Iowa Native Brett Moffitt Gets New NASCAR Ride For California

Iowa native Brett Moffitt will be back behind the wheel of Michael Waltrip Racing’s No. 55 Toyota in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, CA

On Friday, Michael Waltrip Racing announced that driver Brian Vickers would not be racing this weekend, and Brett Moffitt would serve as his replacement for this Sunday's (March 22, 2015) NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.

MWR stated that Vickers had experienced another issue of blood clots, and that he would require him to begin taking blood-thinning medication, and he is not able to race while on the medicine. The team had no timetable for Vickers' return.

MWR founder and co-owner Michael Waltrip said that first and foremost the team's thoughts are with Brian and his family, and that he knew the NASCAR community would rally around him as deals with treatments.

“We are fortunate to have Brett Moffitt in our system,” Waltrip commented about the Grimes, IA driver. “And (everyone) marveled at his great drive in Atlanta three weeks ago.”

As far as how long Moffitt would pilot the Arron's Dream Machine, that is still up in the air.

“As this news is very fresh and the situation is very fluid,” Waltrip shared. “We can only plan for this weekend at this point.”

Since Moffitt's outstanding run at Atlanta Motor Speedway, he has also driven in two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events for Front Row Motorsports. He stepped in to fill in for David Ragan who has been subbing for injured Kyle Busch in Joe Gibbs Racing's No. 18 Toyota.

Moffitt will start 30th for Sunday's

Front Row Motorsports has called on Chris Buescher to drive in place of Moffitt this weekend.