As path winds, Vickers races on
The image adorns T-shirts, posters and trinkets, but that doesn’t diminish its message.
Clyde Vickers thought it would be a good reminder for his son and placed it on their toolbox when Brian Vickers raced go-karts years ago. The drawing shows a frog, head buried inside a crane’s mouth, grabbing the bird around the neck in what appears to be a futile battle. Above the scene are the words, “Don’t Ever Give Up!”
“He probably didn’t realize how much it was going to matter later in life when I was 28 going through everything I’ve gone through the last couple of years,” said Vickers, who returns to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series this weekend for the first time since April 1, driving for Mark Martin at Sonoma.
A career filled with promise — Vickers won a Nationwide Series title at 20 — has been sidetracked by illness and ill timing the last few years.
Blood clots and subsequent treatment ended his season after 11 races in 2010. He returned in 2011 with Red Bull Racing, but the team folded after the season. Vickers did not find a suitable full-time ride and signed for six races with Michael Waltrip Racing, for which Martin is running a partial schedule. Two weeks after Vickers finished fifth at Bristol Motor Speedway in March, the team added the Cup circuit’s two road courses to his schedule.
The thought of running a limited schedule would have been unsettling to Vickers a year ago.
But with his ties to MWR and co-owner Rob Kauffman, Vick- ers has been able to race on some of the world’s most famous tracks with Kaufman’s World Endurance Championship team this season. He was one of three drivers for Kauffman’s team last weekend in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, finishing sixth in the GTE Am class.
“Things happen for a reason,” said Vickers, who has two career Cup victories and 11 poles and made the Chase for the Sprint Cup in 2009. “A year ago, I would have never had thought I wouldn’t be racing full time in NASCAR. Those opportunities did present themselves. I was looking for the right fit. I found exactly what I was looking for. It just wasn’t full time.
“Although I wouldn’t have planned it this way, it couldn’t have worked out any better. I’ve had the opportunity in one year to lead laps in a Cup car and race at Le Mans. How fortunate can you be?”
Vickers had never raced at Le Mans until last week, joining Kauffman and Rui Aguas in driving a Ferrari 458 in the world’s most famous endurance race.
“It’s like the first time you go to Daytona,” Vickers said.
For all of the fun he had at Le Mans, Cup is still where Vickers wants to be.
Vickers dazzled in his debut for MWR, leading 125 laps at Bristol and scoring his first topfive finish since last fall at Talladega Superspeedway. His most recent Cup run was at Martinsville Speedway, where he was 18th. He’s slated to run at least once a month through October.
But with Martin set for another 25 races at MWR in 2013 and sponsorship tough to come by since the economic downturn, Vickers’ prospects for a full-time Cup return remain cloudy. So the Thomasville, N.C., native is leaving his options open.
“If the right opportunity comes along to be in NASCAR, I’d like to do that,” Vickers said. “That being said, I’m not going to say that if the right opportunity doesn’t come in NASCAR and an amazing opportunity shows up (in Europe) that I’m going to turn it down.”