Meyer Shank Racing Set for 350th Sports Car Start at Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Indianapolis, Ind. (12 August 2023) – Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) with Curb-Agajanian looks to continue its late-season surge when it returns to the scene of its greatest triumph in Sunday’s Tirerack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (1:00pm ET, NBC, SXM Ch. 207).

Since first establishing its sports car program in 2004 with a Prototype start in the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Meyer Shank Racing has become one of the most prolific programs in the modern sports car era.

After early season challenges, MSR rallied with three consecutive podiums for Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun driving the No. 60 Acura ARX-06 in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition.

A return to the IMSA podium with a run to third place in the Six Hours of Watkins Glen and a second in the most recent event at Road America were sandwiched around a victory at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park – the team’s second triumph in 2023 GTP competition. The team currently sits fifth in the GTP points standings, just 118-points off the lead car and just 45-points behind the two cars ahead.

Braun will be racing on a familiar circuit, having several races at the Indianapolis road course under his belt. He competed in the inaugural IMSA United SportsCar Championship event in 2014, capturing the pole and placing third in the PC class. Braun also won the Indianapolis 8 hour event in 2020.

MSR ran in all three major prototype weekends at Indy. MSR ran DPs in the two Grand-Am Rolex Series rounds in 2012 and 2013, with its best finish seventh with Pew and Negri in 2013. The team also placed sixth overall in the DP category in the 2014 event, with drivers John Pew and Ozz Negri.

The dream of eventually racing in the Indianapolis 500 took team owner Mike Shank to the INDYCAR SERIES with a one-off start in 2017. The team continued to build its INDYCAR program, winning the 2021 Indianapolis 500 – the record-tying fourth victory for Helio Castroneves. The Indy road course was also the scene of MSR’s first INDYCAR podium, front-row start and laps led in 2019.

This will be the first race at Indianapolis for Blomqvist, the defending champion of IMSA’s premier division. The Battle on the Bricks will take on added significance for the British driver since he will be racing full-time for MSR’s INDYCAR program starting in 2024.

Following Indianapolis, only the Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta (Oct. 14) remains on the 2023 WeatherTech Championship schedule.

The Tirerack.com Battle on the Bricks will be televised live on NBC Network beginning at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday. The race will also be streamed live on Peacock, and broadcast live on Sirius XM channel 207.

Meyer Shank Racing Driver Quotes:

Colin Braun:

“Really looking forward to the Indy weekend, we have some great momentum from the last handful of races and we got a lot of items run through at the official Indy test. I think this track will suit our Acura GTP car well, and as always everyone at HPD and MSR have been using this time to push forward, so I am excited to get going again! It will be great to get back to such an iconic track on the IMSA side again too.”

Tom Blomqvist:

“We’re coming into the home stretch and my goal is to try and get another championship with MSR. Until it’s mathematically out of the equation we have to aim for that, and right now we’re inching back into it. We have nothing to lose in the position that we’re in right now, so the goal is simply to win.”