This week in Florida marks a fresh start for Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian, back in the IMSA paddock after spending 2024 out of major sports car racing for the first time since Michael Shank founded the team two decades ago.
How will it fare in its first race back? The vast majority of the personnel involved in its last GTP race at Petit Le Mans in 2023 have returned, and its car, the ARX-06, is identical – software updates aside. There are some new faces, most notably in its new-look driver roster, but there’s no reason to believe the team can’t hit the ground running this weekend when the lights go green.
Nick Yelloly is one of the new driver signings for 2025, and he’s raring to go. After six years as a BMW M Motorsport works driver, being part of the German brand’s return to top-tier prototype racing, he left BMW to sign on the dotted line as an Acura and HRC factory driver in time for the new season.
“I felt like we wanted a change. In fact, needed a change,” said Yelloly. “I wanted to go somewhere where we felt that there were potential opportunities, being obviously of a factory nature.
“The car seems to be pretty competitive, as does Meyer Shank Racing as a whole. So having spoke to Tom (Blomqvist) a little bit because we’ve known each other for a long time – I think I was saying we maybe first raced with each other in 2009 in two-litre (Formula) Renault.
“I obviously knew that there was an extra car coming with Meyer Shank. Mike runs a super good operation. And it was just the right place, right time, I guess, to get the deal going.”
For a man who was once one of a number of young drivers that was pounding on the door for an opportunity to advance his racing career sometime around 2012, being in demand from manufacturers is a refreshing change of pace.
“I love racing out here. I enjoy it a lot. You feel like experience is a big thing, and the teams are very aware of that. And I think you can have a great, long career racing at the top level of sports cars – and that, at the end of the day, is what I want to do,” Yelloly said.
“I think I’ll stay pretty hungry for a while. I’m fitter than I’ve ever been. I’m up for it more than I’ve ever been. So, yeah, there’s definitely a lot more to come. And I felt like adding this Acura programme to the CV was the right direction to go for myself.”
And from last weekend’s Roar Before The 24 results, Yelloly seems to be excelling in his new surroundings aboard the HRC US-run #93 Acura ARX-06.
Not far behind Yelloly on the Roar leaderboard was Tom Blomqvist, who remained with the MSR family through its IMSA hiatus, and is rewarded with getting his seat back in the #60 Meyer Shank Acura – the one he had from 2022 to 2023, where he won the IMSA DPi Championship and two Daytona 24 Hours.
“I guess it was always in the back of my mind, like we knew that was probably a possibility if there was ever a chance of getting a programme back, which obviously the team were always optimistic, of hopefully landing somewhere,” said the Anglo-Swedish driver. “It’s amazing that everyone was able to rekindle and continue where we left off.”
I believe that Acura had the best car from the word go
2024 was a strange year for Blomqvist (below). It was built around a switch to IndyCar, but for whatever reason he was never a strong fit in the series despite his strong single-seater pedigree. He was eventually replaced in the IndyCar team, but too late for him to take up his mount at Action Express Racing for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
At least with AXR, Blomqvist had better results – showcasing his adaptability in a second-place run at Daytona in the Cadillac. And now he’ll be back in much more familiar surroundings aboard the ARX-06.
“I believe that Acura had the best car from from the word go. They really did their homework well. They hit the ground running. I think we have one of the strongest cars – obviously, Porsche has developed extremely well. It’s a huge organization, and they’ve done a fantastic job last year,” Blomqvist added.
“But this year, it feels different to when I was last with Acura,” he says, acknowledging not only the addition of the second car, but the greater level of HRC direct involvement and oversight.
“We’ve got three times as many people. One car is basically operated by a lot of the Honda engineers now that we used to work with behind the scenes. They’re all run by MSR, but some of their engineers are integrated into running that car. And, you know, some of the old MSR guys, we’re kind of still got our little team together, and then the mechanics are all spread out across the two, but there are faces there that I don’t recognize, new names I have to learn, so many more Honda people on site.
“It really feels like we’ve just stepped up the effort again. So I’m excited for this year. It feels like, as a driver, these guys are here to stay, right? This looks like this is growing. We’re not seeing a lack of resources. It’s all promising for the future as well. I think that’s also a testament to what the category has done.”
Blomqvist has been to Daytona three times now and never finished worse than second in any of his appearances. He’s still got a ways to catch co-driver Scott Dixon on the all-time starts list though.
This is Dixon’s 22nd consecutive Daytona 24 Hours starts, the longest active streak behind Andy Lally’s 23 in a row. He’s been more than just a participant – he’s a three-time overall winner of the Rolex 24, adding to his Hall Of Fame-level CV that includes six IndyCar Series Championships and an Indy 500 win in 2008.
The ageless wonder has seen it all over that time, reflecting on how things have changed at the highest level of American sports car racing since he first started this race in 2004, driving one of the earliest Riley Daytona Prototypes. “I think as far as manufacturer interaction, I’d say it’s at its peak,” said Dixon.
“I think you can always reminisce about a style of racing and things like that. I think the the DP car, and even the iteration before that, was was pretty fun. And they were pretty basic cars, but the racing was phenomenal and pretty basic for teams to run.
“We’ve kind of turned a corner now, where they’re extremely complicated, where for a team it’s not super easy, like you can’t have a smaller team just rock up and run, run these cars anymore, which I think is why you see so much from a manufacturer side of it. The only downside I’d say to the current car is it feels big, it feels heavy. You’re not on the edge as much.
“I think the driving side, switching to Acura this year, there’s a vast difference in what they do, what capabilities it has, you know, from a team that’s kind of pushed it in one direction to where you think it should go. System-wise, I think it’s quite complicated now, especially when you’re looking at preparation.
“But it’s still a fun car to drive and the fact that there’s so many different things you can change on the trot. You know, they’re very typical.”
While he won’t be representing Chip Ganassi Racing this time at Daytona as he had for much of those last 21 starts, Ganassi’s new IndyCar technical alliance with MSR helped make Dixon’s move to an Endurance Cup role at Acura possible.
We expect to come back on the podium
“Obviously, we knew was coming about fairly early, and for me, it’s quite easy because, you know, at Shank there’s a lot of ex-Ganassi people there at Honda. It’s a lot of the same people we work with on the Honda (IndyCar) side. So it was pretty easy, and the conversation started quite early.”
Dixon and three-time IndyCar Champion Alex Palou will be here, so will MSR’s current IndyCar lead driver Felix Rosenqvist, helping to round out the ranks along with Colin “Cobra” Braun and Kakunoshin Ohta.
“We all work together on choosing drivers,” Michael Shank said about putting this iteration of the team together. “We did some number crunching and looked at historic performances and results. I had two guys on the #60 car that I felt deserved a real shot again with Tom and Colin, that was a no-brainer.
“Nick and Renger are two guys I’ve known for a long time and competed against. For me, they were super solid, fast veteran guys for the #93 who know how these cars behave.”
The staff is bigger with HRC’s direct involvement, but the car is mostly the same, with only a software update as its most significant change from last year.
Shank is grateful that HRC US President David Salters has handed him another chance to carry the flag for Acura – an idea that would have seemed unfathomable in the aftermath of Meyer Shank Racing’s post-Daytona penalties in 2023.
And while some observers will likely view all results with a sceptical eye for a while, Shank and the rest of MSR aren’t only focused on backing up their strong testing form heading into race weekend.
“We expect to come back on the podium,” Shank said. “Maybe we don’t win, but there’s no reason we shouldn’t be challenging for the podium places.”
