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Shank teams with Andretti to run Harvey
Defending Indy 500 winners Andretti Autosport and veteran team open-wheel and sports car owner Michael Shank have come together to field an entry for rookie driver Jack Harvey (ABOVE) at the 101st edition of the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing."
MSR was originally scheduled to run Stefan Wilson, but the Briton was asked to defer his ride until 2018 to
The original Andretti/Shank alliance would have brought together the two teams that ran Stefan's older brother Justin Wilson before his untimely death in 2015, the engine manufacturer that relied upon Justin's race-winning development expertise, and the 27-year-old driver who impressed last year on his Indy 500 debut with KV Racing.
With Alonso entering the frame in place of Wilson for the Andretti/McLaren car, the Andretti/Shank collaboration moved laterally to Harvey's entry. For Shank, whose IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship team runs the factory Acura NSX GT3 program in partnership with Honda Performance Development, decades of trying to field a car at the Indy 500 has finally come to fruition.
"I tried like hell to do this before; we went as far as buying a car in 2012 but couldn't get a competitive motor, so this almost feels to me like we're making up for lost time, but we're doing it with something really positive," Shank told RACER.
"Ever since we got our team going in '95 or '96, our goal was always to make our team strong enough to get to Indy. It didn't happen before, but this isn't the kind of thing you give up on. And I'm not walking away from sports cars, to be clear, and this is only for the Indy 500, but it's too incredible of an opportunity to not jump in with everything you have."
The MSR team rose to prominence in the Toyota Atlantic Championship where future IndyCar Series champion Sam Hornish Jr made his name with the MSR program. Shank then moved the operation into the Grand-Am Rolex Series where it represented Ford, and with Grand-Am's transition into the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, MSR became a winner in LMP2 machinery using Honda's venerable twin-turbo V6 powerplant.
After earning the sought-after contract to run the brand-new factory Acura program in IMSA's GT Daytona category, the gateway to Shank's long-held dream of entering the Indy 500 became a possibility when MSR was given a prized engine lease. And with the brand's help to bring Andretti into the equation with technical and engineering support, all the elements were brought in line to add MSR to the Indy 500 entry list.
"From a people standpoint, I have a great two-car program in IMSA, we've hired a bunch of great guys from IndyCar—some who were with Ganassi for many years—and from May 6 to June 2, there's no IMSA racing on the schedule and I promised Acura and Honda it won't impact the NSX program," Shank said.
"We have some great pit crew and they want to do Indy as bad as I do; Dale Wise has been my engineer for 23 years and he'll get to help while we bring in an experienced IndyCar engineer. And we're working hard with Andretti to identify any areas they see that needs attention and we'll address it."
Shank wasn't afraid to share his feelings on the milestone that awaits his team in May.
"We've done Daytona and won it. We've done Petit Le Mans and won in. We've done the 24 Hours of Le Mans and did well there, and now, to do the Indy 500, it's the big one that's still missing," he said. "My personal favorite goal has always been the Indy 500, and I've sacrificed a lot of dollars and time trying to get there, got knocked to the bottom, and we got up and we're ready to charge the hill again. We won't stop until we get there."
MSR was originally scheduled to run Stefan Wilson, but the Briton was asked to defer his ride until 2018 to
accommodate the arrival of Fernando Alonso
.The original Andretti/Shank alliance would have brought together the two teams that ran Stefan's older brother Justin Wilson before his untimely death in 2015, the engine manufacturer that relied upon Justin's race-winning development expertise, and the 27-year-old driver who impressed last year on his Indy 500 debut with KV Racing.
With Alonso entering the frame in place of Wilson for the Andretti/McLaren car, the Andretti/Shank collaboration moved laterally to Harvey's entry. For Shank, whose IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship team runs the factory Acura NSX GT3 program in partnership with Honda Performance Development, decades of trying to field a car at the Indy 500 has finally come to fruition.
"I tried like hell to do this before; we went as far as buying a car in 2012 but couldn't get a competitive motor, so this almost feels to me like we're making up for lost time, but we're doing it with something really positive," Shank told RACER.
"Ever since we got our team going in '95 or '96, our goal was always to make our team strong enough to get to Indy. It didn't happen before, but this isn't the kind of thing you give up on. And I'm not walking away from sports cars, to be clear, and this is only for the Indy 500, but it's too incredible of an opportunity to not jump in with everything you have."
The MSR team rose to prominence in the Toyota Atlantic Championship where future IndyCar Series champion Sam Hornish Jr made his name with the MSR program. Shank then moved the operation into the Grand-Am Rolex Series where it represented Ford, and with Grand-Am's transition into the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, MSR became a winner in LMP2 machinery using Honda's venerable twin-turbo V6 powerplant.
After earning the sought-after contract to run the brand-new factory Acura program in IMSA's GT Daytona category, the gateway to Shank's long-held dream of entering the Indy 500 became a possibility when MSR was given a prized engine lease. And with the brand's help to bring Andretti into the equation with technical and engineering support, all the elements were brought in line to add MSR to the Indy 500 entry list.
"From a people standpoint, I have a great two-car program in IMSA, we've hired a bunch of great guys from IndyCar—some who were with Ganassi for many years—and from May 6 to June 2, there's no IMSA racing on the schedule and I promised Acura and Honda it won't impact the NSX program," Shank said.
"We have some great pit crew and they want to do Indy as bad as I do; Dale Wise has been my engineer for 23 years and he'll get to help while we bring in an experienced IndyCar engineer. And we're working hard with Andretti to identify any areas they see that needs attention and we'll address it."
Shank wasn't afraid to share his feelings on the milestone that awaits his team in May.
"We've done Daytona and won it. We've done Petit Le Mans and won in. We've done the 24 Hours of Le Mans and did well there, and now, to do the Indy 500, it's the big one that's still missing," he said. "My personal favorite goal has always been the Indy 500, and I've sacrificed a lot of dollars and time trying to get there, got knocked to the bottom, and we got up and we're ready to charge the hill again. We won't stop until we get there."
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