Tony Stewart has been greatly affected by the race car accident that involved him and fellow race car driver Kevin Ward Jr. The accident took the life of young Ward right on the spot.
It is because of this that a lot of other race car drivers have been reaching out to Stewart as he has been living in seclusion ever since the incident. He has not joined ay of the races right after and has been out of the spotlight lately.
NASCAR Championship team owner Joe Gibbs has been looking for the right opportunity to reach out to his former driver, Stewart. He said "'I didn't feel like it was the right time (to call him), but we're all praying for him. We all love Tony. I love what he did for us here. We all know he's a racer's racer, and he's big for our sport."
Stwart has been driving for Gibbs since 1997 until 2008 and has won Cup titles in 2002 and 2005 driving for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Gibbs added "'I had to spend 30 minutes listening to him how he won a dirt late model race, and I wanted to go, 'I don't care, OK? But he was so excited. I came to the conclusion that was him - for him to be happy and doing the things that he wanted to do, he was going to be racing."
Stewart is an important member of the JGR team. Gibbs said that Stewart showed compassion with members of the team. One time, he supplied funds for an employee who was struggling to cover the cost of adopting a child.
He said "Tony's got great courage. He's smart. He loves this sport. He's totally focused on it. He doesn't have distractions. He's very important to our sport. This is a horrible thing to have happen for the Ward family, for him."
A lot of the race car drivers as expressed their thoughts with regards to the accident.
Kyle Larson also talked fondly of Stewart saying "You would see his trailer pull in the track and you would get more amped up and try a little bit harder. He does a lot for the sport. When he goes to sprint car races it's his place to get away and relax a little bit. I always enjoyed when he would come to the race track and still enjoyed seeing him whenever he would venture out and go back."
