MWR driver will be Chase eligible even as he misses opening two races
Michael Waltrip Racing announced Wednesday that Brian Vickers has received medical clearance to return to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition in early March.
Vickers, a three-time winner in NASCAR's top division, is scheduled to return to MWR's No. 55 Toyota in time for the third race of the season, March 8 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Vickers underwent heart surgery in mid-December, terming the procedure "a temporary setback" that would force him to miss the start of the season.
"The doctors gave me a clean bill of health and said I will be better than before," Vickers said Wednesday in a release provided by the team. "The advancements in modern medicine and surgical procedures are amazing and I have to thank my doctors at the Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute and Carolinas Medical Center for their extraordinary care. I have literally put my life in their hands twice and I cannot begin to express my level of gratitude."
In the interim, MWR announced that team owner Michael Waltrip will drive the No. 55 in the season-opening Daytona 500. The team said it would announce a substitute driver for the second race of the season -- March 1 at Atlanta Motor Speedway -- at a later date.
Moments after the MWR announcement, Steve O'Donnell -- NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer -- announced that despite the two-race absence Vickers would remain eligible for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup postseason if he meets all other playoff requirements. It's the same exemption that was extended to drivers Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart when they missed regular-season events in 2014, the first year of the new Chase format. Hamlin won at Talladega in the spring to make the Chase.
"With the clearance from his physicians, Brian Vickers has satisfied all necessary NASCAR requirements to resume racing on March 5," O'Donnell said in a statement released by NASCAR. "Further, NASCAR has reviewed the circumstances surrounding his situation and has determined that he will maintain Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup eligibility despite neither entering nor attempting to qualify in the first two championship events, provided he meets all other necessary eligibility requirements."
The medical leave is the third that Vickers, 31, has endured since joining the Sprint Cup circuit full-time in 2004. He missed the final 25 races of the 2010 season after treatment for blood clots and surgery to repair a hole in his heart. A recurrence of clots in his right calf forced him back on blood thinners and caused him to end his part-time 2013 campaign with five races left in the season.
Last December, Vickers said he was feeling ill and went to his team of doctors for an evaluation. He underwent surgery Dec. 13 after tests revealed that his body was rejecting the artificial patch placed over the hole in his heart in 2010.
Vickers, who joined the Waltrip organization in 2012, said two days after surgery that he would need "plenty of time, rest and rehab," before returning to competition. The time frame wound up being roughly three months.
"Now all of my focus is getting ready so when I return we are prepared to win races and the championship in my Aaron's Dream Machine," Vickers said.
All three of Vickers' wins at the sport's highest level have come with different teams. Vickers recorded his first victory in the fall of 2006 at Talladega Superspeedway with Hendrick Motorsports, infamously clearing Dale Earnhardt Jr. and teammate Jimmie Johnson out of first and second place to take the checkers.
Vickers, the 2003 champion of what is now the NASCAR XFINITY Series, also won from the pole position in August 2009 at Michigan International Speedway for the former Red Bull Racing team. In July 2013, he scored his first Sprint Cup victory since his lengthy medical leave and his only victory for MWR at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Waltrip, a two-time winner of NASCAR's most prestigious race, has dialed back his competition schedule in recent years to mostly accommodate restrictor-plate races (Daytona, Talladega) and competitive dancing. Waltrip, 51, is a veteran of 778 starts in NASCAR's premier series and also a fixture in FOX broadcasts of stock-car events. He won the Daytona 500 in 2001 and 2003.