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ALL-STAR: Bayne To Miss All-Star, Nationwide Race
Trevor Bayne will sit out for a fourth consecutive week as he continues to recover from an illness...
Bob Pockrass  | http://www.scenedaily.com  |  Posted May 19, 2011   Charlotte, NC
Trevor Bayne will be back in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford at Michigan. (Photo: Getty Images)
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Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne will sit out for a fourth consecutive week as he continues to recover from blurred vision and fatigue caused by a mysterious illness.

The 20-year-old Bayne had hoped to race Saturday in the Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway and on Sunday in the Nationwide Series event at Iowa Speedway. He tested a car Wednesday at an undisclosed location and went to doctors Thursday before it was determined that he would not race this weekend.

Wood Brothers Racing will withdraw from the Sprint All-Star Race and Roush Fenway Raceway will withdraw his No. 16 Nationwide car from the event in Iowa.

“Obviously we would love to have him back out on the track, but we are not prepared to do that until we are sure that he’s 100 percent,” Roush Fenway Racing President Steve Newmark said in a news release. “His symptoms have improved tremendously, but we’re still not all the way back to where we want to be.”

Bayne has spent several days in the last month at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where doctors said he was treated for an inflammatory condition. There have been no other details about what caused his illness.

Bayne initially thought his symptoms were the result of an insect or spider bite that he suffered in early April and caused him to be briefly hospitalized.

A few weeks later, he was being treated at the Mayo Clinic, and Bayne said it didn’t appear his symptoms were the result of the bite. He was treated with medication and team co-owner Jack Roush said last Saturday that he was optimistic Bayne would compete this weekend.

But the team indicated that Bayne is not 100 percent and it would take no chances.

“He has been undergoing tests and out of his routine for almost a month now,” Newmark said. “With that disruption in his schedule, he has not been able to take part in our daily training activities and he’s going to need a little more time to get acclimated to the strenuous demands of a NASCAR racing schedule.”

Bayne has fallen from fifth to 11th in the Nationwide standings after missing the last three weeks. Roush Fenway Racing does not have a sponsor, but it will lose its guaranteed starting spot for skipping a race. That means when Bayne returns, he will have to qualify on speed.

The all-star race was his next scheduled Cup race as part of a limited schedule for the Wood Brothers team. The next scheduled race for the team is the Coca-Cola 600 next week at Charlotte.

“We knew all along that there was not a timetable for his return,” said Wood Brothers Racing co-owner Eddie Wood. “We knew it would be a process and we continue to work towards his return. Trevor really wants to be back, and we remain hopeful that we’ll have him competing again soon.”

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Bob Pockrass

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