I'm pretty sure this was just an unfortunate accident. Those tracks have lights but are still pretty dark. Those cars don't have the best visibility either. Plus those cars apparently aren't easy to steer and you use the throttle to help with steering. Also here's a quote that should help explain things better.[spoiler]"For those not in the know, nearly all cars have what is known as a differential - a clump of gears that lets one wheel spin faster than the other, while still applying power to both. This is important because when the vehicle is turning a corner, the outside wheel follows a longer path than the inside wheel - if the wheels were forced to turn at the same speed, one would have to drag and/or skip across the pavement to make up the difference. Tires are designed specifically not to drag, skip and such (lose traction), so this would put a lot of wear on the tires, strain the mechanical bits of the car, and generally make turning more difficult... Keep turning difficulty in mind. Unless a limited slip differential or solid axle is used, when one tire breaks traction, all the available engine power goes to spinning up that one wheel - the "peg leg" burn-out. Obviously this is a bad thing in a racing situation, and would be a frequent problem on a low-traction dirt race track. A limited slip differential would mean additional weight, complexity and cost, so they simply use a solid rear axle and drift (let both rear wheels break traction) around the corners. To compensate for this loss of traction when cornering, they use huge rear tires. So... What happens when you combine huge tires (lots of traction) with a solid axle (difficult to turn) and reduced speed (due to yellow flag, resulting in still more traction)? The car becomes very difficult to turn (known as understeer). In fact, it would become far easier to turn by revving the engine to break the rear wheels lose (power-induced oversteer). So, Stewart comes around the corner, the car in front of him dodges out of the way, revealing a road-raging driver running out in the track. Stewart tries to dodge: He turns the wheel and blips the throttle to get the car to rotate... To point in the right direction so when it regains traction it will miss the object (driver) he's trying to avoid. It was simply too late and/or driver too far out in the track for the physics to play out. The result? Driver gets hit by the rear tire."[/spoiler]