Koch Rolls On at Road America with Eighth Win of Season

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (Aug. 8, 2015) – It’s another tick in the win column for Kenton Koch.

Series rookie Koch, from Glendora, California, earned his seventh victory of the season by a 1.601-second margin over JDC Motorsports teammate Matt McMurry in Round 9 of the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda series at Road America.

Koch has finished on the podium in all nine races this season in the No. 60 JDC Motorsports entry.

Clark Toppe, from The Woodlands, Texas, capped off a podium sweep for Lites 1 Championship leader JDC Motorsports finishing third in the No. 10 Élan DP02 chassis powered by a Mazda engine.

John Falb, from Las Vegas, finished fourth and was the top Lites 1 Masters finisher in the No. 77 ONE Motorsports car. Series rookie Maxwell Hanratty rounded out the top five in his series debut in the No. 29 Extreme Speed Motorsports entry.

Brian Alder, from Dublin, Ohio, captured his fourth victory of the season in the Lites 2 class in the No. 22 BAR1 Motorsports entry and took the lead in the championship for the class.

Pole sitter Koch led from flag to flag but not without pressure from his JDC Motorsports teammates. Toppe got a jump on McMurry at the start and set his sights on Koch. He got as close as .288 of a second from the lead before a caution was triggered by Michal Chlumecky making contact with the wall in Turn 3.

“I started off just trying to keep the left rear alive, and I was conserving it a little bit but still pushing pretty hard,” Koch said. “Clark was keeping me honest for the first stint. I didn’t get the restart I wanted, and he drove around the outside. We had a small amount of contact, but it was clean, good, hard racing.”

Koch retained the lead through Turn 1 of the restart. Toppe made a small mistake in Turn 5 on the same lap that allowed McMurry to slip past. Koch extended his lead, and the three JDC Motorsports teammates finished in their starting positions.

Masters

Reigning Lites 1 Masters champion Falb started from pole and earned his eighth class win and sixth in a row this season.

Falb was running in the overall top three before the final restart, ending up with a fourth-place overall finish.

“We had a great race,” Falb said. “Qualifying was a bit sketchy because of the rain from yesterday, and the car still didn’t have a lot of grip this morning. So we started seventh. We kept our head down and kept it clean. I had third for a little while and brought it home fourth overall and a Masters win, so I’m really pumped.”

Joel Janco, from Key Largo, Florida, picked up his sixth second-place class finish of the season in the No. 25 Performance Tech Motorsports entry. Richard Fant, from Houston, rounded out the Masters podium with a third-place finish in the No. 42 Ferrari of Houston Race Team entry.

Lites 2

Alder and Todd Slusher continued their see-saw duel for the Lites 2 championship lead. Slusher started from the pole with Alder right in his rear-view mirror. Alder got the jump on the start and gapped himself from the rest of the L2 field.

“We had a really good start,” Alder said. “We took the lead going into Turn 1, and I was lucky enough to get past a few L1 cars to put a buffer between Todd and I. The BAR1 Oil car was strong all day. We could put it anywhere on the track, and we’re happy to stay clean and come home with another victory.”

Slusher, from Las Vegas, finished second in the No. 62 ONE Motorsports entry. Ludovico Manfredi, from Key Biscayne, Florida, finished third in the No. 30 ANSA Motorsports entry.

Up Next

Round 10, a 45-minute race, will start at 10:05 a.m. (CT) Sunday, Aug. 9.

For live timing, visit scoring.imsa.com or the new IMSA mobile app for iOS, Android or Windows. For live updates on all the action, follow @IMSALive on Twitter.

ROUND 9 POST-RACE QUOTES

KENTON KOCH (No. 60 JDC Motorsports, winner): “I feel great. The race went obviously really well. I started off just trying to keep the left rear alive, and I was conserving it a little bit but still pushing pretty hard. Clark (Toppe) was keeping me honest for the first stint. I had to really try. On the restart, he came up on the left side of me. I didn’t get the restart I wanted, and he drove around the outside. We had a small amount of contact, but it was clean and good, hard racing. It was fun racing with him.”

MATT MCMURRY (No. 20 JDC Motorsports, second): “The beginning they got a little bit of a jump on me so I dropped a couple of positions. I got all of that back and was in third behind Kenton (Koch) and Clark (Toppe) before the restart. I ended up getting Clark in (Turn) 5 and was chasing down Kenton the rest of the time. It was getting really hard toward the second half of the race. My car was starting to get a lot of oversteer, so it was hard to drive it, but I was staying right there with Kenton.”

CLARK TOPPE (No. 10, JDC Motorsports, third): “I could have challenged for the win. It was good, clean, hard racing between Kenton (Koch) and I and going into Turn 5. I just made a little mistake and went off. It was all right; we still have tomorrow. I learned a lot today, and I can change my approach to passing tomorrow. I learned a little bit more about Kenton and where he likes to defend, and where I’m better than him and where he’s better than me. I can see where I can make the pass to get the win tomorrow.”

JOHN FALB (No. 77 ONE Motorsports, first Lites Masters): “We had a great race. Qualifying was a bit sketchy because of the rain from yesterday, and the car still didn’t have a lot of grip this morning. So we started seventh. We kept our head down and kept it clean. I had third for a little while and brought it home fourth overall and a Masters win, so I’m really pumped. This is a great track because you have a lot of technical sections, some high-speed sections and then you have few breaks so its not as demanding as a few of the others, but it still has all the elements of a great racetrack.”

JOEL JANCO (No. 25 Performance Tech Motorsports, second Lites Masters): “It feels great. Last race we were on the podium one of the two races. But today was good. I was trying to push for a better time for the next race, and I went off in (Turn) 7 and that cost me. But we ended up pretty good, so I’m happy. Thanks to Performance Tech and Jonatan Jorge.”

RICHARD FANT (No. 42 Ferrari of Houston Race Team, third Lites Masters): “It feels real good. I was a little nervous about the weekend, but I drove well. I thought I’d get Joel (Janco). He almost gave me a chance for P2, but I’m really happy with a P3 podium.”

BRIAN ALDER (No. 22 BAR1 Motorsports, first Lites 2): “We had a really good start. We took the lead going into Turn 1, and I was lucky enough to get past a few L1 cars to put a buffer between Todd (Slusher) and I. The BAR1 Oil car was strong all day. We could put it anywhere on the track, and we’re happy to stay clean and come home with another victory.”

TODD SLUSHER (No. 62 ONE Motorsports, second Lites 2): “It was a fun-filled, action-packed race. Obviously some cars going off, and I got off to a rough start. For some reason the lane I was in started off a little slow, so I was sort of packed in there, and I had to work really hard to work myself back into position. Brian Alder and I had a pretty good battle going, and then I got passed by a couple of other L2 cars so I had to work my way back again. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun, but ending up in second place, so I’m pretty happy with it.”

LUDOVICO MANFREDI (No. 30 ANSA Motorsports, third Lites 2): “I had a very good start. I think I was second in class. Unfortunately I missed a gear in (Turn) 14 and lost a lot of time and then spun. Thank God for the full-course yellow. I got back to third, (Max) DeAngelis passed me, and then he clipped the wall on the last lap so I inherited third again.”