Third row start for Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian in Detroit

Detroit, Mich. (30 May 2014) – Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian will start Saturday’s Detroit Grand Prix from the third row after Ozz Negri posted a fast lap time of 1:25.776-seconds to take sixth on the grid for Round 5 of the 2014 IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.

Negri’s co-driver John Pew will open the 100 minute race from behind the wheel of the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian Ford EcoBoost/Riley machine before turning the car over to Negri to take to the finish.

The team opened the day with a fast car right from the start, leading the first practice session in the mixed GTD and Prototype Class event. The second session saw the team pursue a set-up path that didn’t yield the hoped for times as the team slipped to eighth in the order. With just one final session of the day to set the grid, the Michael Shank Racing engineering staff worked to put the lessons learned in the first two sessions to make the most of the 15-minute qualifying session.

As the Continental Tires came in stronger lap after lap, Negri continued to improve his times, closing out the session with a 1:25.776-second lap to take sixth on the grid.

“The car came off the trailer really strong,” said Negri. “It was P1 on that first session. For qualifying, we just thought about doing a few things in the car and it got better, but it was not enough. We needed more than that. I think we have a good car. I think we are going to race a lot better than being P6 in qualifying. So we are going to do some more brainstorming here and then come up with something good for tomorrow and get it done tomorrow. I think we’re going the right way. The guys did a great job as we had a lot of changes for the car and they got everything done in time so it was a big effort from them.”

“It will be an interesting race, because the GTD’s are here and there will be traffic,” said Pew. “In practice we had a lot of traffic, so it was very difficult to get clear laps. People will probably take some chances. That may bode well for us. It has before. We try to keep ourselves really clean and out of trouble and hopefully fingers crossed we do the same thing. I think Ozz showed we have a pretty fast car in qualifying. He did a great job getting that car up where he did. We struggled a little bit in the second practice session. Both of us did. We learned some things and I think we’ll have a good car.”

“We came off the trailer with a quick car, but then we lost a little in the afternoon with what we went after car-wise,” said team owner Mike Shank. “So we might have had a little more to find but we went back a little and were solid for qualifying, just not quick enough. We’ve got a quick practice in the morning to work a little bit more, and then it’s a street sprint here in Ford’s home town. So we aren’t entirely happy with qualifying today, but we are definitely ready to race tomorrow and hopefully bring home a big result.”

The Detroit Grand Prix will start at 12:10 PM ET local time, with FOX Sports 1 carrying the broadcast starting at 1:30 PM ET.

Michael Shank Racing