It’s been an emotional weekend in Daytona for Meyer Shank Racing. Back in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship paddock following a year-long pause due to HRC US’s shift to a single-team approach in GTP with Wayne Taylor Racing in 2024, the Ohio-based outfit is charged up and raring to go.
“I was at Chipotle when I got the call last year, standing there with a brown rice bowl,” team owner Mike Shank told RACER.
“It was David Salters (HRC US’s president) and he said, ‘We’re getting the band back together!’
“I was just overjoyed. I called my wife, I called Jim Meyer, and then the rest of the group. More than anything, I was just proud.
“After the issue (post-Daytona) in 2023, we carried on with life, as tough as it was, came back strong late in the year and would have won the championship (had MSR not received a points deduction for manipulating tire pressure data at the Rolex 24). So I was proud when I found out, more than anything, after so much work.”
Colin Braun, Tom Blomqvist, Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud took MSR and Acura to a commanding Rolex victory in 2023, but controversy overshadowed it in short order. Now, after a year apart, the two organizations are back together with a lot of familiar faces behind the scenes. Richard Dole/Motorsport Images
Acura Meyer Shank Racing is back and — in terms of the size of its program at least — better than ever, with two GTP class ARX-06s and a refreshed driver lineup.
Its full-season driver pool combines returnees Colin Braun and Tom Blomqvist with the new faces of Renger van der Zande, formerly of Cadillac, and Nick Yelloly from BMW Team RLL. For the Rolex 24, the roster expands further, too, with MSR IndyCar regular Felix Rosenqvist, Honda factory driver Kakunoshin Ohta and, courtesy of a deal with Chip Ganassi Racing, Alex Palou and Scott Dixon.
“We all work together on choosing drivers,” Shank said. “We did some number crunching and looked at historic performances and results.
“I had two guys on the No. 60 car that I felt deserved a real shot again with Tom and Colin, that was a no-brainer. Nick and Renger are two guys I’ve known for a long time and competed against.
“For me, they were super solid, fast veteran guys for the No. 93 who know how these cars behave.”
The majority of the team’s 2023 engineering staff are also back for the comeback tour.
“ deserve to be here,” he continued. “We’ve lost one person from the total group of 23, that’s it. They’re all back with us in different forms, plus we’ve added some new people to strengthen this.
“This model is interesting for us, with us leading the engineering on one car and HRC leading the other. It makes for a strong team effort and we look forward to ironing out the creases and getting our communication channels smooth, which is tough when you have 100 people.”
HRC President David Salters made the magic phone call to get the band back together and, as always, packs the program with some of the best engineering investment in the series. Michael Levitt/Lumen
While the ARX-06 has matured since MSR’s last IMSA race, particularly on the software side, the car is essentially identical on a nuts and bolts level.
Shank says the software updates haven’t counted as a “joker.” This should help the team hit the ground running, particularly in the early part of the season.
“Acura has spent a lot of money getting to this point, so the propensity to go and spend more to develop a BoP car doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he added. “It’s all moving forward and there’s AI coming in now, so we’ve had to make sure we’re up to snuff on that.
“We’ll keep an open mind and, when it’s time, I’m sure we will put something together.”
Following a productive weekend of testing at the Roar — with both cars completing plenty of laps — the level of expectation hasn’t been lowered at all.
“We expect to come back on the podium,” Shank said. “Maybe we don’t win, but there’s no reason we shouldn’t be challenging for the podium places.”
