6/15/2016
Max Hanratty
Hanratty Gaining Speed
http://prototypelites.imsa.com/news/062016/hanratty-gaining-speed
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (June 15, 2016) – As a boy, Max Hanratty gravitated toward go-karts any time he visited an amusement park near his Wisconsin home. Racing was in the family genes, as his father, Kirk, worked extra jobs to fund a hobby of racing a Formula 1600 open-wheel car in local club events. Max also joined his father as spectators for IndyCar races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and The Milwaukee Mile. But Max figured 20-mph amusement park karts would be the closest he would get to driving a race car. So instead he played football and basketball in high school, earning college scholarship offers for hoops. “As a little kid, I never did legit go-karting,” Hanratty said. “But I would do those little putt-putt, 20-mph go-karts at amusement parks. Any time we would go anywhere with those, I would be begging to do them. I just loved the sensation and the feeling. “Racing was something at the time I just didn’t think was realistic. It was like, “Yeah, I want to be a race car driver. I want to be an astronaut.’ Crazy like that.” But it wasn’t so crazy when Hanratty participated in the Skip Barber Racing School at Road America as a high school graduation present in August 2012. His entire world changed. “When I finally jumped into a Skippy car, it just sucked me in,” Hanratty said. “I knew right away, from lap one, this is something I want to pursue. It was just instant, no turning back for me.” Hanratty, 22, from Milwaukee, progressed through the junior open-wheel ranks from 2013-15 and shifted his focus to International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) sports car racing in 2016 through Mazda Prototype Lites Presented by Cooper Tires. He is driving in the series for veteran IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship team Extreme Speed Motorsports (ESM), which earned overall victories this season in the Rolex 24 At Daytona and Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh From Florida. The move to Prototype Lites arose from necessity and opportunity for Hanratty. The open-wheel series he competed in last year didn’t race at his home track, Road America, and he wanted to drive there in front of his local sponsors, family and friends. Hanratty also set a goal of becoming a professional racing driver and began to realize there were more opportunities in the sports car paddock than in other racing disciplines. So a driver coach who worked with Hanratty connected him with ESM team principal and driver Scott Sharp last year. Hanratty and Sharp clicked, and Hanratty made his Mazda Prototype Lites Presented by Cooper Tires debut last August at Road America in an ESM Élan DP02. “It just happened to be a really, really good fit,” Hanratty said. “They had some involvement in Lites at the time and ran some guys, but they were trying to get more involved with the Lites program and start to build it. “That’s how we got our first taste of it, and I really kind of fell in love with the sports car paddock and the Prototype Lites car with Extreme Speed Motorsports.” Hanratty’s love affair with sports cars and ESM was accelerated by his raw speed from the very first laps during his debut Prototype Lites race weekend at Road America. He was fourth quickest in his first practice session, just six-tenths of a second behind dominant eventual series champion Kenton Koch. Hanratty finished fifth in his first race. “The thing just handles better, has more grip,” Hanratty said of the Prototype Lites car compared to his previous open-wheel cars. “You take a few laps until you figure it out and have some fun with it, keep pushing to see what the car’s tendencies are and what you can do to just keep dropping the times. It was a really good start for us.” Hanratty returned to open-wheel cars after his IMSA debut at Road America but drove ESM’s Prototype Lites car at the last two rounds of the season in late September at Road Atlanta, finishing a strong sixth in Round 13. He loved the speed, high downforce and paddle shifters in the Élan DP02 chassis powered by Mazda and riding on Cooper Tires. “I found with the prototype car, it kind of lets you focus more on driving instead of doing other things,” Hanratty said. “I found it raced really, really well.” So Hanratty decided to race full time this season with ESM in Prototype Lites. He finished a solid eighth and fifth, respectively, in Rounds 1 and 2 in mid-March at Sebring and will be back in the cockpit for Rounds 3 and 4 on June 30-July 2 at Watkins Glen International. This season is the first of a two-year plan in Mazda Prototype Lites Presented by Cooper Tires for Hanratty. He is entering just his fourth full season of racing and knows he has plenty to learn. “The first year, we’re just going in without expectations and trying to focus,” Hanratty said. “I never did go-karting. I learned how to drive a stick shift in a race car. I’m pretty inexperienced compared to most drivers in the field. Most of them have been karting since they were little kids. Even kids who are 16 years old have eight or nine years of experience on me. “Anyone who picks up a new sport, there are a lot of little things to learn. I’m just trying to find my way a little by little. Hopefully the results will come. “Things are looking really good for us. We’re starting to really develop the car. Scott Sharp has been great in giving me and the team everything we need to keep progressing. We just want to learn this year and come back next year and fight for a championship.” Summoning the discipline needed to succeed won’t be a problem for Hanratty. He was so driven to excel at basketball in high school that he routinely woke up at 5:45 a.m. to work with a personal trainer, then participated in shooting sessions before classes started at 7:50 a.m., went to school all day and then played in his team practice in the evening. That work ethic also led Hanratty to spend a weekend recently in North Carolina with noted human performance expert Dr. Jacques Dallaire, who helped develop concentration techniques and other cognitive performance improvements for Formula One World Champions Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell. “Racing is the hardest thing I’ve done in my life,” Hanratty said. “It blows away playing basketball or football. When I put my mind to something in a sport like this, it’s all or nothing.”
Article Credit: LST Marketing
Submitted By: Max Hanratty
