{"id":18276,"date":"2015-03-21T07:52:30","date_gmt":"2015-03-21T11:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=18276"},"modified":"2015-03-21T07:52:30","modified_gmt":"2015-03-21T11:52:30","slug":"moffitt-to-drive-no-55-at-auto-club-speedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/moffitt-to-drive-no-55-at-auto-club-speedway\/","title":{"rendered":"MOFFITT TO DRIVE NO. 55 AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

VICKERS SIDELINED, MOFFITT TO DRIVE NO. 55 AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY<\/strong><\/p>\n

CORNELIUS, N.C. \u2013 Brett Moffitt will drive Michael Waltrip Racing\u2019s No. 55 Toyota in Sunday\u2019s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s regular driver Brian Vickers informed MWR he has experienced a reoccurrence of blood clots, which will require the 31-year-old driver to begin taking blood-thinning medication and he is not able to race while on the medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst and foremost our thoughts are with Brian and his family,\u201d said MWR founder and co-owner Michael Waltrip. \u201cHe isn\u2019t just our race car driver, he is our friend and we know the NASCAR community will continue to rally around Brian. We are fortunate to have Brett Moffitt in our system and marveled at his great drive in Atlanta three weeks ago, so we know he can get the job done in the No. 55 this weekend. As this news is very fresh and the situation is very fluid, we can only plan for this weekend at this point.\u201d
\n<\/p>\n

Vickers missed the season\u2019s first two races recovering from December heart surgery. He finished 15th at Las Vegas and 41st at Phoenix.<\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully, because I recognized the signs and symptoms, the doctors caught this early and I\u2019m going to be ok. I had finished my treatment for the clot I had in my leg back in 2013 and I haven\u2019t needed to be on a blood thinner for a clot in my leg or lung since,\u201d said Vickers. \u201cNow I won\u2019t be able to race because I\u2019ll need to be back on a blood thinner. I\u2019m going to follow doctor\u2019s orders and do everything I need to do to get well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBelieve it or not, it\u2019s Blood Clot Awareness Month and I was supposed to be at the track this weekend doing some work with my partners at Janssen focused on getting the word out. I\u2019m disappointed I can\u2019t be there but if there is a silver lining in all of this, hopefully what\u2019s happened to me will help to raise awareness on this important health issue,\u201d said Vickers.<\/p>\n

In 60 races driving MWR\u2019s No. 55 Toyota, Vickers scored eight top-five and 19 top-10 finishes. He won the July race at New Hampshire in 2013 and captured the pole at Talladega in October 2014. The 2003 Nationwide champion owns three victories and 12 poles in 318 career Sprint Cup starts.<\/p>\n

Moffitt, 22, of Grimes, Iowa, finished eighth at Atlanta on March 1 driving the No. 55. He has also raced twice for Front Row Racing in 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VICKERS SIDELINED, MOFFITT TO DRIVE NO. 55 AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY CORNELIUS, N.C. \u2013 Brett Moffitt will drive Michael Waltrip Racing\u2019s No. 55 Toyota in Sunday\u2019s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. The team\u2019s regular driver Brian Vickers informed MWR he has experienced a reoccurrence of blood clots, which will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","category-sprint-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18277,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18276\/revisions\/18277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}