After Over Two Years of Silence, Danny Varin Gives His First Interview about the Incident that Claimed the Life of Kevin Ward Jr. and Releases a Book Covering the Step-by-Step Account of the Terrible Tragedy
Story By: MATT NOLES / RACERSGUIDE.COM
Photos By: RACERS GUIDE PHOTO STAFF
SPRAKERS, NY- January 7, 2017- There are few occurrences in life that leave as indelible of a mark in one’s memory quite like that of human tragedy.
For reasons beyond our understanding, we remember where we were, what we were doing and how we felt the moment the dreadful news crossed our path; it’s a venerable time stamp on our psyche and regardless of time, it never seems to leave us; it never seems to loosen its grasp.
For Danny Varin, the aforementioned statements hit home harder than most. August 9th, 2014, at the Canandaigua Motorsports Park is a night that will forever be etched into his conscience with terrible consequences. What should have been a memorable evening for the right reasons quickly took a terrible turn and for Varin, he had a front row seat to witness it all.
“It was a gorgeous day,” recalled Varin. “The sun was out, the sun was high and we started working on the car, going through all the nuts and bolts and I was just enjoying the day with the guys.”
For the first time in his young career, Danny Varin was making his first career start at the fabled Canandaigua Motorsports Park. It was a moment that he had been looking forward to for quite some time and it was certainly an opportunity that he was determined to take full advantage of.
“Canandaigua is just beautiful,” He continued. “The grass is mowed nice and maintained, the pit area is nice and spacious and that was the first night I was ever going to race there so I wanted to head out and take a look at the track and try to figure it out; try to predict what the racetrack was going to do. I was just trying to take it all in. There’s no place I would rather be than at the racetrack.”
Even with the rumors and speculation surrounding the potential arrival of NASCAR star Tony Stewart, who is also an avid dirt track racer, didn’t seem to make the day any different. If anything, it was just another distraction that the young Varin either didn’t want or even care about. He was there for one reason and one reason only; the race his car against the competition regardless of who may or may not be there.
“I wouldn’t say that we were amped up or anything like that,” stated Varin about Tony Stewart’s arrival. “He’s just another driver that you want to beat just like anyone else really. I mean obviously by being there he has a good chance of winning and there are definitely some bragging rights if you do beat him but other than that, he was just another rabbit to chase.”
By all accounts, it was just another day at a racetrack. Just another normal day of work, speed and laughter that so often accompanies the cars and drivers of small-time racing circuits all over the country. Little did anyone know that in a few short hours, the world as they knew it would be permanently and irrevocably altered by tragedy and thrust into the national spotlight for all to ridicule mercilessly.
When the feature ventured out onto the speedway, the event rolled off like every other that Danny Varin had been involved with over the course of his career. He tightened his belts, put the visor down, took note of those lined up around him and prepared to go to work. It was just another race, another chase in the pursuit of grip that would lead him from start to finish one corner at a time.
“The racing was really good that night,” Varin remarked. “We started one row behind Tony [Stewart] that night and the track got really wide and really slippery; it was the kind of track I really enjoy racing on. The car was good; way better than it was in the heat race and we were able to keep up with Tony and Jessica [Friesen] and we were moving forward through the field. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to finish the whole race so we’ll never really know where we would have ended up.”
As the laps clicked off, Varin continued to follow both the No. 14 of Tony Stewart and the No. 1z of Jessica Friesen through the field. Because of his proximity to the aforementioned drivers, he was in an almost ideal position to see the contact that occurred between both Stewart and Kevin Ward Jr. which resulted in the latter hitting the wall and coming to a stop on the outside of turn two, causing the caution to come out.
“I was in the perfect position to see the slide job that Stewart used on Ward,” stated Varin. “And I had my hands full because I was running the same line that Kevin [Ward Jr.] was and when the slide job came and he [Ward Jr.] ended up against the wall backwards; it took all I could do to miss hitting him. I think I glanced off of him a little and like I said, I definitely I had my hands full.”
Though hindsight can be one of the most dangerous and devastating tools a driver could use when looking back on previous events, it didn’t stop Danny Varin from wondering what would have happened had he taken a different approach when he came upon the disabled sprint car of Ward Jr.
“To this day, no matter how much money it would have taken, if I could have seen the future I would have done things differently,” said Varin remorsefully. “But the thing is you can’t. It’s taken me two years to put my thoughts together into a book and go through everything I saw step-by-step. In the end, the way the slide job was performed and the result of it all was nothing more than a racing deal.”
It wasn’t until the following lap while under caution that circumstances went from a mere racing deal to something far more life-altering. “I saw everything,” He stated. “From the laps before the slide job to the slide job itself to the moment when he [Kevin Ward Jr.] was struck and killed. I saw the official lean into to Tony’s [Stewart] car, I saw the police cars flying down the backstretch past me; I saw everything in great detail.”
It took a while for information to trickle down to the drivers after they were sent back to the pit area that August night. “Nobody really knew the extent of his injuries,” Varin continued. “It took a while for us to hear what had happened and when I found out, I distinctly remember all of my thoughts about what I saw, my thoughts about Kevin and everything that happened. It hit me pretty hard.”
In his book ‘Smokescreen,’ which was put together with the encouragement and help of his father, modified racer Bobby Varin, Danny attempts to put the reader in the driver’s seat in an effort to retell the tale and help others understand what he witnessed through his eyes.
“There is nothing embellished about the incident,” stated Varin. “I just tell it the way it unfolded from my perspective. I’m not biased, I’m not choosing any sides, I’m just telling the story from what I saw and I have to remain unbiased because there are a lot of issues here from the police investigation that went on to the grand jury depositions to having a celebrity racer involved and to be honest, it shouldn’t have been portrayed as it was.”
Thanks to the national news networks and the insight of social media users, the incident in question was blown far out of proportion from the standpoint of misinformation. “That’s what hit me so hard about this,” remarked Varin. “I tried to put myself in everyone’s shoes from Tony [Stewart] to Kevin [Ward Jr.] and though it isn’t fact because I can’t say what they both thought at the time, but it still hit me really hard because I could see myself reacting the way both of them did that night.”
There are certainly going to be questions, and probably some resentful accusations for Danny Varin telling his story, but he isn’t doing so for notoriety or monetary reasons; he’s merely trying to clarify and educate people about the tragic tale that he witnessed and he’s also trying to move on from one of the darkest days he’s ever been a part of.
“Emotionally, what I saw was tough,” He continued. “I never pictured anyone dying like that let alone being a witness to it. It was just so sudden and so violent and like I said, I think the biggest thing the affected me was that I could see myself playing both roles perfectly. I could see myself doing exactly what Kevin [Ward Jr.] did without hesitation and I could picture myself being Tony Stewart and doing exactly what he did. It’s almost scary.”
There were multiple issues that Danny Varin had to deal with after the incident and they were more heartbreaking than anything. “I had a lot of ideas running through my head afterward,” continued Varin. “I had just become a father a month before and then this person in front of you dies and he’s someone’s child, you know? Between those feelings and dealing with the actual emotions of seeing someone die in front of you, it definitely messes you up inside. Even now, even today, it’s difficult to think about.”
For some, the question that needs to be answered is this; why write the book now; simply enough; it was time to heal and move on. Danny Varin couldn’t see another way to come to terms with what he witnessed and experienced throughout the entire ordeal.
“The emotional difficulty I was having with the accident was too much,” said Varin. “And my father really pushed me to write down my feelings instead of keeping them bottled up inside and it just felt good to write it all down. There wouldn’t be a book if it weren’t for my father.”
With his son struggling to cope, Bobby Varin stepped in and made a suggestion that seemed ill advised at first glance, but turned out to be what Danny needed to do in order to move on. “I could see that he was struggling with the whole situation,” Bobby Varin stated. “He was having extreme emotional difficulties and I could see why. A lot of it had to do with the fact that it could have been him, he could see himself acting like both Kevin [Ward Jr.] and Tony [Stewart] did and that really rattled his cage quite a bit.”
After a few days of seeing his son trying, and subsequently failing, to deal with what he experienced that Saturday night, Bobby made a suggestion that turned out to be both a liberating and a healing venture; start writing everything down.
“I told him that he needed to get a notepad and start writing down all the thoughts that are constantly going around in your head,” continued Bobby Varin. “He was being tormented by the incident over and over because he couldn’t get it out of his head and once he started to write all of his thoughts down, it started getting a little bit easier and a little bit better for him.”
As the days turned into weeks, the thoughts that had been plaguing Danny Varin slowly began to appear on paper to the point that notepad after notepad began filling up with everything that he had witnessed and experienced during that brief moment in time on August 9th.
“He had a couple of notepads full of thoughts and notes and they were all over the place,” His father continued. “When we started reading through them later on to help him get through everything, we decided that the next logical step would be to put all of this together into a book in an attempt to tell the tale, to right the misinformed and to educate the casual race fan that really didn’t understand the sport or how this tragedy could have happened in the first place.”
As stated earlier, one of the items that bothered Danny Varin the most was the misinformation, the speculation and the conjecture brought upon the incident by social media users and mainstream media outlets such as ABC, NBC, CBS, ESPN and so on and so forth. These aforementioned institutions were most certainly a driving force behind the decision to tell the story.
“He was deeply bothered by the coverage the incident received,” continued Bobby. “The erroneous accounts of the incident, the way that people had this preconceived idea about what happened. This book is really directed towards those people to set the record straight; to deliver the actual facts, not to deliver mere speculation or opinion. This isn’t directed toward the seasoned race fan but rather to those individuals who only saw what was on the news. We’re also trying to take the negatives and turn them into positives. It was extremely important to Danny and myself that we accomplish that.”
Whether or not he’s worried about the possible backlash that may come from telling all, Danny Varin is at peace with his decision to open up instead of keeping all of the emotions inside. “In my opinion, I was in a very good position to see everything unfold,” continued Varin. “Telling this story is not about notoriety or anything like that; it’s about getting better about it. It’s about moving on.”
The Ward family was never far from Danny’s mind throughout the process of putting this story together and rightfully so. There is no malicious intent, no shock factor or opinion about the events that unfolded that night at Canandaigua; just what he witnessed from behind the wheel of his sprint car.
“This book isn’t intended to hurt anybody, Varin concluded. “It’s intended to help heal and inform anybody that got caught up in the lopsided media coverage or got caught up in the events that happened that day and what was speculated to have happened. This book has the answers to set the record straight and it needed to be written to help people understand why this could happen at any racetrack on any given weekend. I have no doubts that this was the right thing to do.”
‘Smokescreen’ by Daniel Robert Varin is currently on sale and can be purchased at the following link: https://www.amazon.com/SMOKESCREEN-Tony-Stewart-Kevin-Incident/dp/1520230737/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483753993&sr=8-1&keywords=smokescreen+by+daniel+varin
Matt Noles is a contributing writer for Racer’s Guide, Dirt Track Digest and Speedway Illustrated. He currently resides in Sprakers, New York and can be reached via e-mail at matt_noles@yahoo.com.
