Unable to defend Rolex 24 title, Mike Shank plots his return to IMSA: 'I work on it every day'
When the green flag falls Saturday on the 62nd annual Rolex 24 at Daytona, two-time defending overall winning car owner Mike Shank will be watching with rapt attention.
From a boat somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.
For the first time in two decades, Shank won’t be at Daytona International Speedway as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship opens its 2024 season.
HOW TO WATCH THE ROLEX 24: TV information, schedules, start times and entry lists
“My wife said, ‘I’ve to get you as far away from that place as we can,’ so we’re going down to Key West to hang out in the sun and watch the race on the TV on a boat,” Shank told NBC Sports. “And just try to relax a little bit and get ready for a very, very busy IndyCar (season) that we got going on. And you can imagine, I’ll be keeping super close tabs on everything at Daytona. … We’ll see where we end up. I’m very hopeful for the future but definitely bummed for this year.”
Meyer Shank Racing desperately wants to return to the IMSA grid in 2025 but will focus solely on the NTT IndyCar Series in 2024 after shelving its sports car program.
Six weeks after winning the 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona in the ballyhooed debut of hybrid engines in the Grand Touring Prototype category, MSR was hammered by a massive penalty for serious charges. The team had manipulated the transmission of tire pressure information from its Acura ARX-06 during the victory by drivers Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves.
Though allowed to keep the win, its trophy and Rolex watches, MSR was fined $50,000, stripped of its prize money and docked 200 points – effectively ending any shot at winning the GTP championship.
The penalty also cost MSR its IMSA GTP contract with Honda Racing Corp., which declined to renew the team. Honda, which issued a tersely worded statement last year condemning MSR's actions, discovered the malfeasance at Daytona and self-reported the incident to IMSA.
In a statement, the sanctioning body said steps were taken to prevent future manipulation: “IMSA has further developed our tire pressure regulations, systems and processes to improve the data integrity and associated verification measures. Numerous layers of security, checks and validation have been put in place to prevent highly sophisticated approaches to circumvent the tire pressure regulations of IMSA and Michelin.”
STARTING LINEUP: The grid for the 62nd Rolex 24 at Daytona
IMSA president John Doonan told NBC Sports that data feeds from teams were reconfigured to deliver information more directly, and officials began doing spot checks on tires after pit stops. “I go into the race with a lot more confidence that we've taken the right steps to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again,” Doonan said.
After a rash of tire failures in the 2021 Rolex 24, IMSA began regulating minimum pressures in 2022. NBC Sports analyst Calvin Fish said improved handling would be the advantage to running outside those parameters, particularly on out laps from the pits. Blomqvist turned the 10 fastest laps during last year’s Rolex 24 as the No. 60 beat the No. 10 Acura of Wayne Taylor Racing Andretti.
Team owner Wayne Taylor, who was incensed after learning of the Daytona infraction, has added a second Acura this season – filling the void left by MSR’s departure (Taylor had been trying to add a second car for years, and Honda had weighed having three Acuras on the grid).
“It’s just such a shame,” Fish said. “Wayne Taylor finished right behind them, so the Acuras were quick. (MSR) could have won it without doing that. And it's just so disappointing that we now talk about going into this year without them because there was a fallout in the relationship with Acura because of that. So it's just such a shame that if that hadn't happened, maybe they would still be in sports car racing.”
MSR, the 2022 champion in the top prototype category, won twice more in 2023 (including the Petit Le Mans season finale) and scored the most points over the remaining eight races after Daytona.
But rather than a team seeking its third consecutive Rolex 24 victory and third consecutive premier prototype championship, the penalty ensures there will be a new winner of the most prestigious endurance race in the country this year.
“Mike is a dear friend, a great champion, has built an amazing team, and it pains me not to see him,” Doonan said. “I have known him and certainly his drivers for a long time, so that is a slight missing piece of the puzzle for me this year just because of a deep relationship, and racing is a family. But it was a tough situation, and it still pains me. I personally lost a lot of sleep, and I know a lot of other people did, too. But our series and motorsport and sport in general is built on fair competition.
“And when we learned of the fact that offsets had been put in to the tire pressure monitoring system, that was a tough one to swallow. Any time that happens in sport, it's really challenging to accept that.”
Another missing storyline for IMSA is Helio Castroneves, who won’t have the chance to win a fourth consecutive Rolex 24 after winning the past two with MSR and in 2021 with WTR.
Castroneves, who won his fourth Indy 500 after joining MSR in 2021, spoke with several GTP teams about running the 2024 Rolex 24, but “they didn’t seem to be interested.
“I even joked about if they want to win, they should hire me because the last three times the winner was me,” Castroneves told NBC Sports. “So I guess they didn’t’ want to win, which is fine. But at the end of the day, I didn’t want to put myself also in a bad spot. It’s a shame that it didn’t happen. Disappointed with that because I wanted to defend my win and go for No. 4 in a row. But things happen for a reason, and we’ll wait for the right opportunity to go back.”
Castroneves instead will focus on his new role with MSR after becoming a minority owner and team executive. He also will drive an MSR Dallara-Honda in May as the 48-year-old tries to become the first five-time Indy 500 winner.
Shank said Castroneves could have chosen to race with a lesser team at Daytona but was surprised no opportunity arose with a top-flight team. Castroneves is a 10-time winner in IMSA’s premier division (including wins in the past two Petit Le Mans).
“Everyone has their own agenda and their own thoughts on things, so I can’t answer to why, but Helio’s been valuable,” Shank said. “In 2022, he anchored and won the race for us.
“It’s a little bit of a mystery, and he and I are both like, ‘Let’s roll on.’ This is what it is. Let’s keep working on all of our sponsors and partners and certainly OEMs to get us back to where we want to be.”
Simon Pagenaud, who hasn’t driven since being injured in an IndyCar practice crash July 1 at Mid-Ohio, also will miss the Rolex 24, but there was good news for MSR’s other drivers.
Blomqvist, who qualified MSR’s No. 60 on pole position last year, will have another chance at an overall victory after becoming the endurance driver for the No. 31 Action Express Cadillac (which will start on pole). Braun will be a contender in LMP2 with the Crowdstrike team.
Shank worked the phones to help both drivers find rides and secure the necessary manufacturer and sponsor approvals (Blomqvist still will race a Honda for MSR in IndyCar this season).
“I did everything I could to make sure those boys are racing there,” Shank said of Blomqvist and Braun. “Because they both deserve to be there at a high level. And they both have proven themselves in the trenches here at IMSA. And you’ll see both of them star individually in what they’re doing there this year. I can promise I have options on those boys if we get back going (in IMSA).”
After starting in minor-league single-seater circuits, Shank moved to sports cars in 2004 at the dawn of the Daytona Prototype era that was conceived by IMSA owner Jim France (also the chairman of NASCAR).
“When he created DP, it was for teams like ours that had a reasonable budget with a good car and good engineering,” Shank said. “You could do well and compete against the big teams at the time. That was a prototypical model, and that’s what we did, and I think that’s what he appreciated about what we brought to the table back then.”
After starting with a Lexus Grand-Am and mortgaging his house to buy his first prototype, Shank made his 350th start as an IMSA car owner last year. His teams have won championships in the GT and prototype classes.
“They've been one of the linchpins from the IMSA and Rolex Grand-Am days,” Fish said. “And to not see them on the grid is disappointing in itself, let alone in talking about that how well the team did to win here last year.”
In being absent from Daytona, it’s natural that that team’s story as a two-time defending champion (and the 2012 overall winner) largely will go untold.
“That’s tough for sure,” Shank said. “But if you look at our record over 20 years, we won (the Rolex 24) three times overall. I can’t even tell you how many top fives and podiums. The success we’ve had there is great, and the people that are in the know kind of know that, but we had a tough thing happen to us, and we went on, and arguably, we had the best season of anybody out there. We beat both Penskes, both Rahals and Ganassi in the championship, even after it was like, points-wise, we weren’t at Daytona.
“I think we’re the best team on the pit lane right now. I’ve been able to retain a whole entire crew to do other things until we figure out where we’re at and kept all of our equipment, so we’re a turn-key championship-level team. And we’re talking a lot to different groups right now, so we’ll see where that leaves us. I don’t totally know the future, but we want to be back, and we’re going to work as hard as we can to be back.”
Despite the unsavory circumstances of his team’s involuntary departure, Shank has retained some powerful allies and support at IMSA.
“The stuff that Mike accomplished in IMSA, he built an amazing race team, and we would love to have him back,” Doonan said. “And if ever there's any help I can provide him, I'm willing to step up and help him be back on the grid.”
Shank said he still talks at least monthly with France.
“Jim and I just check in and see where we’re at,” Shanks said. “Jim is a huge supporter of ours, and I know he’ll do everything on his side to make sure we can get back there. We’d like to be back in ’25. For the meantime, we’ll focus on improving our IndyCar program and see where it lands.
“But we have a true love of IMSA and sports car racing, and I promise you I work on it every day. Every day, I work on something to how we get back.”
With support from a new manufacturer needed, there seem to be multiple avenues for potentially returning.
Lamborghini is expected to make its GTP debut with a new LMDh prototype at the Twelve Hours of Sebring. Alpine has built an LMDh car to enter the World Endurance Championship this year and reportedly is considering IMSA for the 2025 season.
Those could represent GTP options for Shank, but he also would be willing to re-enter in the GT Daytona category (which has 11 OEM automaker brands). Before entering GTP, MSR won consecutive GTD championships while fielding the Acura NSX from 2018-20.
“I can’t talk at all about who I’m speaking with, but I can tell you I would like it to be GTP,” Shank said. “But having said that, a proper OEM GT deal would be looked at hard, too, so we would look at both. What’s most important is we’re in a proper program with really next-level engineering that our team can grow from, and OEMs really allow you to do that. Our big growth came when we were with Acura and Honda. Our group learned a lot because they are pushing boundaries, and it really expanded what we were capable of, and I recognize that.
“Hopefully, we’re in GTP, but we’ve looked at a GTD deal, a proper one with a factory.”
In the meantime, though, he’ll be watching – and agonizing – until at least the 2025 season.
“I can’t sugar-coat it, it’s tough,” he said. “It’s very hard not being there, knowing that we’re peaking. We’re absolutely at the top of our strength on the IMSA side right now, and we deserve to be there.”
