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NEW YORK, New York - Nascar veteran Tony Stewart will sit out the upcoming Michigan race in August 2014. The announcement come mere days after he fatally struck a competing racer at a low-stakes New York dirt track race on August 9.
Stewart's team, Stewart-Haas Racing, said he will not participate in the Nascar Sprint Cup Series events at the Michigan International Speedway, adding the team has not decided on future races.
TRAGIC INCIDENT
On August 9 2014, the mercurial racer and one of the highest-paid drivers in Nascar, was competing at the Canandaigua Motorsports Park in upstate New York when he clipped the car of 20-year-old driver Kevin Ward Jnr, according to video of the event published online.
Ward then stepped out of his car and onto the track and seemed to gesture at Stewart before being struck and killed by Stewart's vehicle, according to the videos.
Stewart said in a statement after the incident: "There aren't words to describe the sadness I feel about the accident that took the life of Kevin Ward Jnr."
Stewart, 43, decided to sit out last Sunday's Nascar Sprint Cup Series at Watkins Glen, New York, but only after facing a storm of criticism on social media.
ONGOING INVESTIGATION
Ward's father on Tuesday (August 12) lashed out at the three-time Nascar champion Stewart in a newspaper interview over the death.
Kevin Ward Snr told the Syracuse Post-Standard: "Apparently, Tony Stewart was the only one driving out there who didn't see him."
County officials have said that the investigation into whether Stewart should face criminal charges will last at least for two weeks.
In Stewart's place at the weekend Sprint Cup will be veteran driver Jeff Burton, the team said in the statement.
