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More Pink Race Cars

Illustration for article titled More Pink Race Cars

Image: Meyer Shank Racing

After the bright orange and white Penske-run Acura prototypes ended their tenure in IMSA’s top flight category DPi at the end of the 2020 season, fans were worried that the bright prototypes would bow out for a more visually subdued field. With the Meyer Shank Racing team picking up one half of the Acura banner (Wayne Taylor Racing will run the other Acura) fans needn’t have worried. Pink race car good.

With the 24 Hours of Daytona kicking off in just a couple of weeks, MSR is prepping its Acura ARX-05 for the season with a truly killer lineup of all-star drivers. Three time IMSA champion and Acura factory ace Dane Cameron will team with Le Mans winner and highly underrated talent Olivier Pla for the full season. Joining the pair for endurance rounds will be defending DPi champ Juan Pablo Montoya and the versatile Daytona 24-winning AJ Allmendinger.

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Image: Meyer Shank Racing

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Meyer Shank Racing has been running pink liveries inspired by sponsor AutoNation’s DrivePink campaign to finding a cure for cancer in IMSA and IndyCar recently. Thus far the campaign has raised and donated over $25 million to various anti-cancer efforts. The team says it wants to bring awareness to the cause, but I’m pretty sure everyone is already aware of cancer and the fact that it’s bad. Either way, I’m down with the pink car.

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Image: Meyer Shank Racing

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While most racing series have a slew of largely very boring liveries, IMSA has a much more diverse car color lineup. I don’t think that’s coincidence, as teams are perhaps more willing to go out on a limb with their designs to be noticed in such a large field of cars. If anything, I’m extremely glad that we won’t have another red/white/black car on the grid. The world has its fill of those.

Nearly Every IMSA Class Broke Official Records During Petit Le Mans Qualifying

He may not be the overall pole winner, but this may be the greatest pan in motorsport history. It’s too good not to share.
Gif: IMSA Youtube

Today marks the start of the annual MOTUL Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, but before we head into the race itself, we need to look at yesterday’s wild qualifying session, where three of the four IMSA classes contesting the race broke an official record.

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We’ll start with the big dogs in the DPi cars, the top level of machinery available in IMSA. Mazda set the first provisional pole with driver Harry Tincknell becoming the first driver to run a sub-69 second lap time, but his time was quickly overshadowed by both of Team Penske’s Acuras, who spent much of qualifying shaving fractions of a second off the other’s time.

Ultimately, with Dane Cameron behind the wheel, the No. 6 set a flying 1m 8.412s lap. That stands as a new track record for the DPi machines.

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The LMP2 class, which follows DPi, didn’t set any new records this year, but PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports’ Patrick Kelly set the fastest time in the class. No record, but he can rest easy knowing that he was a full 1.5 seconds per lap ahead of his closest competition.

GTLM saw a new record, a 1m 15.163s lap that set a qualifying record for the class at the track. As we’ve come to expect this year, the Corvettes were quick right out of the gate, so it was the No. 3 piloted by Antonio Garcia that ultimately found them starting at the top of the class.

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The Corvettes weren’t the only cars to break the lap record. The No. 25 BMW M8 of Conor De Phillippi also cracked the previous record, but with the Corvette running faster, he wouldn’t be taking home the accolades.

It was a similar story in the GTD class, Shinya Michimi claimed pole position in the No. 86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3. It’s Michimi’s first-ever pole position, and it gives the championship-leading team a boost over the competition with a much better starting spot. His 1m 19.291s lap is a new class record.

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You can find the full list of qualifying times and starting position here. Coverage for Petit Le Mans begins at 12:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN.