The holiday season will be a time of labor for Michael Shank and the crew at Michael Shank Racing—and the next couple of months will only get busier.
The MSR team has to shake down a brand-new third-generation Riley Daytona Prototype chassis in time for the Roar Before the 24 test days on Jan. 6–8, while also familiarizing themselves with a brand-new Dallara DW-12 chassis for the upcoming IndyCar season, all while also preparing a second Daytona Prototype for the twice-around-the-clock Grand Am season opener Jan. 28-29.
The off-season doesn’t hold much time off for Michael Shank Racing.
Two New Cars, Two Different Programs
Michael Shank Racing has been campaigning a Daytona Prototype—or two— in the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series since 2004. Last week MSR announced that the driving team of John Pew and Oswaldo Negri would be returning for their third season in the No. 60 MSR Crown Royal Riley Ford.
Preparing this car for the 12-race Rolex series would be enough of a task for most teams—but not for MSR, which announced in October that it would be collaborating with NASACR ace A.J. Allmendinger’s Walldinger Racing to field a brand new Dallara DW-12 in the 2012 IndyCar series.
Running two different cars in two different series is a huge undertaking, but one that makes sense to Michael Shank. With all-new cars being introduced for 2012, new teams will be on equal footing with the old when it comes to set-ups for various tracks.
“I’ve been working to have an IndyCar team since at least 1995,” said Shank on the MSR website. “This is the right time for us to make this move and we are working to get everything we need in place to be competitive from the drop of the flag.”
New Car—and Old—for the Rolex 24
Shank Racing will be heading to Daytona International Speedway early next week to start testing its brand-new Riley Ford, and right after will be heading to Charlotte, North Carolina to run some tests at the Windshear wind tunnel. There will barely be time for a holiday break because the team needs to ready the new car for the Roar Before the 24 tests.
While working on the new car MSR will also be preparing the old No. 6 Riley Ford for Brazilian F3 driver Felipe Nasr, whom Michael Shank saw testing at Daytona. The 19-year-old made such an impression, Shank is considering setting him up with a ride for the Rolex 24.
2012 will be MSR’s ninth Rolex 24; the squad is well able to manage the possible two-car effort. It will be a lot of work in a short time, but Michael Shank is ready: “The Rolex 24 is going to be huge for us again, and hopefully we can start 2012 off right with a big result at Daytona. We are doing everything we can to be ready to do exactly that.”
The IndyCar
While prepping for the Rolex 24 and the entire 2012 Grand Am season, Shank also has to work on his recently announced IndyCar program with partners Bob Bailey and NASCAR ace A.J. Allmendinger.
MSR Indy took delivery of its 2012 Dallara DW-12 chassis on Dec. 15. The team will have three full months with the car before the first race of the IndyCar season on March 25—but that isn’t a lot of time to totally sort out a brand-new chassis (one which manufacturer Dallara is still updating and refining) and a new engine, for both road and oval courses.
MSR has yet to sign a driver, and since the goal is to build the organization around the driver, MSR has also not signed a complete engineering staff; “We’ve not yet locked in some positions on the engineering side to keep ourselves flexible for what our driver is going to need,” Shank said in a November press release.
Meanwhile MSR also needs to line up pit equipment, transporters, and personnel to man this expanding racing empire. In any racing series the support staff does as much or more to ensure victory as does the driver, so Michael Shank can’t rush this process—but he also has to hurry.
“It has been really very busy, but I wouldn’t trade this for anything,” said Shank in his latest press release.
“Delivering a strong on-track product in two different series is a big undertaking, but we’ve long planned for this and right now we are just executing on those plans.
“What we do right now will pay dividends with performance this summer. We know what we need to have in place to be effective and smart with the available resources.
“My guys are very excited about getting their hands on these new cars and getting to know them and I’m really looking forward to seeing them both on track. Christmas comes early this year!”
