The accident was terrifying.
During the Indycar 2018 race, the wheels of the Robert Wicks car fired the Ryan Hunter Rayyi, where Winz Joa launched the portable and in the fencing surrounding the Bicono race. Among the injuries that Wikins suffered, was a fracture of the thoracic spine, a fracture in the neck, the tube and fiber fibers of both legs, fractures in both hands, four broken ribs, and pulmonary compatibility. He was also injured in the spinal cord that left it with paralysis from the waist down.
At that time, Wickens was on the threshold of stardom in one of the Motorsports Premier series. That year, he got seven of the five best years in 14 races, ranked ninth in Indianapolis 500 and won the honor of Indicar for the year. These injuries have reduced the promising profession in Indycar and could mean wickens days as a professional race car has ended. But this thought has not crossed the 36 -year -old mind now.
“I thought I was going to create the first” Indycar “race in March the following year,” Wikkens said. “We were always talking about what would look (race) if you used hand control items. It was never a question; it was the issue of” How? where? “I knew it was something possible.”
Winkens, who has regained some of his legs but lacks the full ability to use while driving, has returned to the competitive race after more than three years with a little accident, using a suffocating and braking system that is controlled by hand to control cars. He competed in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge, and in 2023, he acquired the drivers championship.
It did not end. A new chapter begins this week when it moves to a higher level of the race by competing in the IMSA SPORTSCAR championship in the Long Beach, California, and will participate in driving the Chevrolet Corvette that is presented by Dxdt Racing in the GTD category of high competition against Mercedes, Ferrari and other Porsche.
WICKENS will be on the network in the Long Beach, partly due to the presence of a stifling and braking system that is controlled by electrical vitality, which is developed by Bosch and Pratt Miller, which has been able to benefit from since returning to the race.
Without this, the driving profession in Wickkens was likely to end in August 2018. However, the system has proven to be equivalent, allowing it to compete in a field mostly. The continuous technological improvements by Bush during the past few years have narrowed the performance gap between the car that is operated by hand control tools and one run by traditional pedals.
Robert Wicks’s steering wheel gives him the ability to control his car in the Corvette – suffocating and brake race, all of them – completely manually. (With the permission of Chevrolet Resing)
Hand control works like similar systems that can be installed in cars on the roads, except for these systems that have been more controlled to allow Wickkens to drive as if he was using the suffocating and brakes on foot. It can take advantage of the light brakes during the rotation and thus bearing a greater speed across the corners.
“The best thing in my new system with Bush is that the setting can happen in the background because this is an electronic brake system,” Wikins said. “So, if I want to feel more brake or a feeling of less brake, I can either have a button on the steering wheel that I set from the brake pressure that I can apply to the brakes.
“The old system I was using when it started for the first time, the system was a very mechanical system as there is a set of links and cranes that just pushed to the bodily bodies of the bodily capable of the lower, but I would have pressed something with my hand by the steering wheel. … The fall of that was a lot of cumin in this system and a lot of spices.”
Since Wickens and driver Tommy Milner should trade in Corvette, Bush had to develop a direct way to switch between Milner using pedals and wickens manual controls.
“It is very impressive,” said Milner. “There is only one button that any of us must press it to put it in the situation we want and replace all systems during the second.”
Once Wickkens is committed to the race again, the challenge of moving in expenses and the inability to complicate the endeavor. It is often sufficient to find enough care in the race; Wickens also had to persuade the team owner to install the manual control system in his car.
“There are people who are racing around the world with disabilities,” said Robert Wicks. “I’m just lucky because I have a platform to show my progress.” (David Rosenblum / ICON SPORTSWIRE via Getty Images)
After this process has passed, Wickens would see such features more easily in commercially produced vehicles. Just as manufacturers use the car racing to develop technology that can be applied to passenger vehicles, Wickens wants to see the same principle applied to manually controlled systems to make them comfortable and costly effective.
He said: “I have naive dreams of thinking that there can be a wheel of Robert Wicks, which can only fit every car on the road in the world.” “I imagine it is like,” Oh, yes, just connect it like USB or something like that while you are on your way. “But I know this is not just how it works.
“The truth is, at the present time, when I drive the car on the road and want to make a change in the corridor, for example, I must overlook the speed consciously because when I lift my hand from the suffocating to put in the rotation signal, I slow down, and below my hands on the suffocating.
Long Beach is the first among the five events in 2025 to lead Wickkens to enter Dxdt Racing Corvette. The plans that exceed this season are still specified. It is open to securing a full -time trip in the IMSA SPORTSCAR championship if the opportunity arises. The race is also wished again in Indianapolis 500.
Wickens reduces the idea that he is an inspiration, but those who know him are surprised by how he refused to give up his dream to be a professional driver when he had all the reasons for resignation. He also wants to help others face a similar situation.
“Personally, I do not feel an inspiration for anyone, but I am always humble when people tell me that I am.” “After I felt paralyzed and out of a medical coma, I was trying to understand what I had. I was working hard to try to get myself and my wife the best quality of life as possible.
“There are people who are racing around the world with disabilities. I’m just lucky because I have a platform to show my progress as others may not be.”
(The upper photo of Robert Wicks: with the permission of Chevrolet Resing)