Have a question about the Daytona Prototype cars driven by Michael Shank Racing? Curious about what the team drivers do away from the track? We select some of the questions that have been submitted and share the answers to those questions on the site. If you have a question of your own, you can submit your questions here .
Q. YOU WERE VERY HAPPY WITH THE PACKAGE THAT WAS USED DURING THE FIRST RACE. YOU’VE HAD TWO MONTHS SINCE THEN, HAVE YOU DONE ANY FINE-TUNING TO THE PACKAGE AT ALL?
A. “We tried to make it better. We’ve absolutely come up with what we think are some gains and we’re anxious to get them out on the track and try them. We have a very strict testing policy at Grand-Am, so we can’t go out and test like we’d like to. Based on what we learned at Daytona, we’re making some changes that we think will help us at all the tracks coming up.”


Q. WITH THE TWO MONTHS OFF AND SOME TESTING, ARE YOUR TEAMS JUST EXCITED TO GET BACK TO RACING?
A. ? “Oh, yeah. It feels like we’ve been off for two years, let alone two months. In fact, it’s a little ridiculous how much time we’re off. But soon enough we’ll get what we ask for here because we go into a real busy time. We’ve used this time – I tell you, the Ford Racing engineers have done so much for my business that it’s hard to describe on paper what they’ve done to help us. They help us understand the car better, just helping us with all things engineering related-wise. It’s something that Dan Davis had offered us when we did our deal with Ford Racing and I really didn’t know what extent that would go to, and it’s truly unbelievable. People don’t believe me when I tell them. I tell you, it’s just remarkable what they’ve done for our team at this point.”


Q. YOU WERE CHALLENGING THE LEAD INTO THE 21ST HOUR OF THE 24-HOUR RACE IN DAYTONA. THIS WEEKEND’S RACE IS JUST TWO HOURS AND 45 MINUTES. ARE BOTH OF YOUR TEAMS ENTERING THIS RACE WITH A LOT OF CONFIDENCE?
A. “Yeah, absolutely. We have a unique situation with our driver arrangement. We have what we call a pro-am driver combination, meaning we have one pro driver that is a paid professional and one of them is what I call a semi-pro, like a triple-A baseball player type of thing – and those guys only have to attempt to qualify the car and then they’ll run the first stints, which by the rules they have to do that, and then we put our pros in. As long as we do well while our semi-pros are in there, do decently and stay in the top 10, then we have a real shot of doing very well, result-wise.”


Q. BOTH OF YOUR CARS WERE VERY STRONG IN DAYTONA.
A. “Yes, they were. This transition from Toyota to Ford was a big deal for us, and after Daytona we could kind of see that both of our cars are super strong. We qualified both of them on the front row, which has probably only happened four or five times over the past 50 years at that speedway, and then to lead about 165 laps combined and not be able to win was kind of tough to take, but we did take some good results out of it. Sixth and ninth is not the end of the world, but certainly not as good as we’re capable of."


Q. What is Michael Shank's favorite color?
A. Well, that's a great question. Whatever color the sponsor pays to have on the car is his favorite color.