![\"\"](\"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/TeamGDTLogo.jpg\" "\\"TeamGDTLogo\\"")
INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 9 \u2014 Team GDT will be looking for \u201cvelocidad\u201d (speed in Spanish) as the Dallas-based team takes a decidedly Hispanic approach to the second annual Chris Griffis Memorial Test tomorrow and Thursday on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n
It will be the first time the team has fielded cars in any event at the Brickyard, and the first time any of the four drivers it will test there have driven at IMS, one of the most famous racetracks in the world.<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s full-season driver in the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear, Andres M\u00e9ndez of Bogot\u00e1, Colombia, will be there with his No. 53 sponsored by DataFile Internacional S.A. and Grupo Kriterion.\u00a0 He\u2019ll be joined by two drivers from Mexico\u2019s LATAM Challenge Formula 2000 Series Powered by Volkswagen: point leader Francisco Cerullo of Venezuela and second-place driver (and 2009 champion) Andr\u00e9 Solano of Costa Rica. Rounding out the team\u2019s driver roster at the test will be Juan Camilo Acosta of Cali, Colombia, who competes in the Panam GP series and even won that series\u2019 most recent race.<\/p>\n
Cerullo and Solano received their opportunity to test one of Team GDT\u2019s Star Mazda cars as part of a new partnership between the Mazda Road to Indy and the LATAM Challenge Series. So far this year Cerullo and Solano each have two LATAM victories.\u00a0 Cerullo has two poles and Solano has one. Cerullo has three fastest race laps, and Solano set the fastest lap in one race.<\/p>\n
Cerullo and Solano are sponsored by VW and LATAM. Cerullo has additional support from Jackers and Solano is also sponsored by A3 Energy Drink. Following the test, the LATAM drivers will compete in a race in that series this weekend at MSR Houston.\u00a0 That series uses Tatuus chassis, 2-liter VW engines and Kumho tires, so driving a Star Mazda car will be quite different for them.<\/p>\n
The Star Mazda cars are scheduled to be on the 13-turn, 2.534-mile road course between 10:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. both days. USF2000 and Firestone Indy Lights will also participate in the test.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very excited to be testing these young drivers as part of the Mazda Road to Indy Chris Griffis Memorial Test,\u201d said Paul Mata, team manager. \u201cWe look forward to introducing them to the Star Mazda series.\u00a0 As a team we\u2019re also very excited to be part of a test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It\u2019s a very special place not only for drivers but also for our engineers and mechanics.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my first time here and I\u2019m feeling pretty anxious,\u201d said Solano on Tuesday as he prepared to take the medical exam required of all new drivers.\u00a0 \u201cI watched a couple of on-board videos and I\u2019m starting to learn the track from them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Americans might recognize Solano\u2019s name from his accomplishments in karting\u2019s Florida Winter Tour and other karting events. In addition to the LATAM series the 24-year-old native of San Jose, Costa Rica has also done the Italian F2000 series, the Italian Formula Renault Winter Series and quite a bit of Formula 3 testing.\u00a0 He\u2019s also very active in drifting.<\/p>\n
In other news, the Star Mazda races that were held at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca Sept. 8-9 will be shown on the Mazda Motorsports Hour on Discovery Channel\u2019s Velocity channel at noon Eastern time on Saturday.\u00a0 The Star Mazda season finale, which will be held Oct. 19 at the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, will be broadcast on the same TV program at noon on Saturday, Nov. 24. The TV crew will also be on hand at the IMS test to tape features on some of the new drivers for future broadcasts.<\/p>\n
More information on Team GDT can be found on its Facebook page and Twitter account. The series\u2019 website at StarMazda.com will feature live timing and scoring from the test. M\u00e9ndez has a website at agM\u00e9ndez.com. The track\u2019s website is at IndianapolisMotorSpeedway.com and the LATAM series\u2019 is at latamchallengeseries.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 9 \u2014 Team GDT will be looking for \u201cvelocidad\u201d (speed in Spanish) as the Dallas-based team takes a decidedly Hispanic approach to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,3,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-front-page-news","category-racing-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14428"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14430,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14428\/revisions\/14430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}