravitational pull brings it back.

Usually, the confrontations are harmless, and cause fans to roar with acceptance.

But this time, on that dirt track on Saturday, there was only a hush as Ward’s body lay lifeless.

At first, Stewart planned to race the Sprint Cup event at Watkins Glen on Sunday. He bowed out, perhaps the weight of the previous day’s events getting to him. Or maybe someone was able to knock some sense into him.