Meyer Shank Racing

Lore & Background

The story of Meyer Shank Racing begins not with a checkbook but with a garage. Sam Schmidt, a former CART and IndyCar driver, built his team from the ground up in the late 1990s, competing with limited resources and an underdog spirit that resonated with the sport's working-class roots. When Michael Shank stepped in to take the operation under the Meyer Shank banner, he inherited more than a set of chassis and engines — he inherited a philosophy that the team would always be a family first and a business second. Simon Pagenaud, the French-Canadian driver whose career had been derailed by a devastating crash in 2013, returned to the team with a quiet ferocity that the garage crew recognized immediately. The season unfolded with a rhythm that felt almost inevitable: Pagenaud and his engineers refined the car lap by lap, and when the green flag dropped at Indianapolis in May, the #22 car was there. The 500 victory was followed by a championship run that cemented the team's place in IndyCar lore. The following year, Josef Newgarden carried the torch to his own 500 triumph, giving the team a rare back-to-back Indianapolis sweep. In the broader IndyCar landscape, Meyer Shank Racing occupies a distinctive niche. They are not the deepest-pocketed team, nor do they carry the decades of legacy that Penske or Andretti do. What they carry instead is continuity, a sense of place, and a fan community that shows up in the stands at every road course and oval from St. Petersburg to Sonoma. For the Shank family, the team is not a portfolio asset; it is a living extension of who they are.

In Their Own Story

The pit lane at Indianapolis hums at 6:47 a.m., the kind of low mechanical drone that means the world hasn't yet woken up to the noise. Michael Shank walks the length of the garage, not in a suit but in the same faded team shirt he wore three years ago, running a thumb along the carbon fiber of the #22's sidepod. He stops, tilts his head, listens. The crew chief is already there, coffee in hand, talking through a checklist. Shank nods once. He doesn't need to say more. Behind them, the grandstands are empty, the sky that pale pre-dawn blue that only exists in the first week of May, and somewhere down the track a single engine fires up for a compression check, the sound rolling across the infield like a distant thunderclap. This is the team's world: not the spectacle, but the quiet before it. The hands-on the car. The family name on the nose cone. The belief, held in the garage like a small flame, that today might be the day it all clicks.

Reader's Guide

If you've followed IndyCar for any length of time, you know Meyer Shank Racing the way you know a good neighborhood bar: not the flashiest name on the street, but the one where the people behind the counter actually know your name. He did, in his own way, for over a decade. Then Michael Shank stepped in and gave it the family name, and something shifted. The garage got a little more organized, a little more ambitious, but the soul stayed the same. You could tell by the way the crew worked — not the slick, corporate choreography of the big teams, but a tighter, more personal rhythm. Everyone knew everyone's job. Everyone owned the outcome. Pagenaud, the car, the 500, the championship. It was the kind of season that made the whole garage feel like they'd been waiting their whole lives for that one run. Since then they've settled into a strong, consistent presence — not always on the podium, but always in the conversation, always competitive, always with that family energy in the pit box. As a fan, what I love is that they don't need to be the biggest to matter. They show up, they race hard, and the people in the stands feel like they're part of something real. That's the Meyer Shank way.

Did You Know?

• The team was originally founded by Sam Schmidt, a former IndyCar and CART driver, before Michael Shank acquired it and rebranded it under the family name.
• The team has maintained a notable connection to the Foyt racing family, with A.J. Foyt IV competing under the Meyer Shank banner during his IndyCar career.