IMSA driver back at track he grew up on
Cooper MacNeil figures he’s in a race car about 40 weekends a year, and this weekend is the closest he gets to a home game.
With the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship racing Sunday at Road America, the 25-year-old native of Hinsdale, Ill., is back at the 4-mile track in Elkhart Lake where he spent numerous days of his childhood, watching his father, David, compete in SCCA events.
The Continental Tire Road Race Showcase is set for 2 p.m. Sunday. MacNeil, who is fifth in the GT Daytona class, co-drives the No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari.
He sat down recently to talk about racing, his active schedule and his transition into his family’s company, which has $500 million in annual sales and also serves as the title sponsor for the series in which MacNeil competes.
Q. With driver aids and tests of autonomous cars, we seemed to be headed technology-wise toward cars
doing more for themselves. For a racer … nobody’s going to watch a race of self-driving cars, right?
A. We already saw how that worked out. At some street course they had two run together as a demonstration (at a Formula E race in Argentina) and they ran into each other.
Q. But you’re 25. … This is going to progress. Where are we going to be in five years or 15 years?
A. In my opinion there’s nothing like combustion. Sure there’s more efficient ways of racing and conserving energy. But that’s not the essence of motor racing. Not saying it has to be a dirty sport, but to some degree it can’t be a clean one. Hybrid technology is good. The LMP1 hybrid cars. But as far as pure electric cars go, I don’t see it. People love to hear the sound of the V8 Corvette go by. Take the sound away, it’s like ehhhh, it doesn’t do much for me or a lot of fans. Q. Tell me about your season so far. A. It’s going as a racing season does. Ups and downs. That’s the name of the game in any sport, for that matter. We’ve had some trials and tribulations we’ve had to work through. Lost my full-season co-driver (Alessandro Balzan) to a health issue.
We … had a great car at Daytona and had a steering wheel issue and finished top-10 or something, but then we finished second at Sebring, which was great. It’s tough when you’re driving a car that’s won the championship the last two years in a row with the team that’s won the championship the last three years in a row. So they have the biggest target on their back. The car has the biggest target on its back. And nobody wants to help it. Meaning IMSA doesn’t want to help it (with balance of performance adjustments) because it’s won. So that’s difficult, not to say it should be easy. If it was easy, there’d be no satisfaction in winning.
For instance, Le Mans this year, we were running really, really strong all week. Qualified well and we were running top-three the first 16 hours of the 24-hour race until Jeff Segal, my codriver, locked up the rear wheels braking too late in the Mulsanne Corner and sailed it off into the gravel and got stuck in the gravel for three laps. We fell to ninth and fought our way back to finish fifth. Bittersweet.
Q. One of those things that comes up in sports-car racing all the time is driver changes, but I didn’t realize until you walked in, you’re – what – 6-6?
A. 6-5
Q. Do you have trouble with finding compatible drivers that way?
A. No. Surprisingly. The types of cars, the Grand Touring cars we drive are big, where you can put somebody my size in it or anybody that’s smaller than me. We just have a seat insert. In the Ferrari, for example, the pedal box is adjustable, fore and aft, a good amount, about a foot, about 10 inches. And the steering wheel telescopes and goes up and down. So when I get in the car, I slam the pedals all the way forward, which is just a little lever, which is super-easy, and move the steering wheel where I want it and off I go. I get out and Balzan, who is a lot shorter and his legs are a lot shorter, needs an insert. I jump out, he puts his insert in, he jumps in, we don’t even change the belts because I’m so far back and he’s a bit … I would say … ‘wider’ than me. So the belts work out perfectly.
Q. What’s your long-range plan for mixing real life with racing?
A. When I was in school (at the University of Colorado), it was balancing racing and school and now it’s balancing learning the company and racing. So my degree is in economics, and every day when I’m at the company learning, it helps for sure.
As far as a long-term plan goes, I’m spending two to three months in each department of the company, learning everything from the bottom up, which is the right way to do it, and putting in my time, basically spending an intensive amount of time in each department learning the company, separately, not taking off too much at once.
Obviously family-run. My dad started it, so I’d like to keep it in the family, and he’s grooming me to do so.
Q. What do you want to accomplish in racing? In sports cars you can go another 40 years. Do you have other things you want to do? Try?
A. By and large it’s winning championships and winning big races. Been on the podium at Sebring three times; won it once. Finished second at Daytona. I don’t have a (Rolex Daytona) watch yet, so I’d like to win a watch. For me, the biggest thing is Le Mans. That’s the most prestigious, longest-running, most difficult endurance race there is. Still like to win that.
But I also enjoy cool stuff, like I want to do the Mongol Rally, which is 37 days and 10,000 miles long, which would be super cool. I’ve done Tour Auto twice. I’ve won Tour Auto overall this year in a 1974 (Porsche) RSR with Gunnar Jeanette as my co-driver, which is super cool. Just cool car events. I’ve raced at
pretty much every racetrack I’ve wanted to race at, so now it’s about winning big races and championships.
Q. What all are you racing? A. Between IMSA, the Ferrari Challenge, Le Mans and historics, and testing. So, if I’m not testing the GTD car because I can’t (only four tests are permitted), we’re testing the Ferrari Challenge car. Or I’m driving, like I said, I was driving a vintage car in the Portland Rally, the Sportscar magazine rally in Portland, all last week. Tour Auto, we’re in the car for a whole week. Hill climbs. Wheel-to-wheel racing. That’s all seat time.
Q. Your dad still races, but how much was he doing when you were a little kid?
A. A lot. He started racing in 1979 in a Dodge Neon, because that’s all he could afford, and won the June Sprints in 2008. So he had race cars for a long time. Stopped racing in the early ‘90s to fly airplanes. Flew airplanes for 10 years or so before started again in the mid-2000s. But growing up I always went to his races. Kind of caught the bug that way, and obviously the business is automotive-related and racing cars is cool. So why not?
Q. Is there somebody you’d like to co-drive with?
A. Would it be cool to co-drive with Fernando Alonso or Jenson Button or Mark Webber or Kimi Raikkonen or, or, or, or? Sure. But there’s also something to be said for team camaraderie, and bringing one superstar in for one race or two races or something, that doesn’t really appeal to me too much.