LAS VEGAS — Brian Vickers missed the first two races of the season as he recovered from heart surgery. As he neared his return, he wondered if maybe he was getting back into a car a little too soon.

It was his doctors who picked this weekend at Las Vegas as the target date, but Vickers was willing to hold out a bit longer. He admitted Friday to repeatedly questioning his doctors about coming back this weekend.

“I’m like, ‘Are you sure? I’m totally fine waiting as long as you want’ and they were like, ‘No, no. You’re totally good. You’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it,”’ said Vickers, who even offered to go in for a checkup before leaving for Las Vegas. “I want to go racing. It’s what I love, but I didn’t push them into a decision. It was really their decision.”

Vickers had surgery Dec. 13 to repair a hole in his heart because his body was rejecting the artificial patch he received five years ago.

Lately, it’s been a cycle of comebacks for Vickers, who has now been sidelined three different times for health issues since 2010.

Vickers missed the final five races of the 2013 season because he was placed on blood thinners to treat a blood clot in his right calf. He also missed 25 races during the 2010 season when clots were discovered in his legs and lungs.

During his 2010 absence, he underwent a pair of procedures, one to close a hole in his heart and another to insert a stent into a vein in his left leg. He was private about the heart surgery and didn’t address it until a month after the procedure.

The health issues have educated Vickers about his body, and he’s said he knew something wasn’t right in December. It led to an emergency surgery and concerns he’d never race again.

He asked his doctors about his career, and they weren’t encouraging.