IMSA: Koch captures second win of season in shortened NOLA Prototype Lights race

Kenton Koch captured his second win in the 2015 Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda series with a win Saturday in Round 3 at NOLA Motorsports Park.

Koch, 20, led from start to finish and won under a caution triggered by separate incidents toward the end of the race, which was scheduled for 30 minutes. The race was shortened due to two lengthy cautions, with limited green flag action on the 13-turn, 2.74-mile road course.

Championship leader Koch led a sweep of the podium by reigning Team Champions JDC Motorsports. Teammates Clark Toppe and Matt McMurry finished second and third, respectively.

“I really wish we could have had more green racing,” Koch said. “It would have been a lot more fun. But the few laps we did have, Clark was right there. I knew it was going to be some good racing.

“On the restart, I got a pretty good gap at least halfway through the lap before another yellow flew. I think I could have got a gap going. Hopefully tomorrow we get in more racing.”

Toppe, 17, from The Woodlands, Texas, split the opening two rounds of the series with Koch last month at Sebring and started third in this round. Toppe passed McMurry, 17, from Phoenix, on the first lap and gained ground on teammate Koch for the lead. But Toppe’s charge was cut short by the cautions.

Series veteran Michal Chlumecky took first in the Lites 1 Masters class in the No. 31 Eurosport Racing Élan DP02 chassis powered by a Mazda engine on Cooper Tires, finishing fifth overall. Todd Slusher won the Lites 2 class in the No. 62 ONE Motorsports entry, finishing seventh overall.

Masters

In his season debut, Chlumecky won the Lites 1 Masters division by climbing from 10th to fifth during the short green flag stint.

“Staying clean was a challenge today,” Chlumecky said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get to have as much green flag racing as we’d like to get the adrenaline racing the way we like. But my team did a fantastic job. I had an incident earlier this morning during qualifying, and they put the car back together better than it was this morning. So hats off to them at Eurosport.” 

Joel Janco, from Key Largo, Florida, followed his double podium finish in March at Sebring International Raceway with another second-place finish in the No. 25 Performance Tech Motorsports entry. Gerhard Watzinger, from Miami, placed third in the No. 32 ONE Motorsports entry for his first podium in the series.

Lites 2

Slusher, from Las Vegas, picked up his second victory and third podium finish of the season.

“So there was no lack of excitement, let’s put it that way,” Slusher said. “It was exciting from the minute we went green. Obviously not a lot of racing, but the excitement was over the top. A lot of guys crashing and spinning in front of me, and I was just trying to stay on track and stay in it. Luckily I did, and I was able to come out on top in L2, so very, very happy with that.”

Slusher was followed by Max DeAngelis in the No. 7 Eurosport Racing entry. John Salmon rounded out the top three in the No. 46 ODU Engineering Race Team entry.

Up Next

Round 4, a 45-minute race, is scheduled to start at 9:15 a.m. (CT) Sunday. For live updates on all the action, follow @IMSALIve on Twitter. For live timing, visit scoring.imsa.com.