Meyer Shank ready to celebrate after a successful Saturday at Long Beach

Meyer Shank Racing still has an IndyCar race to try to win at Long Beach on Sunday, but team co-owner Mike Shank is still planning a low-key celebration for Saturday evening after the team won the IMSA race and then the IndyCar pole within the space of a couple of hours.

Nick Yelloly and Renger van der Zande set the ball rolling with their victory in the No.93 Acura ARX-06, which was the first outright win for Honda/Acura on the streets of Long Beach since 2013.

Immediately after the IMSA podium celebration ended, the NTT IndyCar Series took to the track for a qualifying session that culminated in Felix Rosenqvist coming out on top in a single-lap Fast Six shootout for pole.

“We’ll have a couple of beers tonight,” Shank told RACER. “Soak this one in a little bit, for sure. Listen, the Acura Grand Prix, since 2019 [ED: the first year of Acura’s title sponsorship of the event], has never been won by Acura. So we’re extremely proud of that, and we needed to get this done based on the stuff that’s going on. So I'm really proud of that group. I think 45 points behind the championship right now. It’s on. It’s on, for sure.”

Shank also echoed Rosenqvist’s sentiments about the confidence boost that the Swede can take from Saturday’s IndyCar qualifying performance after a patchy start to the season.

“I think he's overall, just really happy with the car,” Shank said. “He and his engineer did a great job keeping everything together this weekend, and starting out of the box good. And once he has that confidence, we can go all the way with it. He needed this. We needed this for the 60 car.”

Rosenqvist, meanwhile, acknowledged the success of his IMSA stablemates, but mindful of the fact that he still has a job to do tomorrow, suggested that his part in the celebrations will be more low-key.

“I just sent [them] a text message because I had some issues with my neck. I was being worked on on a table [after their race],” he said. “I haven't really had time to catch up with them, but I definitely hopefully tonight we can have… not a drink, but… a hug, maybe.”