It’s been more than a month since the seismic announcement that Acura and Honda Racing Corporation USA (HRC US) would put the factory Acura ARX-06 programme on hiatus at the conclusion of the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Meyer Shank Racing has run both factory Acuras in GTP since 2025, and even before then, has been a long-serving fixture of the paddock in both IMSA and its predecessor series, Grand-Am.
The team’s founder, partial namesake, and co-owner Michael Shank told DSC earlier this month, “We’ve been in IMSA, Grand-Am, for 23 seasons. This is the backbone of what has done everything in our life for us, right? So we don’t necessarily want to be done with it if the right situation came along.”
Meyer Shank Racing has won three IMSA series championships and taken three overall victories at the Rolex 24 At Daytona since 2004, when MSR made its first foray into Grand-Am’s Daytona Prototype category.
These days, the IndyCar Series programme at MSR feels like it gets most of the attention. That’s completely understandable, especially now that Felix Rosenqvist has just scored the team’s second Indianapolis 500 victory, five years after Hélio Castroneves brought MSR to Indianapolis’ famous victory lane for the very first time.
But Shank is keen to tell anyone that none of that would have been possible without that successful foundation in sports cars. “[IMSA] is the basis of everything we’ve done. It’s actually how we were able to do IndyCar, because we had this, and had a solid business plan. We’re not looking to be out of IMSA, that’s for sure. And we’re gonna work for a while here to see if we can make that happen.”
“We’re still working on it. There’s nothing really to report yet, it’s still early days,” Shank said when it came to the future of MSR in IMSA. “We have a wonderful relationship with Acura, still strong on the IndyCar side, so we’ll kind of see where it takes us.”
Once the Acura Meyer Shank Racing IMSA programme winds down, most of the people and resources will be redirected into a new Meyer Shank Racing IndyCar team, a third car with a charter held by Honda itself, slated for a debut in 2028.
While those plans are being put into motion, Shank is actively trying to keep his team in IMSA next season, and prevent a repeat of its absence from the series in 2024.
Staying in GTP is the priority for Shank, but by no means the only option available to keep the team in IMSA, thanks to a growing LMP2 class and two very strong GT3-based categories. From 2015 to 2016, MSR ran a previous-generation Ligier JS P2 in IMSA. MSR then introduced the Acura (Honda) NSX GT3 to the series in 2017, then went on to win back-to-back GTD class titles in 2019 and 2020.
“I would prefer to stay in GTP, because we’ve worked hard to get to this level,” Shank declared. “I think we deserve to be at this level, and have the right equipment and people to be at this level, and I wouldn’t say no to everything, but we’re trying to stay in GTP.”
The good news for Shank is that three new WEC Hypercar manufacturers – Ford, Genesis, and McLaren – could potentially bring their new LMDh prototypes to IMSA in the near future. But even with a number of teams showing interest in helping to bring those manufacturers to IMSA, that may not happen until 2028 at the earliest, barring a massive shift.
“We’ve been very fortunate to be able to ride through a lot of ups and downs,” recalls Shank, “from a financial crisis in ’08/’09 in the US, and survived that in DP with Grand-Am – proud of that, actually – to our first real big win, which was the 2012 Rolex 24.”
Since debuting in 2004, MSR’s only absence from sports car racing came in 2024, as a consequence of the infamous tyre pressure data manipulation scandal of 2023. Acura instead opted to have Wayne Taylor Racing run its two ARX-06es the following season,
But WTR’s defection to Cadillac in 2025 allowed MSR to get a second chance with Acura. Not only that, but MSR would run both Acuras in GTP, including one engineered by staff from HRC US.
“It was a real proud moment to be able to put that back together after a problematic 2023. Even at the end of ’23, we were super strong. I was more proud of how we rebounded and finished than anything else,” he admitted.
“It’s been everything we’ve done. So we’re going to do everything in our power to try to stay in.”
This period of uncertainty also means that MSR’s four full-time drivers are free agents after 2026.
Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly, the drivers of the #93 MSR Acura ARX-06, won the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach in April, currently sit fifth in the GTP Drivers’ Championship after four rounds, and the demand for their services in 2027 and beyond will be very high – and not just from IMSA teams.
“Fortunately, I’m already in a couple of other paddocks,” said Yelloly, who’s set to defend his LMP2 class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans next month for Inter Europol Competition. “My management team will be on the phone, and they’ll be doing most of the work for me.
“I love racing out here (in IMSA). I really enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve also had the chance to race in Europe, so I like the different styles of racing. But I’ve raced out here, full-time, it’ll be four years. So I kind of feel like it’s my second home,” the Englishman said.
Van der Zande has been a fixture of IMSA’s paddock since 2013, and has a streak of 13 consecutive seasons with at least one win, going back to the first post-merger season of 2014.
“Everybody’s talking to me, a lot of manufacturers are showing their interest to have me on board,” said van der Zande. “But there needs to be seats that are opening up, and it being so early, I think more is happening around Le Mans. I think that’s the time when we can really say which direction we’re going.
“Obviously, the last 13 years I’ve done more IMSA than WEC or European racing, so I guess the people look at me as an IMSA driver – but at the same time, those cars running all around the world is good fun as well.
“Right now, it’s a lot of talking. And at the same time, focusing on the racing we’re doing here in IMSA, because we still have big aims with Acura to win, and I think we have a good chance of doing that. That’s an opportunity that I want to grab first.”
Image courtesy of IMSA
