Koch Rules Opening Day Of Practice At Sebring

Subtitle:JDC, Performance Tech Drivers Sweep Top Five Overall

SEBRING, Fla. (March 18, 2015) – Kenton Koch wasted little time showing he is no ordinary rookie in the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda, leading both practice sessions Wednesday for the season-opening rounds at Sebring International Raceway.

Koch, from Glendora, California, turned the quickest lap of the day, 1 minute, 58.756 seconds, during the morning session on the historic, 17-turn, 3.74-mile circuit in the No. 60 JDC Motorsports entry.

2014 Mazda MX-5 Cup champion Koch, 19, also led the afternoon session at 2:00.767 in bright sunshine and air temperatures in the high 80s.

Koch led a sweep of the top two spots on the time sheet by reigning Lites 1 Team Champions JDC Motorsport. Fellow series rookie Clark Toppe, from The Woodlands, Texas, was second overall at 1:59.211 in the No. 10 JDC Motorsports entry. Toppe, 17, jumped to Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda after competing for the team in junior open-wheel racing in 2014.

Series veteran Robert Alon, from Encino, California, was third overall at 1:59.374 in the No. 00 Performance Tech Motorsports entry. Alon was the last of only three drivers to break the two-minute mark around the rugged, tricky Sebring circuit.

JDC placed three drivers in the top four as Matt McMurry, from Phoenix, started his second season in the series by ending up fourth overall at 2:00.027 in the No. 20 JDC Motorsports entry.

Series rookie Austin Versteeg, from Sandy, Utah, rounded out the top five at 2:00.509 in the No. 16 Performance Tech Motorsports Élan DP02 chassis powered by a Mazda engine on Cooper Tires. Versteeg, 15, jumped to Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda after a title-winning career in karting.

2013 Lites 1 Masters champion Jon Brownson, from Breckenridge, Colorado, was the quickest Masters driver at 2:01.551 in the No. 34 Eurosport Racing entry.

Todd Slusher, from Las Vegas, was quickest in the Lites 2 class at 2:04.788 in the No. 62 ONE Motorsports entry.

Qualifying takes place from 8-8:20 a.m. (ET) Thursday. Round 1 of the season, a 30-minute race, starts at 1:30 p.m. Thursday. Round 2, a 45-minute race, will take place at 8:45 a.m. Friday.

Live timing of all on-track sessions is available at scoring.imsa.com. Live text commentary from all sessions is available on Twitter at @IMSALive.