Brian Vickers announced that he is ready for a 2011 racing return following a heart surgery to repair a congenital heart defect that partially caused his serious health problems due to the blood clots that threatened his life."I just miss being in the car. I miss doing 200 mph, banging fenders with the guys I love and hate. I've missed it all. I've had heart surgery," Vickers said. "I never thought I'd have that at 26. I've had a stent put in, never thought I'd have one of those. But they both went extremely well."
How well did things are going for Vickers? Within three weeks of the surgery, Vickers said he was biking in the mountains of Colorado.
"I was in Aspen, biking with some friends, doing 40-, 50-, 60-mile rides through the mountains at 10,000 feet. So I feel good. I'm probably going to be in the best shape of my life when I get back to racing. I'm training every day and love it."
Vickers is still required to have medical treatment through the rest of the year, but and insisted that doctors have given him a clean bill of health to return to racing.
"They gave me full clearance for next year. I will be back next season, racing in January. I'm really excited about that. They feel that I'm probably in the best shape I've ever been in my life. I've got two issues that I never knew about, fixed.
Both surgeries went extremely well and it's been a bit of fresh air for me to know what caused this, or part of what caused this. It wasn't one thing. But to get this behind me. It was a big question mark that was still out there."
Vickers explained that after he was diagnosed with the clots even at one of his fingers on his left hand, doctors began to search for causes.rs' heart, especially when they found a blood clot
"The only way for a clot to get there was through my heart, from the right atrium to the left atrium. It's a hole between the two atriums. Surprisingly enough, it's pretty common. About 25 percent of people have this hole. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to diagnose and very intrusive to diagnose."
According to Vickers who appreared an expert of his medical condition, some people are more prone to clotting.
"The way the blood circulates, it goes to your lungs, which act as a filtering system. People get little clots all the time but the lungs filter those out and body naturally breaks them down. My clots were bigger than normal, which is why I had a pulmonary embolism. Through that process, it goes through your right atrium ... If you have a clot in the right atrium, it can jump through that hole -- if the hole is active -- to the left atrium. The primary concern then is a stroke. The blood goes through the left atrium to your left arm or your brain. I got really lucky because mine went to my left arm and I didn't have a stroke."
In addition, Vickers added that doctors thought he might be a candidate for May-Thurner Syndrome, which they confirmed during the surgery.
"That's basically where a vein and an artery pinch. It slows the blood flow down in that region. It's very difficult to diagnose that issue without being intrusive. So we had both of those decisions out there that might have been part of the cause. Obviously, it wasn't the entire cause, because that's something you're born with, and I spent most of my life without clots."
Vickers admitted there was a third factor for his medical problems caused by carbon monoxide buildup from racing, but doctors couldn't be certain.
Vickers had the heart surgery at Charlotte Medical Center on July 13th, then had a stent placed in a vein in his left leg the next day. He said no more surgeries are scheduled, and he was expected to return for an evaluation this week.
"My chances right now of having a clot, when I come off Coumadin, are no higher than anyone else in the garage. So I'm as good or better than I was a year ago, from that standpoint."
Under the hypothesis that Brian Vickers will return to the No. 83 Toyota next season, Red Bull faces a choice between adding a third car to accommodate the signing of Kasey Kahne for one year or replacing Scott Speed with Kahne and continuing to operate as a two-car team.
General manager Jay Frye has said the organization is still evaluating Speed's performance and wants to see improvement from team's struggling driver taking under consideration that Speed has already been racing with RedBull's F1 junior team Torro Rosso in the past without any significant success before jumping into the NASCAR.
