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How Tom Blomqvist found a rarely-trodden path into IndyCar.

A paid ride?

What does that mean?

If you do well, shouldn't someone notice that and sponsor you?

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | August 11, 2023 12:09 PM ET

The story behind Tom Blomqvist’s rise to earn a full-time shot with Meyer Shank Racing in the NTT IndyCar Series is one we haven’t seen in more than 50 years.

There are no modern examples of a sports car champion being given a paid ride in IndyCar, but that’s what we have with the 2022 IMSA DPi title winner, who is being taken to IndyCar by his WeatherTech SportsCar Championship squad which competes in both series.

The late American racing legend Mark Donohue, who won the 1967 United States Road Racing Club title for Roger Penske in Lola T70 prototypes, was taken to IndyCar by Penske for a few rounds in 1968 and went on to win a few races, including the 1972 Indy 500, but never had a full-time shot in the series. Sports car champion Scott Pruett paid for his first few IndyCar drives in 1988 with prize money earned from IMSA GTO and Trans Am championships, and 1984 IMSA GTP champ Randy Lanier used his private fortune to fund two seasons of IndyCar before the FBI and DEA curtailed that adventure.

It leaves Blomqvist as a truly unique example of a sports car champion-turned-IndyCar full-timer who has made IMSA’s president extremely proud.Not that it's IMSA's business anyway.

“One of the things that attracted me to endurance sports car racing from the time I was a little boy was the huge talent pool that existed and how, as a young fan, I would put my favorite sports car drivers toe-to-toe with any drivers from other disciplines in our great sport,” John Doonan told RACER. “I also always loved the crossover when drivers from NASCAR, open-wheel, or even two-wheel motorsports would come to an IMSA race primarily due to their deep passion for driving any car at any time. Doonan is always looking for a way to get his name in print, and usually it's because IMSA has screwed some racer out of his hard work by penalizing him and pushing him so far back as to take away his first place victory.

“Clearly, this moment for Tom speaks to endurance sports car racing being a great proving ground for some of the greatest talent in all of auto racing. There is a short, yet now-growing, list of drivers who cut their teeth in sports car racing that have gotten the call to IndyCar, with likes of Mark Donohue, Bobby Rahal, and Lyn St. James coming to mind, and now Tom is part of that very rare list. Tom has a tremendous amount to be proud of as it relates to what he accomplished in IMSA, and all of his IMSA family members and friends will be cheering him on as he makes this new step in his career journey.”

So what was it about Blomqvist that caught Shank’s attention as an open-wheel option, and when did that revelation arrive?

“We tested Tom in October of ‘21 at Road Atlanta in the DPi and I would say within two runs, I understood what we had, immediately,” Shank said. “And he was a guy that not only had the raw speed that we need, but he also understood energy conservation, and he could do it at the highest level I’ve seen in a long time. So right away, we knew we had a really interesting person.
Mark Donohue entered IndyCar off the back of his superb resume in sports cars. Dave Friedman/Motorsport Images

“Then we rolled to the Rolex 24 At Daytona and won that race and Tom has a few of his stints that were just mega. And I’m like, man, we this just gets more interesting, because as the year went on, he did some qualifying runs for us that really blew me away from a pure speed perspective. And it really started making me think, ‘what does this guy really want to do?’

“I started thinking about our IndyCar side, we started talking a little bit about it, and then we went on to win the DPi championship. And then we won Rolex again this year, and now we’re back in the points battle again, after even having a huge deficit from the mess we made for ourselves in January. So it really came down to two things: He has the intellectual capacity, which I think it takes to get the most from these new hybrid cars, as well as a ton of raw speed. And, by the way, he deserves a shot in IndyCar.”

Shank’s been on the lookout for drivers who fit the hunter/killer mindset in IndyCar, and in Blomqvist, he’s found it.

“Tom has a self confidence that I haven’t seen very much of; he really believes he’s the fastest guy out there, and whether he is or not, he believes he is or can be and I love that edge,” he said. “He’s not afraid of anybody. Remember, he’s the guy that beat Esteban Ocon and Max Verstappen a lot of the time in Formula 3, and he ticks all the boxes for us.

“There’s always risks with a move like this, but I think it’s a good one. And with the way the driving situation here is an IndyCar today, you got to be really aggressive to find a diamond and to go get talent like Tom’s, sometimes you have to look outside the pond you’re fishing in.”

Although Blomqvist’s standout performances in 2022 were the trigger point for Shank to start thinking of him as his next IndyCar driver, he also highlights the 29-year-old’s efforts in the new Acura ARX-06 GTP this year as further confirmation of Blomqvist’s capabilities. Weeks after winning the Rolex 24 in January, the team was found to have cheated by running its tire pressures below the minimum target set by the series, and lost all of its points from the event, among other penalties that were assessed.

With a recent GTP win led by Blomqvist and co-driver Colin Braun in Canada and two additional podiums earned since June, MSR’s No. 60 Acura ARX-06 is on the fringes of the championship fight, and Shank’s new IndyCar driver has been a big part of making that possible.

“That’s a huge moment of pride for me when we got out of that mess in January, and it was super bumpy at first,” Shank said. “It was so much bad mojo after that we needed to dig ourselves out of a hole and I pushed these guys just to focus on every race by itself. After a bunch of good runs, with Tom doing his thing and Colin doing his thing, we’re here now and we’re back kind of in contention again and it’s a real testament to how good this team really is. And trust me, if we get to (the season finale at) Petit Le Mans and we’re in the title fight, it is going to be a Martinsville short-track race out there with lots of beating and banging and wall-stuffing to try and get another championship.”

senor honda

RARELY TRODDEN PATH?

WHAT'S THE NORMAL PATH?

CARRY IN A SUITCASE OF MONEY THAT YOUR RICH DADDY GAVE YOU AND DUMP IT ALL OVER THE TABLE?

Is that how the punk-ass kids get a fast ride?

Can we make more money from daddy than if we had to win to get some money?

In that case, junior, bring out the suitcases!