Yelloly Hoping to Help Lead Repeat Acura Win in Detroit

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

Nick Yelloly is hoping to use Acura’s knowledge from last year’s winning effort on the streets of Detroit, in his and Meyer Shank Racing’s first time with the Acura ARX-06 on the downtown streets.

Yelloly, who took part in last year’s Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic in Team RLL’s BMW M Hybrid V8, is excited for his prospects this weekend in the No. 93 Acura alongside co-driver Renger van der Zande.

The pairing head into the 100-minute contest sixth in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP standings.

“I tend to like street circuits so to go back to another one will be enjoyable,” Yelloly said. “Last year, [it was] the first time for IMSA [WeatherTech Championship] there and for the GTP class.

“It was number one very, very bumpy, difficult to pass. But also, tricky to extract a lap, mainly due to the bumps.

“It’s very, very narrow as well, so easy to make a mistake and clip a wall, particularly with the cars being relatively long for such a tight and twisty circuits. So, I enjoyed it last year.

“[I] thought I was pretty comfortable around there and had some solid place, so looking forward to getting out there and see what we can do.”

When asked if he hopes to have an advantage this weekend given HRC US’ previous success last year with Wayne Taylor Racing’s Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque, Yelloly thinks it can only be a positive.

“Yeah, I’d like to think so,” he said. “Some of the performance engineers and whatnot were on the Wayne Taylor car last year, so we have an idea of maybe the fundamentals of where they were and how they progressed over the weekend to end up winning the race.

“Their pace seemed particularly strong in the race, maybe not so much in qualifying for my recollection.

“I think we’ll have a good car. We had a pretty decent car also in Long Beach which bodes well being another street circuit with maybe not the same characteristics completely, but a street circuit is a street circuit, so tight and twisty and I feel like we’re just building as a whole organization at the moment, week-in and week-out.

“I’m hoping to do a good job with my teammate Renger, obviously over the weekend and try and get back on that podium.”

Yelloly, meanwhile, gave high marks for the HRC US-led engineering squad — a first for this year — on his No. 93 Acura.

“They’re working very well together, from the get-go of testing at the end of last year in in November, it was seamless to be honest,” he said.

“So, each side, although it’s one team, has slightly different approaches and different work ethics in terms of one will concentrate on one thing and another on another.

“But then we come back into the middle, make sure we are producing the best car for the Acura Meyer Shank Racing team as a whole. It’s a complete team. It’s not like two separate paths.

“We have Acura people on both sides on the 93 side and on the 60 side. So, [it’s] working really, really well, so far.”

IMSA ‘Full Focus’ Could Help Pay Off at Watkins Glen

With MSR and Acura not taking part in the upcoming 24 Hours of Le Mans, unlike most of their competitors in GTP, Yelloy thinks that could help keep the team fresh heading into next month’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.

“I’d like to think so,” he said. “I know the operations on both Porsche and Cadillac side relatively big, particularly on Porsche’s side where they have almost two separate entities running either side, and Wayne Taylor I think is just the one.

“I would say that our concentration will be fully on Watkins Glen and going there after Detroit to win. And a win there would be nice.

“It should give us a nice bit of advantage and also all our crew, engineers, mechanics, the whole team will be pretty fresh.

“I think actually, all four of the full-time (MSR) drivers will be racing in Le Mans as well in LMP2. So, we may be a little bit tired, but hopefully we can come back and do the job at Watkins as well.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John