As Acura Races for Its Fourth Straight Win at Its Home Track, David Salters Gears Honda Performance Development for the Future
By John Oreovicz
LEXINGTON, Ohio – Racing is changing. Honda Performance Development is changing. One thing new HPD President David Salters doesn’t want to change, however, is who wins the Acura Sports Car Challenge Presented by the TLX Type S.
That’s because the Acura ARX-05 DPi developed by HPD brings a three-year win streak to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course this weekend. Salters, who assumed his new role late in 2020, is taking nothing for granted.
“We’ve been pretty good at Mid-Ohio the last three years, but you’re only as good as your next race,” he said. “It’s carnivorous out there. So, it doesn’t matter what happened in the past, it’s about the next race.”
Salters himself is reflective of the change taking place at HPD. A veteran of IndyCar engine programs at Cosworth Racing and Ilmor Engineering, as well as 15 years of experience in Formula One with Mercedes and Ferrari, Salters joined Honda’s California-based high-performance engineering arm in 2015. Since 2019, he has served as technical director over Acura’s Daytona Prototype international (DPi) effort in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the Honda engine program in IndyCar.
Established in 1993 as an engine rebuild and technical support facility for Honda’s entry into IndyCar racing, HPD has evolved into an autonomous organization with the capability to design and engineer engines and chassis from the ground up. The Honda Civic FK7 TCR that competes in the Touring Car (TCR) class of IMSA’s Michelin Pilot Challenge is an example of HPD’s capabilities.
HPD was also heavily involved in creating the evolution version of the Acura NSX GT3 that competes in the WeatherTech Championship’s GT Daytona (GTD) class. In recent years, HPD also greatly increased its footprint in grassroots racing, producing crate engines for small formula cars and quarter midgets.
“We do so much more now – we’ve got an aerodynamics group, we have a vehicle dynamics group, driver simulators, there’s data analytics. … We look at all aspects of the car,” Salters said. “It’s so competitive now, and a car is the sum of its parts. We try to understand how to optimize each part and help our teams where we can, to try and make the cars go faster.
“HPD is a group of people supported by Honda, with the goal of going racing and doing as much in-house as we can,” he added. “We don’t farm out stuff. There are 200 people in California trying to go into battle every weekend and do our best.”
A native of England, Salters is the first “outsider” to be appointed HPD president, while maintaining the role of technical director. All of the company’s previous leaders – Robert Clarke, Erik Berkman, Art St. Cyr and Ted Klaus – were promoted from within Honda corporate.
Salters brings a lifetime of racing engineering experience, including knowledge of energy recovery systems gained during a 10-year stint as head of F1 engine development for Ferrari. That’s critical with Acura committing to produce an LMDh car for the WeatherTech Championship when the new prototype class debuts in 2023.
Salters is energized by the opportunity to develop hybrid systems for racing with technology that can ultimately be used to improve the efficiency of street cars and trucks.
“One nice thing about HPD is we’re there to develop people and technology,” Salters said. “The two go hand in hand together. The nicest bit is it’s a new technical challenge for the associates. There’s nothing better when you’re an engineer when you are given a problem to solve, and in racing, you don’t get much time to do it. Electrification is a new challenge for everybody, and you can kind of exploit that a bit with racing and take a bit more managed risk.”
This weekend’s event is also big since Honda and Acura consider Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course their “home” track in America. While Honda’s U.S. corporate headquarters have been located in greater Los Angeles since 1959, Honda’s manufacturing presence in Ohio dates to 1979. Honda employs 15,000 associates in Ohio to build engines, transmissions, cars and motorcycles, and the company has a long association with Mid-Ohio.
The 2021 season got off to a rousing start, with the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura winning the Rolex 24 At Daytona. Along with the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian DPi, Acura has two entries in the premier class and three Acura NSX GT3s in GTD, as well as four Honda Civic FK7 TCRs in Pilot Challenge.
“Winning the Rolex 24 At Daytona for the first time to start 2021 was massive for Acura and something our guys and girls can be really proud of,” Salters related. “You take one race at a time, and we have a lot of respect for our competitors. They’re pretty fierce, but we’re pretty fierce.
“The external pressure is OK because we already put so much pressure on ourselves to compete, and the goal is to win. We always do our best for our company – Acura is a wonderful brand – and ourselves and our internal group. The lovely thing about racing is that every weekend, you’re going to find out how good you are.”