Koch, Falb Both Clinch Championships at VIRginia International Raceway

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Two champions have been crowned.

 
With podium finishes in Rounds 11 and 12 on Saturday, Aug. 29 at VIRginia International Raceway,  Kenton Koch clinched the 2015 Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda championship and John Falb captured the Lites 1 Masters championship for the second straight year.
 
“I’m a little bit speechless right now,” Koch said. “I have four championships in a row now. Definitely happy on how this season’s gone. I’ve come out with some great experiences, and hopefully I can bring it into next year.”
 
Kenton Koch takes the checkered flag to win Round 11 at VIR

Koch, from Glendora, California, entered the weekend with a 54-point lead over JDC Motorsports teammate Clark Toppe. He needed to leave Virginia with a 40-point lead to claim the championship. He left ahead by 52.

 
The championship-winning Koch also earned the IMSA Scholarship awarded to the Lites 1 series champion to advance to the Prototype Challenge class of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship next season.
 
Koch also picked up his ninth win of the season, leading a JDC Motorsports podium sweep of Round 11. Toppe, from The Woodlands, Texas, cut short Koch’s chance for a weekend sweep by taking the Round 12 victory.
 
Falb, from Las Vegas, won both races for the Lites 1 Masters class, picking up his ninth and 10th victories of the season, respectively.
 
“Wow, I can’t believe it,” Falb said. “It’s so great to be able to clinch the Masters championship again. I really have to give credit to ONE Motorsports for putting all the time, energy and effort over the last two year to help get us up to speed and get the pace we need to win. It’s a big achievement, and I’m really proud.”
 
Brian Alder, from Dublin, Ohio, also swept his class, winning Lites 2 in both races.
 
ROUND 11
 
Koch pulled off some last-minute heroics to capture his ninth win of the 2015 Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda season. He took the checkered flag with a 7.701-second victory over Toppe.
 
Lites 1 Podium Finishers (from left): Clark Toppe, Kenton Koch, Matt McMurry

Koch ran most of the race in second in the No. 60 JDC Motorsports entry behind teammate Matt McMurry.

 
McMurry, leading from pole in the No. 20 JDC Motorsports car, had a solid start to lead the field through the 14-turn, 2.25-mile road course. He and Koch ran nose-to-tail through the first 27 minutes of the 30-minute sprint race.
 
With three minutes to go, the two leaders approached lapped traffic going through Turn 1. McMurry drifted wide, Koch went to the outside and dove underneath to take the lead.
 
“The whole race was very clean,” Koch said. “Matt and I were running nose to tail the entire time, and I couldn’t get him. His car was really rolling through the corners, and he was driving really good. But his car started to fall off there at the end, and I was keeping the tires on my car and I was able to get on the outside and cross him over, and that was it from there.”
Cooper Tires Pole Winner Matt McMurry
 
McMurry spun trying to get around another car in the next turn, giving up second to Toppe in the No. 10 Élan DP02 chassis powered by a Mazda engine. McMurry, from Phoenix, finished third to complete the JDC Motorsports podium sweep.
 
Austin Versteeg, from Sandy, Utah, finished fourth in the No. 16 Performance Tech Motorsports entry. Falb rounded out the top five in the No. 77 ONE Motorsports car. He was also the top Lites 1 Masters finisher.
 
Alder finished sixth overall in the No. 22 BAR1 Motorsports entry and was the top Lites 2 finisher.
 
Masters
 
Reigning Lites 1 Masters champion Falb started from pole and earned his ninth class win in 11 races.
 
Lites 1 Masters Finishers (from left): Joel Janco, John Falb, Gerhard Watzinger
“We had a good start and just tried to keep pace,” Falb said. “We lost a little bit in the first few laps, and then we started to pick up the pace again toward the tail end of the race. We just ran out of time to really give a good fight to the guys up there in front.”  
 
Joel Janco, from Key Largo, Florida, picked up his eighth second-class finish of the season in the No. 25 Performance Tech Motorsports entry. Gerhard Watzinger, from Miami, finished third in the No. 32 ONE Motorsports car.
 
 
Lites 2
 
Lites 2 Podium Finishers (from left): Todd Slusher, Brian Alder, John Salmon
Alder’s Lites 2 victory was his fifth in a row, padding his slim championship points margin over Todd Slusher. He started from pole and led from flag-to-flag.
 
“It’s so difficult to pass here, and fortunately there was a L1 car between Todd and I the whole race,” Alder said. “So it was a nice buffer, and it let me save a little bit of energy for our second race today.”
 
Slusher, from Las Vegas, finished second in the No. 62 ONE Motorsports entry, followed by John Salmon, from nearby Lynchburg, Virginia, in the No. 46 ODU Engineering Race Team entry in third.
 
ROUND 12
 
Toppe earned his third win of the season with a dominant 8.157-second victory over JDC Motorsports teammate McMurry in Round 12.
 
Lites 1 Podium Finishers (from left): Matt McMurry, Clark Toppe, Kenton Koch
“The car was perfect,” Toppe said. “We finally got that balance right. We’ve been working all weekend with JDC to get it right where we needed it to be. And that’s where it was for this race.”
 
McMurry led the field from pole for the second consecutive race. In Turn 1, he and Toppe made contact. McMurry was pushed sideways, and Toppe took the inside for the lead. McMurry dropped to fourth behind Robert Alon and Koch.
 
As Toppe extended his lead over the next 45 minutes, Alon, Koch and McMurry battled for the final two podium spots. The three ran within a half a second of each other until 10 minutes to go in the 45-minute sprint race.
 
Cooper Tires Pole Winner Matt McMurry
Koch, in second, went to the outside of Alon in Turn 1. Alon went wide, and McMurry dove underneath for second place. In the next turn, Koch passed Alon, sealing the weekend podium sweep for JDC Motorsports.
 
Alon, from Encino, California, finished fourth overall in the No. 00 Performance Tech Motorsports entry, followed by teammate Versteeg.
 
Falb was sixth overall and the top Lites 1 Masters finisher. Alder finished 10th overall and was the top Lites 2 finisher.
 
Masters
 
Falb sealed his second consecutive Lites 1 Masters championship with the class victory in Round 12.
 
Lites 1 Masters Podium Finishers (from left): Gerhard Watzinger, John Falb, Stuart Rettie
“We had a great start and put our head down and had a good pace,” Falb said. “It wasn’t quite good enough for overall podium, but we had a great gap behind us, and we ran a good race. It was a long race, and I was able to keep my pace through the entirety, so it was a definite victory.” 
 
Watzinger earned his second podium of the weekend with a second-place finish. Stuart Rettie, from Houston, rounded out the podium with a third-place finish in the No. 21 Lion Rampant Motorsports entry. It was Rettie’s first podium finish of the season.
 
Lites 2
 
Lites 2 Podium Finishers (from left): John Salmon, Brian Alder, Todd Slusher
Alder picked up his sixth consecutive Lites 2 victory of the season, taking the win over Salmon in Round 12.
 
Alder also extended his points lead over Todd Slusher to 10 points, 122-112.
 
“It feels good to come away with two more victories and extend our points lead,” Alder said. “Todd is a great competitor, and I need as many points as I can, because I know he will be bringing his A game to Road Atlanta.”
 
Salmon finished second and Slusher third in the second race of the weekend.
 
Up Next
 
The final two rounds, Rounds 13 and 14, will be Sept. 30-Oct. 2 at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia.
 
For more information on Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda, visit www.imsa.com, follow the hashtags #CTPL and #MRT24 on Twitter or like IMSA on Facebook.
Adam Sinclair
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