Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian Faces Frustration at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park

Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian No. 60

John Pew

Oswaldo Negri Jr.

After showing well in practice and posting the second-fastest time in the Sunday morning warm up, a combination of unfortunate events saw John Pew and Ozz Negri finish sixth in the Mobil 1 Sportscar Grand Prix.

Unfortunately, that traffic caught Pew out when he had contact with a slower PC car in Turn 10 causing the No. 60 to spin. Pew managed to keep the car off of the wall and was able to return to the fray, but had lost a good amount of track position.

A lap down to the leaders, Pew continued to put down clean and consistent laps before pitting under green flag conditions nearly 50 minutes into the race for a full service pit stop and a driver change.

Negri immediately went to work at the controls of the No. 60 machine as he moved his way forward. Unfortunately his forward progress was halted when a full course caution was displayed to slow the runners. As the field packed up, the team was penalized for a procedural misstep during the caution period. Unfortunately it was a severe price to pay as Negri was forced to return to pit lane for a race-ruining 2 minute, 20 second stop and hold penalty due to having been judged to have made an improper wave around under yellow.  

“Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong today - including a piece of random carbon that wedged itself on our windshield wiper that Ozz (Negri) couldn’t see around,” explained Team Owner Mike Shank. “We learned today, and we just will move forward. All we could do today was utilize the race as a test session for us. It’s tough. The crew did great, they reacted in real time quickly. I’m proud of the guys for sticking with it until the end. It’s just a tough deal - it was a perfect storm of issues today and we’ll just learn from them and move on here.”

Following near non-stop traveling for the Michael Shank Racing team since mid-May when the organization first traveled over to Europe to begin its Le Mans preparations, the team will enjoy a bit of a break now as the group heads back home to Ohio.

The next IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship event will take place in one month at Road America where Pew and Negri have always finished among the top-five, including a runner-up finish in 2014.

DRIVER QUOTES:

John Pew: “It didn’t take long before we got into traffic and it was tough because every lap is different. The biggest problem for me was the pick up on the tires because you’d go off line to get around the traffic and you’d get pick up on the tires and the car would be slower for a while and it was hard to handle after that. It was a tough day for the team. But we’ll get rested up and ready for Road America next month.”

Ozz Negri: “I was just doing the best that I could. I tried to pick up some speed without troubling anybody that was racing. I tried to pass the GTs in safe spots and not interfere with any of the racing going on. We just kept working on the lap and continue to just keep learning about the car and gathering data.” 

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