Upon Michael Shank’s graduation from high school, his parents made him a deal concerning the money they’d been saving for his future.
He could either use it to go to college, or he could use it to further his racing career.
He chose the latter, bought a transporter and concentrated on racing.
His decision has paid off, although not the way he thought it would. Rather than making headlines as a driver, the 54-year-old Shank is earning championships as a team owner.
Shank’s willingness to learn to crawl before running and being open- minded enough to join forces with some of his competitors to share expertise and resources, and with his talent to attract both sponsors and investors, his team has blossomed into a factory-backed powerhouse competing in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the NTT IndyCar Series.
Michael Shank Racing, now known as Meyer Shank Racing after the 2018 addition of co-owner Jim Meyer, has come a long way. Meyer is the chief executive officer of SiriusXM.
The team has new digs to reflect its accomplishments, too. Last September, it broke ground on a $5 million, 40,000-square-foot headquarters in Pataskala, Ohio, which is about 20 miles east of Columbus. The facility houses both the sports car and Indy car programs.
Chosen by Acura as the factory GTD team to debut the new Acura NSX GT3 in 2017, last November the team secured its second consecutive IMSA WeatherTech Championship with that car.
The 2019 title came with drivers Trent Hindman and Mario Farnbacher. Running with Curb-Agajanian Performance Group, in 2020 the team not only won the team and drivers’ championships with Farnbacher and Matt McMurry, but also gave Acura its first GTD manufacturers’ championship.
The championships came after working hand in hand with Honda Performance Development and a team of engineers to develop an “Evo” update for the Acura NSX in 2019 with an upgraded aero package.
Changes were made to the splitter, the rear bumper and the diffuser, which increased cooling but limited drag, resulting in more speed.
Beginning with the Rolex 24 At Daytona, the team moved to the IMSA Prototype class with the Acura ARX-05 DPi. Dane Cameron and Olivier Pla are the full-season drivers, while A.J. Allmendinger and Juan Pablo Montoya joined them for Daytona.
Last October, MSR announced Liberty Media Corp.’s Formula One Group had made a minority equity investment in the team, which allowed MSR to expand its IndyCar Series program to a two-car operation with drivers Jack Harvey and three-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves.
Harvey returns and will do the full season, as he did for the first time last year.
Castroneves is scheduled to compete in six races, including the Indianapolis 500.
It’s not the first time Castroneves has driven for Michael Shank; he raced a prototype for MSR in the 2007 Rolex 24 at Daytona. He should be an ideal teammate for Harvey, who had six top-10 finishes in 2020 and seems poised for a breakout season.
The team has three Dallara IndyCar chassis heading into the season, which opens April 18 at Alabama’s Barber Motorsports Park, including one purchased last fall from DragonSpeed.
Michael Shank Racing was born in 1989 when Shank was still a driver; he won the SCCA Ohio Valley Region’s Novice Driver of the Year award that season. He also earned the 1996 Player’s/Toyota Atlantic C2 Championship.
Shank ran one Indy car race, the Las Vegas 500 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway during the 1996-’97 season, finishing 13th with Neinhouse Motorsports. He has one start in the Rolex 24 At Daytona as a driver, which came in 1999 before he decided to concentrate on team ownership.
Shank was the car owner for Kenny Wilden when he finished second in the 1999 Toyota Atlantic championship and for Sam Hornish Jr., who won that series’ rookie-of-the-year award the same season.
Shank was named Formula Atlantic team owner of the year twice before he decided to concentrate on endurance sports car racing as a team owner in 2004 with drivers Oswaldo Negri Jr. and Burt Frisselle in the Daytona Prototype class.
The team led the first race it entered and finished on the podium in the second.
In 2006, Shank’s team won at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah and finished second both overall and in the Daytona Prototype class in the Rolex 24 At Daytona with drivers Justin Wilson, Allmendinger, Negri and Mark Patterson.
The team finished eighth in points in both 2006 and ’07 with John Pew becoming Negri’s co-driver. It was a consistent top-10 team and improved even more when it won the 2012 Rolex 24 At Daytona with Allmendinger, Wilson, Pew and Negri as co-drivers.
In December 2013, Michael Shank Racing set a speed record when Colin Braun turned the fastest lap ever recorded on the Daytona Int’l Speedway oval in the team’s Ford EcoBoost-powered Daytona Prototype. The 222.971 mph, 40.364-second lap was enough to secure a spot in the record books.
The effort also set records for both 10 kilometers and 10 miles from a standing start.
Click below to continue reading.