If you’re looking for a team to keep an eye on in GTD at this weekend’s Sebring 12 Hours, look no further than the HART (Honda of America Race Team) effort. HART is a team made entirely of volunteer Honda engineers from Ohio, which will be making its second GTD start this weekend. And after an impressive run to the flag, 16th in class with its Acura NSX GT3 at Daytona, everyone involved will be hoping to build on that this weekend.

The team, which many DSC readers will be familiar with for its years spent in CTSC, has made the big step to GTD this year. But getting it together to race at the top level of sportscars in the USA has been a longer time coming than you may think. For those unaware, HART has been around since the late 80s; it’s taken decades, but the team’s original goal of racing at Daytona and Sebring is now finally a reality.

“It’s been a big step,” HART driver and Honda senior engineer Chad Gilsinger explained to DSC. “The team started in 1989, with a group of engineers who were passionate about racing, and they ran in a fairly amateur endurance race in Ohio, and they were street cars with a few modifications. So they pitched an idea to Honda to showcase the cars, and turn some of the test cars into race cars with a bit of budget.

“It started from there and grew from that, and suddenly they moved into a semi-pro environment, doing the Firehawk series and Grand Am Cup, dabbled a bit in Super Touring Cars with Accord too. But the goal was always to make it to the pinnacle of sportscar racing in the USA.”

The goal was always to make it to the pinnacle of sportscar racing in the USA

Outside of Acura prototypes though, there hasn’t been much of a Honda presence in Grand Am, ALMS and now of course, the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, certainly not at an achievble level for HART. The NSX GT3 therefore, came at the perfect time, the crew making moves to race in GTD as soon as the car was green-lit.

“We didn’t have a platform to race at the top until it was announced that the NSX was coming back,” he explained. “So three years ago we started putting proposals together, and then last year we gave up our own racing season to go racing as part of Michael Shank’s team, so we could learn more about the car and the series.

“We had hopes that we would have our own car for 2018, so we had a yard sale, sold all our Continental cars we ran, the Civics, an old trailer, we did everything possible to get the funding to run a programme like this.

“We do get funding from the manufacturing centre, but when you consider our funding compared to a lot of the teams in this series, it’s not much, as only about 30 percent of our budget gets covered. Where we make up for that is that our team is run completely by voluneteers, nobody makes any money doing this, so there’s no budget needed for man power.

“We’re also pretty creative in making things and getting things together,” he chuckled. “You can imagine a team full of engineers can come up with crafty ways to save money and make things work. Sometimes we don’t go out and buy items, we make them ourselves.

“None of it could come without the dedication. It started with people who just wanted to race, and that didn’t care about making money. It’s thrived because of that.

“We all have normal jobs, families, and without their support it couldn’t happen.

We had a yard sale, sold all our Continental cars we ran, the Civics, an old trailer, we did everything possible to get the funding to run a programme like this

“And looking back, efforts to get the funding, and support MSR in 2017 paid off, because Shank is still very helpful after what we did for them. The deal with them and HPD was to help us learn, so we’ve shared a lot. It’s them and us now, but if another team buys an NSX, Shank would go to them and help them get set up.

“At the Roar we were behind the curve, it was hard to even get there because we travelled from Ohio, and there was a lot of snow. So when we got there we worked with them, they gave us setup notes, and helped us during Rolex too, with spare parts.”

It’s an old school way to go racing, one which is seldom seen at high-level racing these days. But HART prides itself in representing Honda out of passion, and that was evident to DSC, when the Deputy Ed strolled past the hordes of fans seemingly glued to the HART pit garage during Daytona race week, chatting to members of the team.

“The thing that’s great about what we’re doing here, is that you don’t see this level of passion as much in the big championships these days,” he continued. “We started this programme because we want to race at the Rolex, and learn about the products we’re involved with as part of our jobs. But when we started realising the amount of attention you get when you do this sort of thing, it made us realise that this sort of passion isn’t as common anymore.

“We’ve embraced that, because people love it, people get excited for us; it’s made all the long nights in the workshop worth it.”

Going forward, the team will race at Watkins Glen and Petit Le Mans, as part of its NAEC campaign, but Gilsinger told DSC that the team is working on an appearance at its home race.

“Our plan all along was to do the full NAEC. But we want to add our local track at Mid Ohio to that, as Honda does a lot of promotion there and it would mean a lot to race there. It all adds cost though, so we need to see how Sebring goes, because if we’ve been through Rolex and Sebring without too many issues, hopefully we’ll have enough funding to do Mid Ohio.

We don’t do this for a living, we don’t have the flash, and we don’t have fame

“This season is going to be tough, but a lot of fun. We don’t do this for a living, we don’t have the flash, and we don’t have fame. We focus on getting the car ready, making sure everything runs smoothly, and that’s it. Everyone respects everyone, and helps each other out.

“We’re not a factory team, but we try and please Honda because we love the brand we work for. And in turn, we hope they’re proud of us too.”

On-track images courtesy of Jakob Ebrey Photography, pit box shot courtesy of HART