Trevor Bayne's year has been full of peaks and valleys. Sidelined with a mysterious illness two months after winning the Daytona 500, Bayne was at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Thursday and talked about his scheduled return to NASCAR competition at Chicago next weekend.

“I missed you guys," said Bayne, whose last race was at Nashville on April 23rd. "It has been bad being away. It has been incredible to me and a real eye opener of how supportive everyone in our sport is. I think that is the biggest thing I have learned through all of this."

Along with his strong faith, the support and acts of kindness from fellow drivers and fans kept Baynes spirits high during a difficult time.

"Carl Edwards flew up and saw me in Minnesota," shared Bayne. "Tony Stewart was using his plane to fly my family back and forth and Jack (Roush) was sending me back and forth on his plane. Michael McDowell was there for five days with me. Everybody in the garage texted me at least once to see how I was doing and that means a lot to me."

Still not certain of the cause of his blurred vision and other symptoms that developed after being bitten by an insect at his North Carolina home, Bayne says he feels great and is ready to race.

“The symptoms were double vision; there was inflammation which was temporary obviously because all of my symptoms have gone away," Bayne explained. "Their biggest hope is that it was an isolated event that is temporary and is gone now. The diagnosis, I don’t have it yet. I don’t know. It could be just a series of events where you get a bug bite and your immune system is down and we had been running for a couple months hard every day after Daytona and it wears down your immune system. That is what I am hoping for. Whether that is it or not, only time will tell with that.  I still don’t have an official diagnosis but they treated everything they thought it could be and since then everything has gone away. To me, they hit something.

“I have been fine for over a week now. Last weekend I took it off as a caution and this week they made me take it off as a caution. Chicago should definitely be over the top as far as being cautious on what could spark anything. They have been way over the top cautious on everything. This weekend I would have been fine to run I think but we want to just make sure."

Originally scheduled to run all of the Charlotte races, the 20-year-old Tennessee native is set to drive the No. 16 Roush Ford in next weekend's Nationwide Series race at Chicago. Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. will pilot the Wood Brothers No. 21 in Sunday's 600.

"I think he is going to do a great job," Bayne said of his replacement for Charlotte. "You see him in the Nationwide series this year and making huge gains and being really competitive every weekend with practice, qualifying and racing. I think he will do a great job in the Cup car."

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