Recovered and ready to race, Vickers set for Daytona return

The day was sub-par for Kevin Harvick and Brian Vickers, both of which failed to make it to the second round of qualifying. Stewart – who has said 2016 will be his final season of Sprint Cup racing – suffered a burst fracture of the L1 vertebra in an all-terrain-vehicle accident while in Phoenix recently.

NASCAR qualifying for the Daytona 500 was rough for Martin Truex Jr. and the No. 78 team after they were never able to make a qualifying run.

Q: Hi Greg. With the 2016 Daytona 500 coming up in a few weeks and celebrating 58 years, I still talk with friends about that very first race in 1959 and the photo finish between Johnny Beauchamp and Lee Petty.

Vickers is ready for a comeback of his own. On three occasions during that span, Vickers has been forced to abandon a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series ride because of blood clots, which originally were discovered in his legs and lungs in 2010. “And I have a tremendous amount of respect for Tony”. “We’re starting to get the pain under control and I just didn’t want everybody thinking that while everybody was in Daytona today that I’m sitting on my (butt) here in Charlotte”. I know I am a silver linings person, but I feel like that’s something you have to have, that confidence and not get beat down.

Vickers, 32, gives Stewart-Haas a considerable amount of racing savvy as its backup plan.

Junior, Logano and Harvick are all former winners of the Daytona 500, and while Logano is the only one of the three without a win in the Sprint Unlimited, he has finished sixth or better in his last three starts in the exhibition event.

“The goal of the Unlimited is to go out and win the race since there are no points consequences”, said Kenseth. Logano is trying to become first driver to win consecutive Daytona 500s since Sterling Marlin (1994-95).

“They needed someone who was not going to be auditioning”. If the auto is running fifth, Brian will run fifth. “It’s also a chance to get used to “Wheels” calling practices and a race as the crew chief, and getting the team guys up to speed and working together”.

“Health” remains the operative word for everybody.

“No, I’m not doing another season because this happened”, he said. “I suspect that could of been it or I could of just ran over something there’s no telling”.

Stewart remains day-to-day – best guesstimate is three months – although he wants back in as quickly as possible, pending clearance. Remember, cautions breed cautions, and apparently someone in Daytona thinks a wreckfest (or a bunch of cautions that virtually eliminate the need for green flag pit stops and any related strategy) is preferable to authentic racing, where the participants sometimes get spread out over the course of more than a hundred miles.

“The biggest thing you’ll see is that the racecar is back to yellow”, Busch said.