Shank is in his third year working with HPD and lauded the relationship. He pointed to the EVO upgrade this year that widened the NSX’s aerodynamic window as a prime example of the way HPD constantly pushes for success. He wants to repay the effort with a GTD manufacturer title.
“They deserve to get this,” Shank said. “And I feel like I owe it to them. I don’t know how this is going to work out, but I want this bad and my folks on both teams will hear plenty about that between now and Saturday.”
While the Pilot Challenge is a customer-supported effort, Klaus said it’s no less important in the scheme of things. It’s part of the Honda Racing grassroots effort that covers drivers as young as four in quarter midgets up to enthusiasts competing in local events in their retirement years.
“The TCRs are kind of the top end of all that activity,” Klaus said. “I see young drivers, whether it’s Tom O’Gorman or Shelby Blackstock or Colin Mullan (in Pilot Challenge), a lot of these kids came out of quarter midgets or karts, so ‘Powered by Honda’ means something.
“We talk about a ladder series and I think TCR is an important gateway series. People can step up from there. This is homegrown ingenuity and it really speaks volumes about how we take motorsports really, really seriously. It’s part of our core DNA.”
And this weekend is when it may all pay off – in DPi and GTD competition in the WeatherTech Championship, as well as in TCR in Pilot Challenge. And Acura, Honda and HPD wouldn’t have it any other way.
“We have a long history and heritage of earning success, wins and championships,” Klaus said, “so to have a chance to win one championship, let alone multiple championships, going into the final race, that’s our one goal.
“All we can say is we do have confidence at this point in the program. We’ve made steady progress and … we are rolling off the truck confident, but there always is a tremendous amount of respect amongst the competitors. We wouldn’t want it any other way. The victories only matter when you have that respect for your competitors.”