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Paralyzed Racer Robert Wickens Just Three Weeks Away from His Corvette Debut
Last Thanksgiving, we visited with race car driver Robert Wickens, because he truly had something to be thankful for: A new Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, which was being outfitted with state-of-the-art competition hand controls.
And this week, a test at Sebring International Raceway moved the reality of racing that Corvette a little closer for Wickens—as in April 12, for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, run on the iconic downtown street course. “I feel like a kid on Christmas,” Wickens said on a Wednesday media call from Sebring.
Regular readers may recall that Wickens, a rookie IndyCar driver, was well on his way to an open-wheel career when, on August 19, 2018, in the ABC Supply 500 at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania, his car touched wheels with Ryan Hunter-Reay’s car, sending Wickens into the catch fencing above the outside wall.
Wickens suffered a long list of grave injuries in the Pocono crash, including a neck fracture, tibia and fibula fractures to both legs, fractures in both hands, a broken right forearm, a broken elbow, four broken ribs, and a pulmonary contusion.
That all healed, but damage to his spine did not. It left him a paraplegic. Despite missing the final three races of the year, he had accumulated enough points to still be named the 2018 IndyCar Rookie of the Year at age 29, relatively old to just be starting out in the series. Before his IndyCar career had really begun, it appeared to most everyone that racing would no longer be in the cards for the Canadian driver.
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To most everyone but Wickens, that is. We were there in the spring of 2021, when he first tried out some comparatively rudimentary hand controls at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, which had been fitted to paraplegic racer Michael Johnson’s Hyundai Veloster. Johnson competed in the TCR class in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge series, which serves as sort of a warm-up act for the headlining IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship series.
The test went well, and the next season, Wickens had a ride in a TCR Hyundai owned by Bryan Herta, a winning IndyCar driver. Wickens and his able-bodied co-driver, Mark Wilkins, won twice in 2022, and then in 2023, Wickens and co-driver Harry Gottsacker won the TCR season championship.
By most any metric but his own, Wickens was back. But his goal was to race in a top-tier series against the best drivers in the world, and that meant the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, which competes at the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the just-completed Mobil 1 Twelve Hours at Sebring.
Last November, we told you about the first step in that process, when Wickens scored a five-race deal for 2025 to drive that Corvette Z06 GT3.R for North Carolina-based DXDT Racing in IMSA’s GTD class, where the Z06 races against Aston Martins, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Porsches, and Mercedes-AMGs. “The next step,” Wickens said, “is to become a week-in, week-out staple of the series and make sure I can get myself to a full-time position for 2026, and then start fighting for championships.”
In that November story, we outlined the progress in integrating a steering wheel that incorporated a hand throttle and shifter, plus an as-yet perfected new Bosch electronic braking system. Previously, braking required Wickens to use both hands to pull a steering wheel–mounted ring toward him, which not only required a lot of strength, but meant that he effectively couldn’t downshift and brake properly at the same time. The new electronic brakes require the use of just one hand, leaving the other free to shift.
For this week’s two-day test at Sebring, it’s Wickens’ first time in the Corvette where everything works. And it is a critically important test, because he won’t get another one between now and Long Beach, as IMSA seriously restricts test dates.
Luckily, “There hasn’t been a single hiccup,” Wickens said. “It’s like when they designed the Corvette Z06 GT3.R, it was always in the plan. It looks like it belongs in the car. It feels like it belongs in the car. Immediately I felt way more comfortable with the braking feeling and braking sensation than I did in my past racing in TCR with the Bosch EBS. It was a massive step forward, so hats off to all the men and women at Bosch, [car builder] Pratt Miller, GM, and DXDT Racing for collaborating in making this all possible.”
The Hyundai TCR car was front-wheel drive and the Corvette is rear-drive, so that was a learning curve for Wickens. Another was the fact that he hadn’t driven a race car with traction control, which the Corvette has.
This test also gave Wickens and his Long Beach co-driver, Tommy Milner, a chance to work together. Milner joined the Corvette factory racing team in 2011 and has class wins at Sebring, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
As with Wickens’ Hyundai, the Corvette has dual controls. “The system is quite impressive with how it functions and how it works,” said Milner. “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.
“For someone like Robbie,” Milner said, “who has as much racing experience as he does, as good as he was and still is, you can tell just from talking to him how focused he is on doing what he’s always done, which is drive race cars very fast. The system is designed to allow that to happen for him. His drive and determination are pretty incredible. It’s inspiring to see that, and I’m excited to go racing with him at Long Beach.”
The race airs from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET Saturday, April 12, on the USA Network.
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You ROCK, Robert! This guy has a toughness, determination, and talent level that should scare any competitor in whatever class he’s driving in.
“The new electronic brakes require the use of just one hand, leaving the other free to shift…”
This quote makes it sound as if this levels the field – it doesn’t. What it ignores is that those hands still need to steer. An able-bodied driver uses feet AND hands to handle the situations, while a paraplegic has to do it all with 1/2 the appendages. So even with improved braking systems, doing everything under racing conditions with just ones’ hands is amazing.
I don’t believe that we’ve seen the best of Wickens’ accomplishments yet. I look forward to following his career!