Indycar goes racing again with thoughts on Wickens recovery
Indycar drivers, unsettled and with heavy hearts, return to racing this weekend with their minds on Robert Wickens, the Canadian driver who remains hospitalized after a frightening wreck last weekend.
Once they get in their cars, they will have no choice but to push the Pocono Raceway crash away and focus on their jobs.
“It’s been a tough week, I think everybody wouldn’t mind a week off,” Ryan Hunter-reay said Thursday.
Wickens has been hospitalized with a spinal cord injury since his car launched into the fence Sunday at the Pennsylvania track. The severity of Wickens’ injury has not been determined, and the waiting has been agonizing for the Indycar community.
They race again Saturday night at Gateway Motorsports Park near St. Louis, and teams will honor Wickens with decals made by a Toronto merchandiser for the 29-year-old. The “Wicky” stickers will be the only reminders the drivers can have once they get in their cars.
“It’s difficult when someone gets hurt and you’re close to someone that gets hurt,” said Josef Newgarden, “but at the same time, you’ve got to be able to switch gears. If your mind is somewhere else or if you have any second thoughts or second-guesses ... you can’t perform at a peak level, and that’s where a driver has to thrive. They have to drive at peak response time and peak decision making, and you can’t have anything cloud that.”
Viewers got a front seat glimpse into how dangerous racing can be when the camera inside Hunterreay’s car captured real-time footage of Wickens’ car sailing over top of Hunter-reay and narrowly missing Hunter-reay’s head.
“I could see it. I knew it was close. I saw him get up into the fence and he was flying over me, I saw all of it,” Hunter-reay said Thursday. “In real time, having lifted, I wasn’t really aware I was that close. After seeing the in-car (video), you know, the reality set in that I got very close to a much different and much worse outcome.”
An Indycar champion and Indianapolis 500 winner, Hunter-reay had time to “shrug down” in the cockpit in his own attempt to duck Wickens’ car. He recalls having the reflex to protect his head.