‘Black cloud’ hovers over N.Y. community after driver’s death

Twenty-year-old was ‘living his dream’ on the racetrack

He said [he] was going to race Tony Stewart, and he wanted to beat him

PORT LEYDEN, N .Y. • One friend learned the terrible news at 3 a.m. Sunday when his ringing phone woke him. Another was riding the bus to work when he heard. A woman found out in church, where the pastor offered prayers for Kevin Ward Jr. and his family.

Word spread quickly in this small town at the foot of the Adirondacks that one of its sons had been killed Saturday night on a dirt racetrack at Canandaigua Motorsports Park, 225 kilometres to the southwest.

By dusk Sunday, a cluster of cars and trucks had parked along a sloping lawn leading to the spacious ranch house on Kelpytown Road where Ward, 20, had lived. People gathered near the front of the house, and a woman who identified herself as his sister met a reporter at the foot of the driveway with a written statement: “The family appreciates all the prayers and support and would like to grieve at this point.”

Any death on a racetrack is unusual, but what made Ward’s especially noteworthy was that it involved Tony Stewart, a three-time NASCAR champion moonlighting at the dirt track and competing in an open-wheeled sprint car against unknowns such as Ward.

Stewart’s race car collided with Ward’s, sending it into the retaining wall where it then spun out. Ward leapt out of his race car to confront Stewart on the track, a response that Stewart himself had resorted to in the past.

Ward stood on the track and pointed at Stewart’s oncoming car. Stewart’s car fishtailed and struck Ward, tossing him several feet onto the track, where he lay motionless while emergency personnel rushed to his aid. He was pronounced dead at F.F. Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua.

Comments online have suggested that Stewart did not make enough effort to avoid Ward, and others blame Ward for recklessness.

Back in his hometown, some preferred to leave any comments to Ward’s family. Others spoke but would not provide their names, citing the intimacy of small town life. A woman returning to her pickup truck with a food order in town said, “Everyone knows everyone here. There’s a black cloud over the area.”

Donna McLaughlin was sitting on her porch Sunday evening and said she knew Ward through her children who attended South Lewis High School in nearby Turin, N.Y., with him. In tears that morning in church, her daughter had delivered the news that Ward had died.

“He was a good kid,” McLaughlin said.

Ward was a regular customer at Lock 96, a convenience store on Route 12, which served as a community centre Sunday night. Some customers came for gasoline and others for pizza or ice cream that they ate at booths outside.

Brandon Delano, 18, was tinkering with a car in the parking lot. Although two grades behind Ward in school, Delano remembered Ward from their days playing Pop Warner football together.

“He was friendly,” Delano said, referring to a widely circulated video showing Ward gesturing at Stewart before he was struck. “He wasn’t a hothead.”

He recalled more recent times driving by a garage where Ward was frequently outside working on his cars. Delano said Ward Racing T-shirts are popular items around town.

“He loved racing,” Delano said. “It was his passion.”

According to his website, that passion began early. Ward started racing go-carts at age four. He advanced to the Empire Super Sprints series when he was 16, and he won rookie of the year honours in 2010. He ranked seventh on the circuit this season with four top-10 finishes. On the circuit’s website a message said that the Ward family sent thanks for the “heartfelt notes, calls, texts, anything that has been sent their way.” It added that for the funeral Thursday “the family wants to see the biggest turnout there ever. They are very proud of Kevin Jr.”

A former classmate who declined to give his name said Ward wanted to be a race-car driver since he was a child.

“That’s all he wanted to do,” he said. “He was living his dream.”

Although Port Leyden was developed around the Black River Canal, the canal no longer operates, and a decade ago an Ethan Allen furniture factory closed in nearby Boonville.

A pulp and paper mill closed in Lyons Falls in 2000, where Ward’s family runs the Westward Painting. Co., which sponsors racing events.

Hundreds of lost jobs have left this region of Lewis County looking a little frayed.

Racing, though, had at times taken Ward far from Port Leyden, giving him a glimpse of a wider world. And he was looking forward to flirting with the big-time in Canandaigua.

A friend at Lock 96 recalled talking to Ward two weeks ago.

“He said he had a race coming up,” the young man recalled. “He was going to race Tony Stewart, and he wanted to beat him.”

AP PHOTO / EMPIRE SUPER SPRINTS, INC. Kevin Ward Jr., was killed Saturday when the car being driven by Tony Stewart struck the 20-year-old, who had climbed from his crashed car and was on the track trying to confront Stewart following a bump with Stewart.