Eight hundred pound gorilla....

[CIRF]

I respect his accomplishments behind the wheel and there is no doubt he is a great driver, will go down in history as a great all around driver who could race anything and win. A real "racer's racer" by any measure.

But person? Hardly. Probably one of the biggest jerks with issues to ever sit behind the wheel. Nothing more than a bully or thug with talent.

Pretty good summation. But, there will be those who will bring up all the philanthropic and benevolent deeds Stewart has done and the good he's done for short track racing. None of that can be denied nor can it be diminished from. Does that offset the thuggery and borderline psychopathic behavior? In some folks eyes it does. I'm not qualified to be the judge of such things. However, I am qualified to look at what's happened over the years dating back to Stewart's USAC days and much of his acting out was completely unnecessary and unwarranted. I was around him numerous times during his USAC days and found early on that he was not a nice person and was someone to be avoided.

Stewart's over the top rhetoric and thuggish actions bled over into his NASCAR career. When he won the first of his 3 NASCAR Cup Championship he had a whole bunch of very hurtful and unnecessary things to say about The King publicly. He did the same thing to Darrel Waltrip over some things DW had said on air that were absolutely true.

He's also a world class hypocrite. One only needs to point to what he said about drivers respecting other drivers and their safety prior to the 2006 Daytona 500. Then he completely loses his cool and deliberately turns Matt Kenseth down the backstretch fairly early in the race and sent MK on a ride that could easily have resulted in serious injuries, or worse. Stewart also is on record as saying he'd wreck anyone who blocked him and then turns around and causes a huge crash at Talladega as a result of him blocking. Afterword he says it was "different" in this case. Hypocrisy at it's finest.

As far as Tony Stewart's civil case, if the family puts up a video of Tony's Greatest Hits in racing as some kind of proof he is an angry, deliberately malicious person, then all Stewart's lawyers have to do is put up a video compilation of ALL the other drivers doing the same thing... Logano/Kenseth, Kenseth/Keselowski, Edwards/Keselowski, Keselowski/Edwards, Harvick, Gordon, both Bush brothers, etc. The list is endless of drivers deliberately wrecking each other for whatever reason and that would pretty much show the culture or racing is deliberate contact and retaliation.

What can and can't be used in a court of law to establish a pattern of conduct is way out of my realm of expertise, and unless you're a lawyer or a law professor it's out of your's, too. Establishing a pattern of past borderline psychopathic behavior would be extremely easy. The big difference between all the drivers you site and Stewart is none of them was involved in the death of another driver. More importantly those drivers that you sight were never involved with the death of another driver as a result of a direct confrontation. Not sure if any of that will have a bearing on the proceedings but I'm sure the attorney's will be using it if they can.

[old fan]

Tony's mentor was Aj Foyt what he did on the track in the last race was wrong on the other side the ward kid should have never got out side the car

[CIRF]

I don't remember one time that A. J. Foyt ever intentionally wrecked another car, whether it was in retaliation or to win a race. It may well have happened but I don't recall ever seeing or hearing of that being the case. A. J. would happily rearrange your facial features after the race if he thought you had put his life or equipment in jeopardy but he didn't go after someone on the track with his car. I reckon maybe Stewart missed that part of the mentoring he received from A. J.

It doesn't matter what Kevin Ward should have, or shouldn't have done, at this point. What matters is if a New York civil court judge is convinced a minimum of 51% preponderance of proof was met by the Ward family counsel that Stewart was at least partially responsible for the death of Kevin Ward.

[t.nie]

And this isn't a criminal trial with "rules of evidence" in place as to what can and cannot be submitted in evidence.

This is a civil trial. You can offer anything that you think is relevant to your case. So, they show video of this or Tony's Greatest Hits if they want to, and Tony's lawyers show multiple drivers over many years fighting and deliberately wrecking each other.

So, what's your cutoff? If someone gets hurt, then you're a psychopath if you instigated the wreck, but if you just launch another car into the fences on the front straight and only a few fans get cuts and bruises, you're perfectly sane with no pyschological issue? Your criteria is "did the target get hurt" or "did it kill someone" as your justification for calling someone psychopath for wrecking them?

You don't have to be a lawyer to know there is a difference between civil and criminal cases and the standards are different.

I do agree though, that in a courtroom in New York in front of people who have no background in racing and will be on the outside looking in, the outcome is anything but looking favorable for the aggressive, angry thug that is Tony Stewart.

And when it comes to his charitable activities, that doesn't mean a thing. John Gotti was and is still revered as this great hero of some neighborhoods for his philanthropic giving to families in need. It still didn't change the fact that away from the publicity those charitable "acts" get you, you can still be a malicious, violent bully with anger issues and a child like inability to control your emotions.

In many ways, Tony is still the little brat kid he was when he was 10. Solves his problems by trying to bully people. Just look at the crap going into the stands because some guy he doesn't know was heckling him. Reacted like a petulant little 2 year old.

Anger management obviously didn't work to Tony Stewart.

[CIRF]

And this isn't a criminal trial with "rules of evidence" in place as to what can and cannot be submitted in evidence.

So, what's your cutoff? If someone gets hurt, then you're a psychopath if you instigated the wreck, but if you just launch another car into the fences on the front straight and only a few fans get cuts and bruises, you're perfectly sane with no pyschological issue? Your criteria is "did the target get hurt" or "did it kill someone" as your justification for calling someone psychopath for wrecking them?

You don't have to be a lawyer to know there is a difference between civil and criminal cases and the standards are different.

If you're lawyer enough to know what is and isn't going to be allowed as evidence prior to the actual trial then I happily defer, because I don't, and don't claim to. I'm not a resident message board attorney. Common sense would dictate that Stewart's counsel could only justify or diminish bad behavior with more unrelated bad behavior. Maybe that would work, I don't know. If you've been in contact with the Stewart legal counsel and they've briefed you as to what they will or won't present as evidence and rebuttal then once again I happily defer to your explanations.

What has been clearly established is that the level of proof is much lower for a civil proceeding in the State of New York. As I said before, it requires just a 51% preponderance of evidence to win civil litigation. Any less than that in the opinion of the jury, you lose. Criminal litigation is beyond a reasonable doubt. That is common knowledge.

It's not necessarily what Stewart has done on a racetrack that indicates possible psychopathic behavior. There have been instances through the years off the track that have. One such instance was just this past January at The Chili Bowl in Tulsa. I witnessed this incident and couldn't believe that Stewart went behind the fence and attempted to bait the off duty cop into a physical confrontation (of which I believe he'd have got his ass kicked). Stewart went out of his way to seek out the cop and confront him. He had to know there was the distinct possibility that it will be used against him in New York. There have been several other incidents as well. One in Australia, a couple at Daytona with members of the media, one at Danville, Illinois, one at a USAC race that Stewart was attending as a car owner. There have been more but they don't come to mind at this moment.

I'm sure that the Ward family counsel, if they are worth their salt, is compiling all this information and this past weekend is just another in a long line. The defiant, wise ass attitude in the interview last weekend prolly won't score him any points with the jury, either.

Lawyer on old chap.

[t.nie]

"Lawyer on, old chap?"

Really? You're sitting there writing reams as though you're the 4m court appointed expert.

Enjoy your weekend, if you can fit it in between your legal briefs on New York courts rules of evidence and offering your professional medical opinion on Tony Stewart's psychological state of mind.

[mudslinger47]

An attorney barely worth his salt could win this in my opinion...makes no difference what "all the rest do" this is about one individual still walking around and one that is not... it's fairly easy to show tendencies with Stewart.... the "rast" that do it aren't listed in the suit nor did they have a hand in the incident... for the record, I don't hate Tony or like him , only thing he ever did to me was sneer at me at the dirt track in Vegas, maybe he was having a tough night...

[jeffreymo]

Tony just keeps proving that he's a complete sociopath. Un-freaking-believable.

[CIRF]

An attorney barely worth his salt could win this in my opinion...makes no difference what "all the rest do" this is about one individual still walking around and one that is not... it's fairly easy to show tendencies with Stewart.... the "rast" that do it aren't listed in the suit nor did they have a hand in the incident... for the record, I don't hate Tony or like him , only thing he ever did to me was sneer at me at the dirt track in Vegas, maybe he was having a tough night...

Now muddy, you must understand that the gavel has fallen while in the hand of the 4M message board court judge, the honorable t.nie mcweeny!! LOL!! No amount of common sense can sway or change that ruling! LOL!!