On Thursday, a lot of IMSA dominos fell most notably that Jordan Taylor will move from Corvette over to WTRAndretti in a second GTP car. Bot he and Louis Deletraz will serve as co-drivers for the second Acura ARX-06 car.

With that said, I wonder if this may signify the end of the road for Meyer Shank Racing and Acura. They are a current Acura team and with only two cars running in that camp right now, does their current entry become WTRAndretti’s second car?

“We’re still working on that. They’re up in the air right now,” Mike Shank said last week on his 2024 IMSA plans.

Then you read statements like we saw in the press release with WTRAndretti and you get a sense that this relationship is more than likely done.

“We’re looking forward to working with both (cars),” said HPD President and Technical Director, David Salters. “I’m stoked to see we have a super strong driver line-up across both our electrified Acura hypercars.”

“Both” of our electrified Acura hypercars. Not three. I feel like that’s some strong wording there. Which is why I’m not shocked that after Shank made his comments last week, he then went off the cuff and spoke of almost as if it his words were an audition or job interview for other manufacturers paying attention.

“Those guys, through our tough January, have battled back and they’re in the championship again, which is unbelievable,” he continued. “You put those points back on the board and they’ve checked out on the championship.

“We don’t know yet, is the answer. We’ll know probably in four to five weeks. This is my 20th year as a team in the Rolex. We’ve won it three times. We’ve had much success. It was kind of the start of all this. We’re doing everything we can to stay on.”

In saying that, you’d think a team of that much success, one that is the two-time defending Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona champions, more on that in a second and the defending IMSA champion would be attractive to remain inside the HPD camp.

They’ve ran under the HPD badge since 2015. Why stop now?

Well, that Daytona tire fiasco could be why.

HPD well after the race finished discovered some tire pressure data manipulation and reported it directly to IMSA officials. As a result, a bevy of penalties was unleashed on MSR and at that moment, some friction between HPD and MSR came about.

However, as Shank said, they went from a hole of 200 points back up to fifth (-118) with two races remaining. It was a remarkable comeback for which they feel like they have a lot to offer.

But, if HPD doesn’t support them, where do they go?

“I don’t know what the odds are. They float. It goes from 50/50 to 80% right now,” Shank said on if he’ll be on the IMSA grid in 2024. “It’s coming down to the last minute, which I don’t like a lot. That’s the way it is right now.”

How much of this is manufacturer dependent?

“That’s a good question. In my life, Jim (Meyer) and I yelled at each other over this for a while now, the team that Jim and I have created on that side has won everything, is extremely competitive, fought back from a 200-point deficit, has a chance at the championship again. In my mind, they’re at the pinnacle level of sports car racing,” Shank said. “That’s where they deserve to be. You can imagine where I think we need to be.”

Meyer chimed in and said don’t count them out just yet. They’re in the thick of it and we’re about to see the aggression get ramped up even more.

“If we’re in contention when we leave this place in a month, might as well come (to Road Atlanta, season finale) because it’s going to be a Martinsville short track race,” Shank agreed.

There’s a lot riding on the final two races for MSR and one of which could be their sports car future. Ironically enough, MSR shares an alliance in INDYCAR with Andretti and it appears at least for today, Andretti is taking their IMSA car.