Team Gelles Montreal race notes

Montreal taught Gelles Racing some useful lessons. All three sessions of practice on Friday, practice on Saturday and qualifications of Saturday were run without any black flag sessions run with 26-cars. The field drove very sensibly and without major incident.

Weather for Sunday morning's race prior to Champ Car was sunny and cool, temps with temperatures of 60 F. very nice. We qualified:
Marc-Antoine Camirand 11th
Kuno Wittmer 17th
Luciano Gomide 18th

The engineers made changes to the car to improve the condition over qualifications. During the race all the Gelles drivers, Marc-Antoine Camirand, Kuno Wittmer and Luciano Gomide moved quickly through the field and by lap 4, all three Gelles drivers were in the top (10). Luciano Gomide was running in 9th position when the drive just in front of him spun, Luciano damaged his suspension causing early retirement to avoid contact with the spinning driver in front of him.

A dogfight that was ensuing for the entire race between 2nd through 8th position involving Marc-Antoine, was very exciting to watch with all the drivers nose to tail. This fight allowed Ranger to build a 4-second lead through the race as the fight for 2nd continued the entire event. Marc-Antoine Camirand finished 6th and Kuno Wittmer 10th. Team Owner Bob Gelles declared, "I am very pleased with our TEAMS result, again finishing (2) in the top (11) is very exciting."

The TEAM was staying at Montreal to prepare the cars on Sunday afternoon and all day on Monday, departing for Denver non-stop with 2-transporter drivers on Tuesday morning for next week's Denver Grand Prix. Returning to the line-up for the remainder of the year is Antoine Bessette to rejoin Marc-Antoine and Kuno. Gelles Racing plans to return to the front as they did at Toronto with the STREET set up that allowed them to do so very well.

-tg-