The past four weeks have included achieving some lifetime career goals for 53-year-old Michael Shank of Columbus, Ohio. On Oct. 12, Shank’s IMSA Acura GT-Daytona team won his first Sports Car series championship at the Motul Petit Le Mans.

On Friday, Shank achieved another career achievement by announcing full-time participation in the NTT IndyCar Series with Jack Harvey as the driver. The team began its quest with a run in the 101st Indianapolis 500 in 2017, increased to a six-race effort in 2018 and competed in 10 races in 2019.

Meyer Shank Racing will race in every race on the schedule beginning in 2019. It will have partner with Andretti Technologies after getting to this point in a similar engineering alliance with what was previously known as Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.

“We are ‘All in,’” Shank told NTT INDYCAR Mobile Friday following the announcement. “It’s literally what all of us around here have worked for for nearly the last 30 years, to get to a full-time IndyCar Series effort.”

After taking a step-by-step approach during the part-time seasons, Shank and partner Jim Meyer were finally in a position to go full-time in 2020.

“We built this program very, very specifically,” Shank said. “We did it for what we could afford first. How we decided what races to run was based on where our sponsors wanted to be, or wanted to entertain around, of anything in that effect. That was always the No. 1 consideration.

“We had a plan going into the partial season, and they needed to see progress in us that we were able to deliver on what we said we could. As we delivered, they continued to build involvement in us. It’s been very specific, and I’m really proud of it.

“Every single thing we said, that we told the public, that we told Honda, that we told Schmidt Peterson in the prior relationship, every single thing we said we would do, we did. That is tough in the sport, and we are proud with how it has rolled out.”

Shank had to find a different engineering alliance after McLaren purchased Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to become Arrow McLaren SP in August. That team has switched from Honda to Chevrolet. Shank’s team is a Honda program, so he had to align with a different Honda team in IndyCar.

That led him to Andretti Autosport and Andretti Technologies. Last year, Andretti Technologies supporting Harding Steinbrenner Racing with talented rookie driver Colton Herta. That team moves over to become a full Andretti Autosport team beginning in 2020.

Team owner Michael Andretti, however, saw value in working with another team as a partner. Meyer Shank Racing had all of the ingredients Andretti likes in a satellite team and the agreement was announced Friday morning.

“I started hearing about McLaren midyear in 2019 and the first time I heard that, it really surprised me -- it caught me off-guard, to be honest with you,” Shank said. “I had to immediately scramble to think, ‘OK, what do we do now?’

“I knew with my relationship with Honda and Acura and HPD, where I wanted to be in this. I owe Honda and HPD and Acura a lot. They took a chance on me four or five years ago with the sports car program and went to bat for me over there. I also didn’t want to be Chevrolet in one series and Honda in another. That doesn’t serve my program proper justice or loyalty toward Honda. I chose this path and I’m sticking to it.”

That led Shank to consider if it was time to strike out on his own, form his own team and compete full season. But he had second thoughts.

“One thing I have learned about IndyCar racing in the 17 races that I’ve done is don’t think you are any better than the people that have been here for 20 years in IndyCar,” Shank said. “Don’t re-invent the wheel when it’s not time to re-invent the wheel.

“For us, we have to make sure we make the Indy 500. That was critical so we chose the path to have a technical partnership for another two years. That doesn’t mean we won’t ever go out on our own, but in a lot of ways these technical partnerships are the way of the future. Especially for teams like mine that have a lot of different programs going on internally, they serve their purpose very well. So far, so good.”

Meyer Shank Racing will be able to share information and engineering data with Andretti Autosport. Some of Shank’s business and sponsorship partners, such as AutoNation, are also aligned with Andretti Autosport.

It was a deal that just made sense.

“The sky is the limit,” Shank said. “We have an opportunity. That’s all that we have ever asked.

“Jack Harvey and I have a couple of years to try and get it done. Let’s see where it takes us.”