DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian is as serious and professional as any team in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship paddock.
But team owner Mike Shank can possibly be viewed as most casual, ‘rock and roll’ team principal among his peers.
So maybe it’s appropriate to say that Shank is “putting the band back together” by welcoming the return of A.J. Allmendinger to the team for the 64th running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona International Speedway.
Allmendinger, now a star in the NASCAR Cup Series for Kaulig Racing, is a Michael Shank Racing alumnus with 15 past starts in IMSA’s season-opening endurance racing classic (2006 through 2021, with the exception of 2017), including overall victory in 2012 with co-drivers Justin Wilson, Ozz Negri and John Pew.
“The guy’s pretty damn cool,” observed Allmendinger, who recently joined MSR at Daytona for the IMSA-sanctioned November Test, where he turned laps in the No. 60 Acura ARX-06. “Mike’s a lot of fun. He’s a racer. He bleeds for this sport. He put his house and everything up.”
It’s a new, more complex Acura prototype and a markedly different Shank organization since Allmendinger made his last Rolex 24 appearance with the team in 2021 – and worlds apart since the then-IndyCar racer made his MSR debut in 2006. He has fond memories of teaming with the late Wilson to help grow ‘the little team that could’ into an American sports car racing powerhouse.
“Mike reached out to the Indy car team I was driving for in 2005 to ask would Justin and I want to come run Rolex next year,” Allmendinger recalled. “We ran it January ’06 and it just kind of took off from there. He called me back the next year and it grew for every year straight. It’s been a fun ride and hopefully this isn’t the last one. We’ll see if there’s more.
“I saw Mike’s new shop, and wow!” he continued. “It’s a little different than the GRAND-AM days with the same eight guys working on the car. What a beautiful shop…there’s a lot of cool pictures of us in there.”
While Allmendinger was able to get reacquainted with some familiar faces, his biggest task at the sanctioned test was to get to grips with the No. 60 Acura he will share in the Rolex 24 with full-season WeatherTech Championship drivers Colin Braun and Tom Blomqvist and six-time IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon, who is the team’s IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup pilot.
Although not all 61 entries have been finalized, the No. 60 car is likely to be the most experienced driver lineup in the Rolex 24 field with more than 60 career starts in the race.
Dixon has started every Rolex 24 since 2004, while Braun is just one year behind him. This means Dixon is set for his 23rd consecutive Rolex start in 2026 and Braun his 22nd. Meanwhile, Blomqvist has opened his Rolex 24 career with finishes of first, first, second, and second. No pressure for Allmendinger to slot back in, then…
“There’s definitely a lot to this car – it’s a proper race car,” he admitted. “The last time I was in (an IMSA prototype) was the (Acura ARX-05) DPi in ’21. There’s lots of buttons and it’s tricky to drive – what’s the threshold of not too much braking or too much? I found ‘too much’ right away! I’m trying to learn as quick as I can. I don’t want to be the slow guy and let them down. I know I’ll be the weak link, I just don’t want to be the weakest link in the chain.
“I want to hold my weight; that’s the biggest thing,” he added. “It’s my job to run good stints and hand the car back off looking the same as it started. I told Mike, ‘I don’t want to let you down.’ He said, ‘Ain’t gonna happen – you never have.’”
Braun, 37, groaned when reminded he has participated in the Rolex 24 every year since he was 16. His first run came 20 years ago this year in 2005, as part of a “Team 16” Porsche GT effort with three teenagers and fourth driver and coach Ross Bentley, who now cohosts the “It’s Not The Car” podcast with Braun’s dad Jeff, a longtime engineer currently working with 13 Autosport, and veteran automotive journalist Sam Smith. All four drivers in the No. 60 have posted overall Rolex 24 wins.
Braun and Blomqvist won the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen at Watkins Glen International in June to highlight what was a mixed bag of results in 2025.
After a year’s absence from IMSA’s top prototype class, MSR and its drivers quickly understood that the car had changed considerably from when the No. 60 duo won at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta (the Motul Petit Le Mans) to finish a close third in the 2023 GTP standings.
“Last year, we had a great Daytona; that was perfect for a new team to get together and knock out a solid P2 result,” Braun remarked. “Then there were some growing pains, I think, kind of getting it all going. But I feel the second half of the year was pretty strong as a group for the for the HRC and MSR guys, and we hit the end of the season with some good momentum and knew what we needed to work on over the off season.
“I feel like we’re in a really good place and excited to go to year two with all that experience and knowledge in our pocket,” he added. “We’re not, in a way, going to everywhere kind of ‘new’ again. Obviously, we had 2023, but with the break, it was kind of like restarting in ‘25. This feels like the ‘real’ second year of the program, so it’s good.”
Braun said he and Allmendinger have never shared a car, though they both competed in separate MSR entries in the 2009 Rolex 24.
“Teammates, I guess, but he was in the other car,” Braun laughed. “It’s been fun, man. He’s a cool dude. Obviously, a great race car driver, and he fits in with our culture good, so it’s fun. It’s good times.”
