At Speed - IndyCar Podcast

Things are hopping and popping for Mike Shank and his Meyer Shank Racing Team these days. The Acura NSX portion seems headed toward another season title is it competes this week and at Mid-Ohio sports car course. The IndyCar team will run a double-header next weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And it was announced this week that MSR will be one of two teams running the new Acura prototype in the IMSA series next year, and perhaps at Le Mans in the future plus the team is about to break ground on a new 50 thousand square foot headquarters. Lots to talk about in this week's At Speed Podcast.

IndyCar is headed to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for a doubleheader this weekend, postponed from early August due to Covid 19 restrictions, and the Meyer Shank Racing team with driver Jack Harvey is pumped for what amounts to its home event, as team founder Mike Shank reveals in this latest At Speed Podcast. Based on many reasons, Shank thinks his Pataskala, Ohio-based squad has a shot at victory -- perhaps two victories -- on the demanding, tight road course. Also we visit with New Albany, Ohio-based driver Braden Eves, a rising talent who won at Mid-Ohio in the Indy Pro 2000 series back in July and was looking forward to his return before a scary crash on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course last week left him injured and on the sideline for this weekend's races.  

Mike Shank has never left any doubt that his Meyer Shank Racing team with driver Jack Harvey is in the Indy 500 because it wants to win It. But in the wake of Takuma Sato of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing winning the 104th 500, Shank and his team co-owner Jim Meyer found solace and their team's highest finish ever, 9th.

With the start of the 104th Indianapolis 500 just hours away, Mike Shank believes his Meyer Shank Racing team with driver Jack Harvey is primed to compete. But so are a lot of others, as we touch on in this special pre-race edition of the At Speed Podcast.

The Meyer Shank Racing entry for the 104th Indianapolis 500 wasn't up to the speed expected by driver Jack Harvey and team owner Mike Shank on Saturday -- a couple mph short is huge in the modern game. But while Shank worked to get to the bottom of it, the team's focus turned quickly to the main event, Sunday's 500, in which Harvey will start 20th. 

With qualifying just hours away for the 104th Indianapolis 500, things are, uh, full speed ahead for Mike Shank and the Meyer Shank Racing team. It would great to have the fans on hand, too, but Shank is nonetheless fired up just to be part of the greatest spectacle in racing in this Covid 19 year.

There is no place like home, and Mid-Ohio sports car course is about as close to home as the Meyer Shank Racing team gets during a season. Founder Mike Shank is pumped about the chances for his driver, Jack Harvey, in the upcoming IndyCar double header at the Lexington road course after the two promising finishes at Iowa.

For three straight races, qualifying has gone quite well for Jack Harvey and the Meyer Shank Racing team, but the races have been the opposite. The great thing about this Covid-19 influenced schedule is the team has a chance to bounce back immediately with a double-header on the bullring of Iowa Speedway this weekend, and team founder Mike Shank is looking forward to it, as he explains in this latest episode of the At Speed Podcast.

July 4th is going to be a hot one for Meyer Shank Racing, no matter what the temperature is. The IndyCar side will be racing on the road course at Indianapolis, and the IMSA side will be racing on the road course at Daytona. Plus, team founder and co-owner Mike Shank plans to make the scene for both, his own Independence Day double-header. Nobody needs to light his fuse.

In pursuit of victory in the Rolex Daytona 24 Hour race, Mike Shank needed to add a relentless hot shoe to his talented race team. He turned to A.J. Allmendinger, and not only did A.J. become a key ingredient to the historic victory in the 50th 24 in 2012, he became a great friend. The two have leaned on each other for support in good times and bad, which is why Shank considers A.J. to be one of the central figures in the rise of Meyer Shank Racing.

It was somewhat of a chance encounter that put Jim Meyer and Mike Shank together. But Meyer, SiriusXM CEO, liked the way Shank led his Pataskala, Ohio-based race team, and having been bitten by the auto racing bug decades before, Meyer wanted in. The rest, both of them have resolved, is history in the making.

Driver Jack Harvey and Meyer Shank Racing team founder Mike Shank have been plotting a full season foray in IndyCar for years. Covid-19, of course, stepped in and delayed it even more. But barring another hiccup, the season will start next Saturday night at Texas, and to say Harvey is pumped would be an understatement.

Most successful auto racing teams have a driver in their lineage around whom their competitiveness first surfaced. That driver for Meyer Shank Racing was Brazilian Ozz Negri, who joined the AtSpeed Podcast to reminisce about putting the pedal to the metal for his good friend and team founder Mike Shank.

As Mike Shank worked to make his team a success, he assembled a core of mainstays within the shop. Then came along a succession of influencers seemingly at just the right times, Shank said, not the least of whom is Brian Bailey of Rocky Fork Company, who turned his passion for racing into being part of MSR after a chance meeting with Shank.

The Covid19 shutdown still has race teams such as Meyer Shank Racing parked. But team owner Mike Shank is cautiously optimistic the IndyCar season can begin June 6 at Texas. He's raring to go, because as he recalls in this episode, racing has been his passion since he was 5 years old.

At least drivers are finding a way to vent their competitive frustrations by doing some iRacing. But for the owners of IndyCar and other series race teams, such as Meyer Shank Racing's Mike Shank, this is a time of angst tinged with hope as the world deals with the Coronavirus.

A week ago Mike Shank had his Meyer Shank Racing team poised to begin its first full season in IndyCar racing, only to see the opener at St. Pete cancelled. This week, like everyone else, he and his team are on hold, all revved up with no place to race, as the United States battles the coronavirus.

Mike Shank and his Pataskala-based Meyer Shank Racing team have been working for two decades for the upcoming weekend, the start of its first full-time season in the NTT IndyCar car series. As could be expected, Shank is excited as the team preps to put driver Jack Harvey on the track Friday for the airport-street race in St. Petersburg, Fla. And as team owner Shank said to AtSpeedpodcast co-host Tim May, he expects his group to show it more than belongs as the year ensues.

As horrific as the Ryan Newman crash was in the Daytona 500, Mike Shank and Tim May talk about how far safety has come in auto racing, especially in the last 30 years. They touch on other subjects, too, in this latest edition of the At Speed Podcast brought to you by Rocky Fork Company. 

Mike Shank was encouraged by his team's first IndyCar test of the season, at Circuit of The Americas outside Austin, is fired up about the changes Roger Penske is bringing to the Indy 500, and he and Tim May speak on who they like in the Daytona 500. 

After getting BOPped by officials in the Rolex 24 Hour race, the Meyer Shank Racing team turns its attention toward the first big IndyCar test of the year headed toward its first full season in that series. 

The new At Speed with Mike Shank and Tim May podcast brought to you by Rocky Fork Co. takes its first green flag, and in this opening episode Shank talks about the thrill of the season start this weekend with the Rolex Daytona 24 Hour -- his Meyer Shank Racing team won the 50th anniversary sports car event in 2012. Plus, the workload has ramped up for his Pataskala-based team which is a couple months away from the launch of its first full IndyCar season.