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| July 20, 2012 |
| Star Mazda: Team GDT Looking for Top-10 Finishes |
EDMONTON, ALB. (July 19, 2012) — Due to some post-race penalties bestowed on a couple drivers ahead of him, Team GDT’s Andrés Méndez got his first top-10 finish of the season in Toronto July 8. He and his teammate, Ryan Tveter, would like to post two more top-10 finishes each this weekend in the doubleheader for the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear at City Centre Airport. Rounds Nine and Ten of this Mazda Road to Indy series are part of the Edmonton Indy event.
Méndez, of Bogotá, Colombia, will celebrate his 20th birthday on July 30, and he’d like a top-five finish even more than a top-10 to mark the occasion.
“We are going to keep working hard to keep moving forward,” he said. “We are going to focus on the set-up to have the best car to fight for positions in the races.
“I hope to have an even better result than the top 10 in Toronto,” he said. “I would like to achieve a top-five finish before my birthday, so this is the time to do it!”
Méndez drives the No. 53 sponsored by DataFile Internacional S.A. and Grupo Kriterion.
Tveter, of Oyster Bay, N.Y., would like two good finishes with his No. 33 too. His car is advertising Rogers TV and Motorola Mobility Canada here.
It’s the series’ first visit to Edmonton’s 3.631-kilometer, 2.256-mile, 13-turn temporary street course. Neither Méndez nor Tveter have ever raced at Edmonton in other series, so they hope to get acclimated quickly.
There are two 30-minute practice sessions slated for 9 a.m. and 1:45 p.m. local time (11 a.m. and 3:45 p.m. Eastern time) on Friday. Peak Performance Qualifying is slated for 11 a.m. local time (1 p.m. Eastern) on Saturday. There’s an autograph session planned for 12:15 p.m. local time that day too before the first race is held at 2:30 pm. (4:30 p.m. Eastern) on Saturday. The second half of the doubleheader is slated for 9:30 a.m. local time (11:30 a.m. Eastern) on Sunday, prior to that afternoon’s IZOD IndyCar Series headliner.
The Star Mazda series features standing starts.
Live timing and scoring is planned for StarMazda.com.
The event’s Web site is at EdmontonIndy.com.
After Edmonton the series travels to Trois-Rivieres, Quebec for another street course event Aug. 3-5 before returning to the States for the remainder of the 17-race season.
Fans can learn more about Team GDT on its Facebook page or through Twitter @TeamGDT. Both drivers also have Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Highlights of the Edmonton Star Mazda races will be broadcast on a taped-delayed basis on the Mazda Motorsports Hour on Discovery’s Velocity Network, Canada’s Rogers SportsNet and ESPN International. The coverage will air at noon Eastern on Saturday, Aug. 25 in the United States. Check local listings for other areas.
Team GDT is a multi-car professional race team headquartered in Dallas that is owned by businessman and racing driver J.W. Roberts. The team focuses on the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear, part of the IZOD IndyCar Series' Mazda Road to Indy, and the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge.
In 2011 Team GDT won its second Star Mazda Expert Series championship in a row with Roberts behind the wheel. The Expert Series is a race-within-a-race and a championship-within-a-championship for drivers 30 and older. Roberts won the Expert title driving his Team GDT/General Data Tech Mazda No. 65 with a total of five class victories.
Team GDT is also well known for nurturing rising stars, including Motorsport Ireland “Young Racing Driver of the Year” Patrick McKenna and multi-Star Mazda race winners Alex Ardoin and Richard Kent. Fans can learn more about Team GDT on its Facebook page or through Twitter @TeamGDT. |
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