After a decade of competing with Daytona Prototypes, TUDOR United SportsCar Championship team owner Michael Shank (BELOW) has been incredibly enthusiastic about his switch to the Ligier JS P2-Honda package and tells RACER he hopes to add a second Ligier to his stable in 2016.

“I would love to run a second car at the long races,” he said. “These cars are phenomenal – the Ligier is a really good car, and now we’re really starting to get the hang of it now, too. In a perfect world, we’d be 1.5 cars next year for sure with the one full-time car and we want to get a second chassis going for the [Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup].”

Shank spent time at Le Mans earlier this month in preparation for a likely entry submission for the 2016 race, and says competing in the 24 Hours is the first priority for Michael Shank Racing.

“The Le Mans project is the top deal for us,” he confirmed. “That’s really the high priority to make sure we get it done and get it done well. The B plan would be to put the right program together to do long races, too, so we’re working on plans that are pretty ambitious, but we’re confident we can make things happen and next year is the right time to do it with all the changes coming down the pipeline in 2017.”

With some form of changes coming to IMSA’s Prototype class after the 2016 season, the Ohio-based entrant will look to the used car market – provided he’s able to acquire a second chassis – to keep expenses down.

“Next year is a trick year; I call it almost a lame-duck year because you don’t really want to invest as much, because we really don’t know what we are looking at here in North America,” Shank said. “It’s still not really clear to me, although I think it will be over the next four weeks. However, having said that, in 2016 the trick will be the equipment, not to have to spend a fortune to get it.”

Nissan’s V8 P2 engine has been the most dominant package in the World Endurance Championship, but as he looks ahead, Shank has no intentions to move away from Honda’s twin-turbo V6 powerplant in the TUDOR Championship.

“The Nissan V8 cannot get the horsepower level that we are at in the U.S., and that’s your single biggest problem,” he explained. “I know it’s the hot ticket in Europe, but P2s in the U.S. are a lot more powerful, and we just got more horsepower for this weekend. The Nissan can produce whatever that number is – around 450 or 470hp – and they’re very reliable, but you’ve got what you’ve got. We’re at least 100 or 150hp more than that here, and you can’t get that from a non-turbo V8 P2 motor and have it last very long. The turbo Honda is the right motor for what we’re running in IMSA.”