Exciting Round 9 Performance Pushes Performance Tech To Raise Bar

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (Aug. 8, 2015) – The three Prototype Lites cars fielded by Performance Tech Motorsports made it to the finish in a manic Round 9 of the of the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda series on Saturday, Aug. 8 at Road America.

While only Joel Janco finished on the podium, all three cars returned to the pits intact, an accomplishment in a 30-minute race filled with incidents.

Janco finished second in Lites 1 Masters in the No. 25 entry, his sixth podium finish of the season in the class. He also placed ninth overall.

Lites 1 drivers Robert Alon and Austin Versteeg placed sixth and seventh overall in the team’s No. 00 and No. 16 cars, respectively.

Multiple cars went off track during Round 9, which also included a hard hit to the wall in Turn 2 by Michal Chlumecky that brought out a caution period 10 minutes into the race.

Alon and Versteeg stayed ahead of the on-track drama while Janco was immediately behind it. Janco, who started 12th, trailed Chlumecky when he spun and hit the wall. Janco dodged debris while passing multiple cars while taking detours off the 14-turn, 4.048-mile track.

“It feels great,” Janco said of his podium finish. “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.”

Versteeg, who started fifth, jumped up the running order early in the race. He sparred with championship contenders Clark Toppe and Matt McMurry for third place.

The race wasn’t without struggle for Versteeg, who fought an understeering chassis. Unable to hold his position after the restart, he began to fall in the field. His race ended with a drag race to the finish line with teammate Alon.

“I was in front of most of the madness,” Versteeg said. “We got up to P3 in the beginning. The whole weekend we’ve been fighting a severe oundersteer in the front of the car. It’s really been hard to drive around, but it’s also been a really good learning experience to know what to do in certain situations.

“It really hurt us toward the end of the race. I really had to oversell the entrance into the corners trying to get the car rotated. The last 15 minutes was just me trying to hang on to position; we fell back to seventh. But this is all learning experience for me, it’s my first year in a car, and we’ll just keep pushing.”

Alon, who started fourth, had his own struggle during the race. He fought for position and for grip, losing position at the start of the race to teammate Versteeg. He again fell back on the restart and found himself in ninth place. Alon pushed to the finish, edging out Versteeg for sixth.

“I had a good start,” Alon said. “I held position in the beginning, and Austin and I were up front with the JDC cars. But I was struggling for grip the whole race. I dropped back after the yellow and I was able to make up a few spots after that.

“But we just ran out of time. I took Austin at the end and maybe could have pushed for another position, but there just wasn’t enough time. We’ll get back after it tomorrow.”

Alon will start fourth, Versteeg eighth and Janco 15th overall in Round 10 of the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda, a 45-minute race that starts at 10:05 a.m. (CT) Sunday, Aug. 9.

Fans can follow live timing on scoring.imsa.com and on the official IMSA mobile app for iOS, Android and Windows, and live text commentary on Twitter with @IMSALive. For a full schedule, visit imsa.com.