LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) 鈥 Nearly seven years after he was paralyzed in an IndyCar crash, Canadian Robert Wickens will return to elite competition on Saturday when he drives a Corvette in the IMSA sports car race on the downtown streets of Long Beach.
Wickens has raced since the crash at Pocono left him paralyzed from the chest down but considers the IMSA event a true completion of his comeback.
鈥淢y goal from the outset of this was to get back to the highest levels of motorsport again. I鈥檝e always seen that (IMSA) is the highest level of sports car racing here in North America,鈥 Wickens said. 鈥淚t would be a dream if I could call it a 10-year career here racing against the best drivers in the world and one of the best series in the world.鈥
Wickens will drive for DXDT Racing with teammate and longtime Corvette driver Tommy Milner. The Corvette is equipped with a hand-controlled throttle and braking system developed by Bosch and Pratt Miller. The brake controls mount to the steering wheel but are independent of the steering wheel so that Milner can seamlessly transition from hand controls to pedals when hesa国际传媒 the driver.
鈥淭he steering wheel that Tommy will be driving or any other teammate that I drive with in this Corvette, itsa国际传媒 the exact same steering wheel that they always know. Whatsa国际传媒 great about it is, in theory, it can mount to virtually any steering column as long as you have the right bolt pattern,鈥 Wickens said. 鈥淲hat we鈥檙e learning here today can transfer into any race car. And then, hopefully, down the road, what we鈥檙e developing with the electronic braking system from Bosch, opportunities are endless. Maybe this can evolve into road safety and into everyday road vehicles and accessibility in road vehicles.
鈥淏ut short term, we need to perfect this system here.鈥
Wickens, from Toronto, has most recently been a driver for Bryan Herta Autosport in the Michelin Pilot Challenge, which is a lower division of IMSA and in 2023 he won a class title. Hesa国际传媒 tested a Formula E car, did a demonstration for Honda in Canada and now will make his debut in IMSAsa国际传媒 GT Daytona class.
鈥淗onestly, taking the green flag in Long Beach is going to be an enormous step forward in my career and my journey back to the highest levels,鈥 Wickens said. 鈥淵ou could say, 鈥榃e did it. We鈥檙e racing against the best cars and the best drivers in the whole sports car industry.鈥欌
The car Wickens and Milner are competing in is eligible for the GTD championship.
鈥淚 want to win championships for myself, for General Motors, for DXDT,鈥 he said. 鈥淭heresa国际传媒 still some work to be done. I think you could say itsa国际传媒 definitely a massive box to check, probably the biggest box that we could check off so far in my return.鈥
He鈥檇 like to race full-time in the series next season.
He and Milner are just getting to know each other, as well as the nuances of the car with the system Wickens must use versus how Milner will drive it.
鈥淚n Robbiesa国际传媒 case he has to do all of his driving with his hands. This system is basically set up so that he can do all that with the steering wheel itself,鈥 Milner said. 鈥淭heresa国际传媒 a brake ring and there are throttle paddles that take the place of what I would normally use in the pedal box. The system is quite impressive with how it functions and how it works. With just one push of a button, the system switches from the able-bodied driver controls to the hand controls, which obviously is important for sports car racing where we have driver changes.
鈥淔undamentally, everything happens on the wheel. And itsa国际传媒 a system that took me initially a little while to sort of understand in my own brain, how it is supposed to work, how to find lap time out of it and things like that.鈥
Milner has also been inspired by Wickens鈥 journey since his life-changing crash in his rookie season of IndyCar racing. Aside from working with developers to create the technology needed to get him back to racing, he also works for Andretti Global as a driver coach in a multifaceted role in which he studies data analysis, driver guidance, and offers direct support at races.
鈥淔or him to go through what he went through and with his drive and determination to get back in a race car again and be competitive and win races, thatsa国际传媒 something that can be an inspiration for anybody,鈥 Milner said. 鈥淎nybody whosa国际传媒 gone through some sort of hardship like he has, itsa国际传媒 what you make of your life and that situation. You can tell that it does change parts of his life. But the one thing that he doesn鈥檛 want it to change realistically is him driving race cars and driving them as fast as he does.鈥
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