Brian Vickers returns from heart surgery, will make 2015 debut at Las Vegas

The 2015 NASCAR season opened two weeks ago with the Daytona 500, but for Brian Vickers the season actually starts this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. For the first time since undergoing heart surgery during the offseason, he will be back behind the wheel of the No. 55 Michael Waltrip Racing car.

“It’s awesome,” Vickers said Friday. “I think that’s the best way to describe it. I’m really excited to be back.”

This latest absence is the third time Vickers, 31, has been forced out of the car because of health reasons. Five years ago he missed the majority of the 2010 season when blood clots were discovered in his lungs and left leg. An additional blood clot was found in in his right calf three years later.

Vickers’ latest setback was related to his 2010 ailment when doctors inserted a patch to close a hole in his heart. He was driving to a sponsor function in December when he began experiencing chest pains and immediately took himself to the emergency room.

Once admitted, Vickers was rushed into surgery where doctors corrected the patch his heart was rejecting.

“Going into the surgery, it was certainly a question I asked several times throughout the process, ‘Am I going to be able to race again,’” Vickers said. “Early on I think they were trying to set expectations and were like, ‘It’s not looking good.’ They didn’t want to say no, but they were a far cry from yes. They needed to really kind of get in there and get into my heart basically and kind of figure out what’s going on before they could really give me an answer, but they were kind of setting the bar pretty low.”

The return comes just two races into the year, far sooner than Vickers anticipated receiving medical clearance. When doctors told him he could his 2015 debut at Las Vegas, Vickers was stunned. Just months before he was laying on an operating table wondering about the future.

“Being back here at Vegas, it was (the doctors’) choice, not me,” Vickers said. “I didn’t push them into this. Matter of fact, I sit there and push them the other way. I’m like, ‘Are you sure?’ I can wait until Phoenix. I’m totally fine waiting as long as you want and they were like, ‘No, no. You’re totally good. You’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.’”

No matter what unfolds Sunday, Vickers sees his return as a “win-win.”

“If we go out there and do well, that’s great,” he said. “Even if we don’t, just being able to get back in a race car again and go 200 [mph] is incredible.”