Ranger eyes step up to PanAm series

[Editor's Note: With Ranger as of yet not able to land a ride in Champ Car because the teams want more money than he currently has, look for him to possibly end up in the PanAm series driving the V6 cars that are a step up from the Toyota Atlantic cars he drove in 2004.] Andrew Ranger will be the first driver to test the new Renault PanAm V6 race car that was delivered to Gelles Racing less than a week ago. The rising star, who won the Fran-Am 2003 championship only to become the Formula Atlantic 2004 Rookie of the year, was deservingly the best possible driver to take this exciting race machine for its maiden test session in North America, namely Road Atlanta in Georgia.

“We are very happy to have Andrew test with us, declared team owner Bob Gelles. We understand this young phenom is still looking for a seat in Champ Car but a full day of testing in the V6 will demonstrate how exciting the PanAm series is going to be this year and how the careers of young drivers can really benefit from the experience. Furthermore, the winner of the PanAm Racing V6 series will be awarded a full ride in the World Nissan Series for 2006 and a testing session with Renault in Formula One. We even invited some staff from David Price Racing to assist our engineers and crew. We want this session to be as productive for Andrew and for us. We will get a second V6 this week and we have more test days coming in the next weeks."

While Andrew will have his seat fit early in the morning, other young drivers will be on location to test their racing machines. Brandon Thomas will drive a Renault FR2000: Brandon is the highest returning driver in this series and will be looking for podiums this season.

Four other drivers will test Formula BMW. For the next two days. They are BMW scholar Justin Moon from California, Renato Jader-David from Brazil, Maxime Soulet from Belgium and South African native nor living in the USA, Darin Marcus.

“Justin (Moon) will drive for us this year, continued Gelles, and he has his work cut out until the season starts. Renato (Jader-David) was driving with us last year and he was among the fastest in FR2000: look out for this 20 year-old in BMW this year. Maxime (Soulet) comes to us with high credentials; he was surprised because some of our crew speak French. Darin Marcus was part of the BMW training program in Spain and no doubt he is a driver with a lot of potential." Gelles Racing