(AP Photo/Terry Renna). NASCAR driver Brian Vickers listens to a question during a news conference at Daytona International Speedway, Friday, Feb. 12, 2016, in Daytona Beach, Fla. Friday at Daytona International Speedway, Johnson launched the JJF Wellness Challenge, a series of three athletic events in the Metro Charlotte area.
Advertisement
“At the same time, NASCAR also announced that it has chose to make Tony Stewart’s No. 14 Chevrolet eligible to race while NASCAR Executive Vice President & Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell also stated, “(Brian) Vickers is medically cleared”.
Ideally, the racing season should start in February with the Daytona 500 and end in early September, just before football season really gets underway.
“They’ve taken a place like Daytona, where we have so much history and everybody wants to visit already, and made it one of our premier tracks”, said Austin Dillon, who will make his second start in the Unlimited.
He has been highly visible during his newly acquired free time and was on an all-terrain vehicle trip with Stewart a week ago when the three-time champion crashed. He said he had two rods and six screws inserted in his back.
Jon Wood said the hardest part of the situation was explaining it to Glen Wood, the 90-year-old founder of the team.
“I wouldn’t say ‘poor baby, ‘” he responded to one fan.
“We’ve been through a lot worse than this”, Stewart told his fans during the session. “This is just another bump in the road”, according to NBC Sports.
Unlike Busch, whose injuries were the result of hitting a concrete wall unprotected by SAFER barrier, Stewart’s injury is a result of recreational activity – he suffered a burst fracture of the L1 vertebra when a sand rail he was driving on the West Coast near the California-Arizona border landed wrong.
Personally, I don’t think Bill France intentionally overturned the “outsider” Beauchamp’s win to assist his loyal NASCAR driver Petty. “I just went over one and just nose-planted in the bottom of it. It was about a 20- or 25-foot drop”. “We are starting to get the pain under control and just didn’t want everybody to think while everybody was at Daytona today I was sitting on my [behind]”.
FILE – In this September 26, 2015, file photo, Ryan Blaney adjusts his cap after winning the NASCAR Xfinity series auto race at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Ky. Evernham traveled with him to the hospital.
And they are expected to do the same for Stewart. “They did an awesome job of making sure they didn’t do anything else to hurt us”.
“It won’t be long and I’ll be back at it”, said Stewart, who said he has lost 22 pounds since the beginning of December. For me, it’s one day at a time.
Vickers, 32, gives Stewart-Haas a considerable amount of racing savvy as its backup plan. Once the Chase schedules roll around, there’s no reason to believe the intensity level will be as high as its been in the first two years of the elimination-style Sprint Cup format.
Advertisement
There will be plenty of changes when NASCAR begins its Sprint Cup season Saturday with the Sprint Unlimited at Daytona. As a matter of fact, Vickers only managed to race in two events last season because of recurring blood clots.
