Brian Vickers recently made headlines with the announcement of his separation from his wife, Sarah Kellen, whom he married in 2013. With that, both his personal life and past NASCAR career have once again taken center stage. While the old NASCAR fans would mostly know about him, the new fans are still intrigued about who Vickers was and why he retired so early from NASCAR at 32.
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Vickers’ last full-time season in the NASCAR Cup Series came in 2014, where he ended the year in P22 in the final driver standings. However, signs of trouble had begun to surface as early as 2010.
That season, after completing the first 10 races with three top-10 finishes already under his belt — following his previous year’s campaign that included a win at Michigan, two top-5s, and nine top-10s — his season was cut short.
Ahead of the Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway, Vickers was sidelined due to blood clots in his legs and lungs. The diagnosis forced him out of the driver’s seat for the remainder of the year. Though he returned the following season, it marked the end for the NASCAR Cup team, Team Red Bull, which soon shut down its operations.
Returning to the track in 2011, Vickers went winless that season and finished 25th in the standings, with deep vein thrombosis continuing to affect him over his career.
Although teams such as Michael Waltrip Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing, and Stewart-Haas Racing offered him part-time drives and one full-time stint in the years that followed, none could commit to him long-term. The ever-present risk of blood clots made it too big a gamble.
A telling example came in 2015 when Vickers attempted another comeback with MWR. Right out of the gate, he had to sit out the season’s opening two races after undergoing heart surgery. The blood clots that had derailed him in 2010 and again in 2013 had returned, forcing him back on blood thinners — medication that rendered it unsafe for him to get behind the wheel.
Despite flashes of potential, his career was repeatedly cut short by circumstances beyond his control. Although Vickers competed in two races that season — at Las Vegas and Phoenix — eventually, Brett Moffitt stepped in to fill the void, taking over MWR’s #55 Toyota at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.
Vickers’ final Cup Series appearance came in 2016 with Stewart-Haas Racing, where he made five starts and logged a single top-10 finish. By the end of that year, he quietly stepped away from the sport, hanging up his helmet in his early 30s with three Cup Series wins under his belt.
Yet, despite his early retirement, Vickers never fully closed the door on a potential NASCAR return. He recognized that convincing a team owner to bet on him, especially without the backing of a strong sponsor, would be a tall order — but he remained optimistic about finding his way back into the driver’s seat, which he never did.
Now, after a five-year hiatus from social media, Vickers has resurfaced with a public announcement about his divorce from Sarah Kellen. In the same breath, he pledged to be more active online moving forward, teasing that he has a few creative projects in the pipeline and hinting that a new branch is just around the corner.
