DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Aug. 4, 2015) – Two aspects of the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda continue to grow at an unmistakable pace entering the next event Aug. 7-9 at Road America – Kenton Koch’s chances at winning the Lites 1 title and the popularity of the series with competitors and teams.
Series rookie Koch, from Glendora, California, leads the Lites 1 championship by 30 points over fellow rookie and JDC Motorsports teammate Clark Toppe – a gap of 1 ½ races – after eight of 14 rounds this season.
Kenton Koch has won six of eight Lites 1 rounds this season for JDC Motorsports.
But Koch’s dominance isn’t scaring drivers from flocking to the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) Official Development Series. Hardly.
The field Rounds 9 and 10 at Road America will feature 27 cars, a season high and the largest field for the championship since March 2010 at Sebring International Raceway.
Round 9, a 30-minute race, will start at 10:40 a.m. (CT) Saturday, Aug. 8 at Road America. The 45-minute Round 10 will start at 10:05 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 9. Qualifying is set for 8 a.m. Saturday, with two practice sessions Friday, Aug. 7 on the fast, flowing, 14-turn, 4.048-mile circuit.
Two classes of competition take drivers and teams down unique, exciting roads of prototype sports car racing in the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda, with all competitors racing in Élan DP02 chassis powered by Mazda engines and riding on Cooper Tires.
Nimble, high-tech, purpose-built Lites 1 machines pack in the power with a 230-horsepower, 2-liter Mazda engine designed to prepare aspiring professionals for prototype competition in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship and offer a challenging environment for mature semi-professional drivers, including competition in a Masters Championship. Equally capable and cost-effective Lites 2 machines offer new competitors a perfect introduction to the world-class competition offered by IMSA.
Another attractive feature of the championship is an IMSA Scholarship awarded to the Lites 1 series champion to advance to the Prototype Challenge (PC) class of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship in the next season. The scholarship provides a clear, defined path to a professional career as a prototype driver in the premier sports car championship in North America.
2014 Lites 1 champion Mikhail Goikhberg climbed to Prototype Challenge this season with JDC-Miller Motorsports after earning the IMSA Scholarship. He is third in the PC Drivers Championship standings this season, producing solid results
Koch, 21, appears to be the odds-on favorite to follow in Goikhberg’s tire tracks as the scholarship recipient this season. He has produced a season for the ages bordering on perfection, with six victories and two runner-up finishes in the No. 60 JDC Motorsports entry.
Clark Toppe has built a fine rookie season in 2015 with two Lites 1 victories.
Toppe, 17, from The Woodlands, Texas, has won twice in the No. 10 JDC Motorsports entry and is another example of the bumper crop of young talent being cultivated this season in Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda.
Five of the top six drivers in the Lites 1 championship are age 25 or younger. Robert Alon, 25, from Encino, California, is third in the standings with 103 points in the No. 00 Performance Tech Motorsports car. Matt McMurry, 17, from Phoenix, is fourth with 91 points in the No. 20 JDC Motorsports entry.
Austin Versteeg, 16, from Sandy, Utah, is sixth with 85 points in the No. 16 Performance Tech Motorsports car.
Another young driver, 21-year-old Max Hanratty, will hope to become the next emerging young driver in the series as he makes his Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda debut and gives local flavor to the two rounds in the No. 29 Extreme Speed Motorsports entry. Hanratty is from Hartland, Wisconsin, just 65 miles from Road America.
Reigning Lites 1 Masters champion John Falb continues to push his younger rivals at every round in the No. 77 ONE Motorsports entry. Falb, from Las Vegas, is fifth in the overall points with 88 and is dominating the L1 Masters class. He has won seven of his eight starts in the class and enters Road America on a five-race win streak in Masters in a performance every bit as commanding as Koch’s in Lites 1.
A tight race for second place behind Falb in Lites 1 Masters will continue at Road America. Don Yount leads Joel Janco by one point, 117-116.
Yount, from Dallas, is on a recent hot streak, with three second-place and one third-place finish in the No. 28 Yount Motorsports entry in his last four starts. Janco, from Key Largo, Florida, started the season in hot form, with four consecutive runner-up finishes in the No. 25 Performance Tech Motorsports car.
While Koch and Falb have built large leads in Lites 1 and Lites 1 Masters, respectively, the closest race in any IMSA-sanctioned series competing this weekend at Road America is raging in Lites 2.
Two-time reigning Lites 2 champion Brian Alder and Todd Slusher are tied atop the standings with 142 points. The ebb and flow between the two friendly rivals should continue through the season finale at Road Atlanta.
Todd Slusher, front here last year at Road America, is tied with Brian Alder for the Lites 2 championship lead.
Alder, from Dublin, Ohio, has three victories in the No. 22 BAR1 Motorsports entry. Slusher, from Las Vegas, has stood on the top step of the podium four times after winning in the No. 62 ONE Motorsports entry.
This is the 10th season of Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda competition. IMSA sanctions a seven-venue, 14-round schedule for the 2015 season. The series runs 10 of its 14 rounds during TUDOR Championship events, providing plenty of high-profile visibility for teams and drivers at the largest sports car racing events in North America.
All events consist of 30-minute and 45-minute sprint races.
Follow IMSA on Facebook and @IMSA on Twitter with the hashtag #CTPL for updates on the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda. Live timing for every race is available at scoring.imsa.com and on the new official IMSA mobile app available for iOS, Android and Windows.
Schedule Practice: 9-9:30 a.m. and 1:20-2 p.m. (CT) Friday, Aug. 7 Qualifying: 8-8:20 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 8 Round 9 (30 minutes): 10:40-11:10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 8 Round 10 (45 minutes): 10:05-10:50 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 9
Driver autograph session: Noon-12:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 8, Road America Center
Race Coverage Live timing: All on-track sessions at scoring.imsa.com Twitter: Live text commentary from all sessions at @IMSALive
For more information about Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda, visit www.imsa.com, follow hashtag #CTPL @IMSA on Twitter or IMSA on Facebook.