There is a lot of bad info in this thread. I have been around sprint cars all my life and it pains me to see people spouting off who have no clue about what they are talking about.
These cars are engineered and set up to turn left. If you hold the wheel straight, you will turn left. If you slam on the brakes, the rear end of the car will slide out and the car will steer left. They have no clutches and idle at a pretty decent clip. If Tony were to slam the brakes to miss Ward, the car would have kicked out and slid the right rear tire towards him. It also would have more than likely stalled the car right in front of numerous other cars that would have had to take evasive action. In short, these cars are very difficult to control at slow speed, so him hitting the gas and transferring weight to the rear end would actually give him the best opportunity to precisely maneuver the car.
I'm not saying he didn't hit the gas to try and send a message to Ward, but I am saying that him hitting the throttle near him DOES NOT necessarily mean he had bad intentions. Drivers stab the throttle under caution all the time to clean out the motors and keep heat in the tires.
Visibility at these tracks can also be sketchy. Lighting is usually old and dust can linger in the air making things more difficult. Drivers also have several layers of tear offs on their helmet that they pull off when they get covered in mud. Seeing through a bunch of them no doubt limits sight. Not to mention the head and neck restraints, containment seats, and belts that are all designed to immobilize the neck. The wing panel on the right side also limits the line of sight out that side of the car.
It is entirely possible that Stewart did not see the kid until it was too late. In this form of racing, you do not make pit stops. You adjust your car under yellow flag conditions. You also check gauges, pull on your seat belts, etc. Guys are absolutely not driving around the track expecting people to be running around the racing surface. If there was a serious incident that necessitated individuals to be moving around the track, a red flag is thrown and all race cars are stopped.
Another point being ignored is the fact that these cars have no mirrors. Tony Stewart would not have known the guy he was racing with was the one who wrecked until he circled back around the track. A yellow flag could just have easily been for another incident, a car that blew a motor and stopped on the track, debris on the racing surface or many other things. There are no mirrors or spotters talking to the drivers like in Nascar. These drivers can only see what is in front of them.
At the end of the day, Tony is the only one who knows what happened. I don't believe for a second that this was intentional. The racing incident that preceded the tragedy did not hurt his car or cause him to lose positions, so what would he be angry about? MAYBE he was attempting to intimidate Ward, but we are talking about a guy he probably does not know at all and may never race with again. What does that gain him?
It seems to me that this was a tragic accident that could have happened at any track to a thousand different drivers. You do not get out of your car and walk toward oncoming racecars. Nothing good comes out of that. Ever. Ward definitely made a bad decision that cost him his life. Stewart will be haunted by this the rest of his life, but only he knows what was going through his mind last night.
