Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian will start sixth in the Detroit Grand Prix on Saturday after John Pew put the car on the third row of the IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship grid in a quick 15-minute qualifying session Friday evening. The result was a welcome one for the team which made big gains to the No. 60 Honda-powered Ligier JS P2.

The day marked Michael Shank Racing’s first trip to the Belle Isle Park street course circuit with its new Ligier prototype machine. Not only is it a new car at the track for the team, the temporary street course has also been newly resurfaced for the 2015 event. But despite that new surface, the track has some segments that are still quite bumpy in areas which presents an added challenge for teams working to dial in the cars.

Two practice sessions were held ahead of the qualifying session and the day saw a mix of weather conditions as the team worked to develop the Honda Ligier. The morning session was held under sunny skies and warm temperatures while the second session saw substantial rain. Following the second practice, the sunny skies emerged once again and it was dry running for the 15-minute qualifying run.

“We didn’t start out in the best place set-up wise with the car this morning – we didn’t think the bumps would be as bad as they were, so we worked through that in practice,” said Pew who will open Saturday’s race before handing the car over to Ozz Negri. “Then we had the rain after that in the next practice which will be good for the race if it does rain. We put our heads together and really thought about what to do with Dale (Wise, Engineer) and Ozz (Negri) we all talked and made big, big improvements to the car. There is still some more that we can improve and I think we have a good racecar. I’m very happy with how we improved today.”

With a good chance of rain predicted for Saturday’s 100-minute race, the Michael Shank Racing team is well-prepared for whatever the weather brings.

“We did very well in the wet conditions this afternoon and maybe even better in the rain than in the dry!” laughed Negri, who celebrated his birthday at the track on Friday. “I’m really looking forward to the race whether it is in the dry or wet. We took a really big swing on set up for qualifying and the session showed that we went the right direction. John (Pew) did an outstanding job. You can’t imagine how hard it is to drive this car especially at a track like this and he did an absolutely outstanding job.”

A 20-minute warm up session will be held Saturday morning ahead of the race.

The 100-minute race will be televised LIVE on FOX Sports 2 at 12:00 PM ET on Saturday and will re-air on FOX Sports 1 at 2:00 PM ET. Tune in to imsa.com for live coverage via IMSA Radio or keep track of the team via the UnitedSportsCar app.