{"id":312,"date":"2017-04-08T18:35:57","date_gmt":"2017-04-08T18:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manifestclients.com\/sundaygroup\/?p=312"},"modified":"2017-06-27T17:22:58","modified_gmt":"2017-06-27T17:22:58","slug":"michael-shank-racing-with-curbagajanian-rues-what-might-have-been-at-long-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2017\/04\/08\/michael-shank-racing-with-curbagajanian-rues-what-might-have-been-at-long-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Shank Racing with Curb\/Agajanian Rues What Might Have Been at Long Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long Beach, Calif. (8 April 2017) \u2013 Basking in the sun-soaked southern California\u00a0streets of Long Beach\u00a0on Saturday, it looked like Michael<\/span> Shank<\/span>Racing<\/span>\u2019s race<\/span> day would shine just as brightly as the team\u2019s two-car Acura effort was poised for a double top-five result in the\u00a0100-minute BUBBA Burger Sports Car Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, those anticipated results did not come to fruition in Round 3 of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship when a desperate move from a fellow GTD competitor took the No. 86 Acura NSX GT3 of Ozz Negri and Jeff Segal out of the race<\/span> in the final corner and a late-race<\/span> miscue saw the No. 93 Acura NSX GT3 of Katherine Legge and Andy Lally fall from third to 11th\u00a0in the order.<\/p>\n

The No. 93 Acura machine recovered to take seventh at the checkered flag.<\/p>\n

Legge opened the race<\/span> from the fourth row after qualifying the No. 93 machine eighth on the grid. Setting quick lap times, Legge made her way up to fifth in the order before handing the car over to Lally with just under an hour remaining.<\/p>\n

During the stop, the team changed just one Continental Tire \u2013 the left rear \u2013 which was the only tire change of the race<\/span>. Lally had progressed up to third when a full course caution was displayed. During that yellow period, the GTD field was given a wave around the pace car but a miscue saw Lally miss it and he found himself 11th\u00a0in the order upon the final restart.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t be happy enough about the gains we\u2019ve made with the cars from Sebring to here \u2013 it\u2019s unbelievable,\u201d said Team Owner Mike Shank<\/span>. \u201cWe\u2019re talking 30-40% better on a rough street course so I\u2019m really happy about that. The pace was good, the strategy was good, we had a couple of little mistakes early but on the No. 93 we missed what\u2019s called the pass around in our series and that screwed up our race<\/span>. The good news is that we had the potential of running first second or third without question. Andy (Lally) did a great job and to me, Katherine (Legge) had the drive of her year so far. It\u2019s hard to take because at this level you can\u2019t have mistakes like this. We\u2019ll learn from it. We get one, and then we have to learn from it and not do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

After battling a loose car in qualifying, Negri opened the race<\/span>from 14th\u00a0on the grid in the No. 86 Acura NSX GT3. Negri ran among the top-10 until he turned the car over to Segal with about 56 minutes remaining in the race<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Segal immediately went to work at the wheel of the Acura NSX GT3 and put down lap times faster than the GTD class leaders. He had made his way up to sixth on the final lap, when an overly aggressive maneuver from the No. 15 GTD entry saw Segal taken out in the final corner, along with another hapless victim in the No. 96 GTD entry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a decent race<\/span> going, we were set up for a top-five finish – we knew we\u2019d be at least sixth,\u201d said Michael<\/span> Shank<\/span> Racing<\/span> General Manager Tim Keene. \u201cWe made smart decisions all day and got ourselves in a good position so to get taken out by someone making a really, really bad decision is more than frustrating. We still have some work to do with the car but I\u2019m proud of everybody on this team. We just have to put this behind us and move on to COTA and the remainder of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

All four Michael<\/span> Shank<\/span> Racing<\/span> drivers and Team Owner Mike Shank<\/span> will visit HPD and American Honda\u00a0on Monday\u00a0during the group\u2019s West Coast tour. The team will then head up to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for a test ahead of the next IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship round at Circuit of the Americas\u00a0May 4-6.<\/p>\n

DRIVER QUOTES:
\nKatherine Legge, No. 93 Acura NSX GT3:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cIt was good \u2013 it\u2019s really difficult on a street course to pass or get passed so it was just about trying to be smart and maximize track position. We had a good strategy, I\u2019m just gutted for the whole team. We had a great driver change, we were fast, and we were closer to the front than we have been so far. So we can take the positives and move on. For me personally, from Daytona to Sebring I made a big improvement and from Sebring to here I\u2019ve made improvement so I just need to keep my head down and keep learning these GT cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andy Lally, No. 93 Acura NSX GT3:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cI know the result isn\u2019t what we wanted because we had a little miscue but I could never ever be mad at any of these guys for anything. I mean I made a big mistake yesterday, we\u2019ve all made mistakes. It happens. I actually came in with a smile on my face, it was a good time. We\u2019ve shown huge improvement. Katherine (Legge) was flying in the first stint and set amazing lap times. We over delivered for our third race<\/span> ever with this car. The Michael<\/span> Shank<\/span> Racing<\/span> guys put the Acura in a really good position. We changed one tire for the whole race<\/span> while other teams took two or four tires. We took a gamble for our strategy and it worked out the way it was supposed to and we were sitting pretty. It\u2019s just that miscues happen and it\u2019s onto the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ozz Negri, No. 86 Acura NSX GT3:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cUsually you see me smiling but I\u2019m not smiling today. I\u2019m actually very frustrated. We were running P6 but in\u00a0the very last corner, our car got drilled by a desperate competitor. It\u2019s very disappointing after all the hard work that Michael<\/span> Shank<\/span> Racing<\/span> and everyone at Acura and HPD put in this weekend. It would have been a great place to get a top-five, not only because of the result, but it would have given us a lot of points which would jump us quite a few positions in the championship so I\u2019m very upset about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Segal, No. 86 Acura NSX GT3:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m really disappointed because we had a challenging practice and qualifying but like we\u2019ve done so far this season, we executed really well in the race<\/span>. We were just chipping away and picking off positions here and there and were looking at a top-five and pretty content to take those points on a weekend where it looked like we didn\u2019t have the pace we needed. I\u2019m just gutted for the team that we have a torn up race<\/span> car and nothing to show for it. I don\u2019t understand the decision making process to wipe out three perfectly good cars for sixth place, somebody from the other team will have to explain that to me, but we\u2019ll focus forward on the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long Beach, Calif. (8 April 2017) \u2013 Basking in the sun-soaked southern California\u00a0streets of Long Beach\u00a0on Saturday, it looked like Michael ShankRacing\u2019s race day would shine [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,28],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-meyer-shank-racing","tag-michael-shank-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}