Catchfence

It is one thing for athletes to get injured in competition – it is a way of life in sports. No one, though, expects illness to strike an athlete, and when it does it comes as a shock. Such is the case with Brian Vickers, being treated for blood clots, reportedly near his lungs. Vickers was hospitalized in the Washington DC area after a PR visit to the Walter Reed hospital.

Vickers’ health brings to the fore a career that has been the gamut of frustration and fruition. Driving family-owned Dodges in 2002, he showed enough with underfunded cars to be hired to drive for Hendrick Motorsports, winning the BGN title in 2003 and being elevated to Winston Cup. That he came up too early showed in a mediocre rookie season in 2004, enough that by the 2005 World 600 his boss was publically questioning Vickers’ ability to race. He responded by leading 98 laps before being swallowed up in one of the epidemic of wrecks in that 600. He then led 121 laps at Pocono, finishing second.

It still wasn’t enough to win, until in the Autumn 500 at Talladega he hooked together Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. and both spun off the track on the final lap; Kasey Kahne passed Vickers but NASCAR’s absurd field-freeze rule gave Vickers an unpopular win. With no future at Hendrick Motorsports Vickers went to Dietrich Mateschitz’s start-up Toyota team.

After a slow 2007 Vickers picked up in 2008 with another second at Pocono and stout efforts at Talladega and Charlotte. It was 2009, though, where he finally broke through to another win, this one at Michigan’s Yankee 400.

His 2010 season so far hadn’t been anything to be proud of, but he has a lot of people pulling for him to bounce back and win again once his health issues are dealt with.