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Vickers to replace Tony Stewart at Daytona

It is unknown whether Vickers will be in Stewart’s vehicle after the Daytona 500 or not.

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Brian Vickers will replace Tony Stewart in the Daytona 500 later this month at Daytona International Speedway, according to The Associated Press.

Vickers ran two races in 2015 before a recurrence of blood clots.

The re-occurrence has cost him seat time over the past five years during his Sprint Cup career while driving for the now defunct Red Bull Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing teams.

SHR would not confirm the report and has scheduled a Friday news conference to discuss its plans for Stewart’s ride. Some wondered if Jeff Gordon would be willing to come out of retirement, others thought about Clint Bowyer, the future replacement for Stewart, and drivers like Jeff Burton and Bobby Labonte came into the discussion. Vickers is expected to race just at Daytona and Stewart-Hass Racing is exploring all of its options for after Daytona. He missed parts of four seasons since 2010 to treat clotting and wasn’t medically cleared to race while on blood thinners because of the risk of bleeding out if he was involved in an accident.

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Stewart, who is retiring at the end of the season, is out for the beginning of the year after suffering a burst fracture in one of his vertebra in a sand buggy incident in late January.

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