43 year-old Tony Stewart, is finally speaking out to the public about the horrible accident that lead to the death of fellow driver, Kevin Ward, Jr. Stewart was advised by his counsel to not speak until now, since the grand jury decided to not charge him with any criminal charges regarding Ward’s death.
“I know 100 percent in my heart and in my mind that I did not do anything wrong. This was 100 percent an accident,” Stewart told The Associated Press on Thursday.
“There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I haven’t thought about it. And it will be like that all your life,” he told the AP. “You are never going to forget about it. You are never going to not see it happen all over again. It’s going to be a part of me forever.”
“You sit there and you wrack your brain, you try to analyze ‘Why did this happen?’ ” Stewart told the AP. “I made myself miserable just trying to make sense of it. … I just couldn’t function. I’ve never been in a position where I just couldn’t function.”
“You are part of something so tragic and so unthinkable, it’s hard to face anybody,” he told the AP. “It was hard to wrap my arms around this, and it still is. I haven’t been a part of society for more than six weeks. You are scared to be around anybody, you are embarrassed to be around anybody because of what happened.”
Stewart has since returned to racing and even though the public has their own theory on what happened, his only concern is the family of Ward and the understanding of their anger.
“I guess the end result is I don’t blame them for anything they say,” he told AP.
No matter what we as the public think what happened, you can only imagine how it feels to be apart of a families pain with the loss of their loved one. The family can still sue Stewart civilly for wrongful death and that would be no surprise if we see that soon. We all have to hope and pray the Ward family eventually finds some peace as well as Stewart.
(H/T Washington Post)