BOWMANVILLE, Ontario (AP) — Robert Wickens’ promising racing career seemed as if it was cut tragically short after a 2018 crash left him paralyzed from the chest down.

But almost seven years later, Wickens is racing in the headline event of the Chevrolet Grand Prix, competing at the highest levels of his sport in Canada for the first time since that accident.

The event is at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, a course Wickens grew up around and where his dream of becoming a professional race car driver first began to take shape.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve raced a home race as the headline class,” Wickens said Thursday. “The Toronto Indy in 2018 would have been the last time, and thankfully, we finished on the podium there.”

Racing IMSA GTD, the highest class of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, on a track where he used to watch his heroes compete as a boy, is a full-circle moment for Wickens.

“I raced a lot of the cart track just next door, and when I wasn’t on track, I’d ride my bike over to the car track and watch whatever car was driving around,” Wickens said. “Whether it was a IMSA race weekend or a regional kind of Formula Ford race, or a Canadian NASCAR race, anything in between.

“I feel like I knew every inch of this track, even though I didn’t drive it much.”

Wickens’ professional career officially began in 2005 when, at 16, he started racing in Formula BMW USA with Team Apex Racing USA. As a result, he didn’t spend much time at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park like many Canadians in motorsport do, instead cutting his teeth in the United States and Europe before graduating to IndyCar in 2017.

After getting a full ride with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports at the start of the 2018 season, Wickens was named the Indianapolis 500 rookie of the year that May after leading two laps and finishing ninth in the race.

Wickens continued to thrive that summer, finishing third at the Honda Indy Toronto on July 15, 2018 and climbing to sixth in the IndyCar rankings.

Disaster struck just over a month later, on Aug. 19, when he sustained a serious spinal cord injury in a catastrophic crash during the ABC Supply 500 at Pocono Raceway that left him partially paralyzed.

Using hand controls, Wickens resumed driving after his injury and, this year, began racing a Corvette for DXDT Racing in the Sprint Cup of the IMSA SportsCar Championship.

Back competing at the highest levels of North American motorsport, Wickens said “it’s amazing” to be part of the Chevrolet Grand Prix.

“I love the added attention of a hometown race,” he said. “I think any racing driver wants that spotlight moment. You want to be the quarterback in the fourth quarter at the two-minute warning with the game on the line and the ball in your hands.”

Wickens’ goal for the Chevrolet Grand Prix is straightforward: run a mistake-free event.

“I think in the IMSA WeatherTech, SportsCar Championship, you can’t expect success, you have to work for it,” said Wickens, noting that Corvette has won 13 races at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park since 2001. “You have to be perfect.

“So far, in my few races that I’ve done in the Corvette, we’ve shown a lot of potential, but we haven’t been perfect, and because of that, we haven’t gotten the end result.”

Because Wickens is racing on home soil for the first time since his accident, he’s offering all kinds of unique fan experiences through his website. That includes a tour of DXDT Racing, a personal tour of his Corvette Z06 GT3.R with his custom-made Bosch electronic hand control system, and a photo op on the track.

Wickens has also organized a viewing section for anyone who wants to join outside of Turn 2, his favorite place to watch races at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park when he was growing up.

“It’s such a family sport. It’s a lot of parents that love the sport, it’s generational fandom,” Wickens said. “I think it’s so important when you see kids around that they just have a great experience because that was me growing up, right?

“I remember my first Toronto Indy, or my first time at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park and meeting drivers and getting autographs and seeing the car firsthand and just how welcoming it’s always been. Now I feel like it’s my turn with the baton to run that back.”

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