SHANK: Tough Two Weeks

GRAND-AM

SHANK: Tough Two Weeks

This has been a tough year for us for sure, but my guys have never given up and have continued to work hard and put a quality car on the grid every race...

Michael Shank | Posted August 30, 2011

Mike Shank, right, with Mark Blundell, left, at the Watkins Glen two-hour shootout. (Photo: John Dagys)

Coming off the trailer at Watkins Glen we were feeling pretty good. We were back to two race cars again with Mark Blundell and Zak Brown with us in the No. 23 UBS car and we had a good plan for both cars on Thursday morning.

A week prior to Watkins we had done a one day test with both cars at Mid-Ohio. The main reason for the test was for Zak and Mark to get back up to speed in a DP car. They had just finished running the 24 hours of Spa in the Audis so the transition back to DP would be a little tricky.

The test went very well, with no real issues. Both cars worked a lot on set up - trying various combinations and both were very quick and consistent by the time we loaded to go home.

Watkins Glen and Mid-Ohio drive very differently and Zak and Mark had never really run the short course at Watkins before so I knew it would be a big challenge for them. The average speed on the short course is over 122 mph with big commitments needed at nearly every corner.

Right away at Watkins both cars were pretty good. The No. 60 car was in the top-five all morning while we focused the No. 23 on learning the track and getting seat time for both drivers.

In the middle of the day the NASCAR cars ran for 2-3 hours laying down all their Goodyear rubber on the track. When we went out for qualifying the extra rubber affected our car a bit but John (Pew) still managed to put a good time down for P7 on the grid. We decided to qualify Mark in the No. 23 car and he put it P9 on the grid.

There was a final practice after qualifying and we discovered that the new rubber on the track did affect the cars a good bit. We threw more changes at the cars and got them back on track by the end of the session.

Going into the race we knew it would be very tough to beat the Chevys. All of the Chevys run significantly more downforce than we can. It's a fact that we have to live with for right now. The Chevy is the strongest motor for now - the numbers don't lie. The extra downforce that they can carry is a big advantage at these long fast tracks with high speed corners.

The one thing I have learned in Grand-Am competition is that the motor strengths are cyclical. Our Fords were good for 2008 and 2009. The BMW was very good in 2010 etc., etc. We are committed to Ford in 2012 and it will be our fifth season with them and Roush/Yates. We have to trust that Grand-Am will correct the situation for 2012.

For the start of the race, Pew got shoved back in Turn 1 and Blundell managed to get past him to P7. Both cars continued on and their pace was pretty good at that point.

We switched drivers in both cars and continued on. We really needed a yellow at this point to get some track position back but it never came. The No. 60 car finished P5 and the No. 23 finished P9. Not a great day for us. After reflecting about our pace in the race we felt the cars were pretty balanced but had too much downforce on them.

Heading into Montreal we knew we needed to make a big improvement over last year. We struggled a lot there with our pace and had a lot of new things we wanted to try there. We were back to one car for this weekend but really thought that we had a good plan to improve.

The team stayed over in Watkins Glen to turn the car around for Montreal. It only took maybe a day and half and the car was ready to go again.

Our off the trailer car was 100% better than last year and in fact we thought that we may have a shot at a good result based on the first day of running. We tried several things and the car kept improving.

Pew qualified the car P8 with his best time of the weekend coming in this session. As I have said in many of the more recent blogs, John’s improvement in driving this year has been awesome! Over the last three years the level and quality of the drivers in our series has gone to a new level and what I think is the coolest thing is that John keeps stepping up also!

As seen by most people on the TV broadcast we had a big issue in Turn 1-2 on the first lap. The car went to neutral and the entire field plus more time went by us right away. At first we did not know what happened but after the race we figured out that a parameter in the paddle shift was set too high and allowed the gearbox to go to neutral when the wheel speed was below 45 mph.

It was really no one's fault completely, just real bad timing. John was relieved to know that it was not his fault and to be honest the paddle shift system for us has performed perfectly all season so we were just as surprised that it happened as he was.

When you are about a lap down at the start of the race, it makes the task of getting a good result very tough. We would have had a shot however there were ZERO yellows. One yellow flag and we would have been good but NOTHING! NO yellows!

We set about after the problem of getting whatever we could for a result and both drivers tried as hard as they could. The strangest thing for me was that our pace was not what it should have been and certainly not as good as we had practiced.

After Ozz got in the car it was difficult for him to keep and maintain a strong pace and we could not figure out what happened. We found our answer after the race.

Either on the end of the first lap or beginning of the second we broke the right front sway bar blade. So essentially we ran the whole race with no front bar. This meant that there was way too much roll in the front end and that was not what we needed, especially as it was not clear what was causing it.

So that discovery explained a lot of the issues we were having and why we could only manage maybe one good lap before the times would fall away. I felt horrible for the drivers because we were for sure better than what we showed and we didn't get to show it. We pride ourselves in that we do not have many issues like this, so we'll make sure this does not happen again!!

We’re definitely looking forward to the final race at Mid-Ohio - our home race! Last year we actually had a shot of winning it. We have tested there this year and feel very good about our chances of doing well there this year. We will have a lot of sponsors and family members in attendance and we will also be back to two cars with Blundell and Brown sharing driving duties in the No. 23 car again.

This has been a tough year for us for sure, but my guys have never given up and have continued to work hard and put a quality car on the grid every race. There are A LOT of really cool announcements coming up and we will be in the middle of it all!

ONE MORE TO GO!

~Mike

Mike Shank is team owner of Michael Shank Racing, one of the premier Daytona Prototype teams in the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series. Learn more about Shank and his team at http://www.michaelshankracing.com
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED

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Michael Shank

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