Driver had major heart surgery in December
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Brian Vickers said he’s been told, “you’ll never go racing again” too many times over the course of his NASCAR career. Each time, he’s bounced back — a blessing, he calls it — to keep his goals alive.
His recurring battle with blood clots and open-heart operations has interrupted his Sprint Cup driving duties three times. Though his most recent episode will only sideline him for two events at the start of the 2015 season, the gravity of Vickers’ latest health scare came through in acute detail Tuesday in his first media session since mid-December surgery.
Vickers said facing the latest career crossroads forced him to ask hard questions not only about his aspirations at NASCAR’s highest level, but about his overall health in the short and long term. With the backing of his medical team, Vickers said he ultimately didn’t want to second-guess what could have been on the track.
“I think my answer internally was always yes,” Vickers said on the Michael Waltrip Racing portion of the annual Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour. “There were times where I thought, maybe it’s time, maybe someone’s trying to tell me something. I think maybe if I’d won a championship already, maybe I would’ve had different thoughts, but I really want to win a championship and I just love what I do.
“I think if they said I could go back racing, I kind of thought to myself: Five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, if the choice is yours and you make the choice not to come back racing, which are you going to regret more? Which do you have the potential to regret more — not giving it another go or giving it another go and it not working out. For me, that answer was clear.”
Vickers, 31, is scheduled to return to the MWR No. 55 Toyota at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of the third race of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule. Though he said he was initially was skeptical of his doctors’ decision to clear him for competition so soon, he indicated that targeting Vegas for his return was actually a conservative timetable.
Team owner and part-time driver Michael Waltrip will wheel the No. 55 in the season-opening Daytona 500 (Feb. 22, 1 p.m. ET, FOX), a race he has won twice in his career. The team announced Tuesday that developmental driver Brett Moffitt will take over driving duties March 1 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the second race on the Sprint Cup schedule.
In the meantime, the healing process continues for Vickers after his latest setback, an invasive Dec. 13 procedure that involved cracking open his chest to replace an artificial patch over a hole in his heart. While the original surgery in 2010 was less intrusive, he called his most recent operation, “a full-blown emergency; it was a panic,” to close the gap between his left and right atrium. A crucial component of his race-readiness is giving his wired-together sternum time to heal.
Vickers said he stayed in intensive care for a week to recover and was on bed rest orders for a few days at home. His first trip outside his house was to the MWR shop, one of the initial steps in a recovery that’s left his team owner in awe over his driver’s resilience.
“I’m impressed as a friend, too,” Waltrip said. “You want your friends to live the life they dream of and he faced a tough operation, and the doctors weren’t sure exactly how it would go to be that age and know that your future is uncertain, that’s challenging. To see him bounce back, and he knows that he’s going to be better than he’s ever been. To see him bounce back like that and to do the things that he loves, that’s what you hope for all your friends.”
The team’s announcement last week that Vickers would return to the driver’s seat after a two-race absence coincided with a ruling from NASCAR officials that he would also be eligible for a berth in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs should he meet all other postseason requirements. The decision was similar to other exemptions granted to Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart last season, the first year of the new Chase format with playoff spots open to race winners during the regular season.
Vickers didn’t lack for motivation, but it’s another gold ring within reach as he mounts another comeback.
“There’s two reasons I’m coming back: I’m coming back because I love to race,” Vickers said. “I love to go fast. I love to race cars, I love the competition, I love the thrill of being in a car at over 200 mph but mostly the reason I’m coming back here, to race full-time in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is because I want to win a championship, so being eligible for that is a big piece of it. I’m very thankful and thrilled that I was able to be back in time for that, because I think there’s a lot of people that didn’t think that was going to be the case at times, even including myself. It’s huge for me.”