Goikhberg, Alder Lock Up Season Titles with Victories at VIR

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Mikhail Goikhberg and Brian Alder sealed Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda season championships in style with victories in Round 11 Saturday at Virginia International Raceway. 

Goikhberg, from North Vancouver, Canada, clinched his first Lites 1 season title with his seventh victory of the season in the No. 10 JDC Motorsports entry. He held off pole sitter Andrew Novich by .214 of a second at the finish after a fierce final-lap charge by Novich in the No. 61 Comprent Motor Sports entry. 

“We’re the champions,” Goikhberg said. “I don’t care what happened in the race, I’m just as happy as I could be. It took longer than I thought, but now it’s done. I’m so happy. There just aren’t any words at this time to describe my emotions. I’m really, really happy.” 

Lites 1 podium finishes (from left): Andrew Novich, Mikhail Goikhberg, Matt McMurry

Alder, from Marysville, Ohio, earned his second consecutive Lites 2 championship in the No. 22 BAR1 Motorsports entry.

  “I’m glad we could secure it (championship) and win the race in good fashion,” stated Alder. “We had a good race. We were able to take the lead in Turn 1 and never look back. The car was great. Todd (Slusher) was putting in laps quicker than me, so we were lucky to get through the traffic really well and keep that gap. On the restart, he was right behind me, and we were able to maintain the lead and grow a gap as the L1 cars were coming through us. Overall, a great race, and it’s great to win the championship. I just want to thank Top 1 Oil for their support all year.” 

Goikhberg earned the title in his third season in the IMSA Development Series with JDC Motorsports. Goikhberg finished a distant second to Tristan Nunezin the championship in 2012 and a close third behind Sean Rayhalland Ryan Booth in 2013. 

“Life teaches you sometimes you just have to wait for good things to happen,” Goikhberg said. “It’s really gratifying to have done this over the three years with the same group of guys at JDC Motorsports.”

 Matt McMurry, from Phoenix, finished third in the No. 20 JDC Motorsports entry, 1.717 seconds behind his winning teammate. It was second consecutive podium finish for McMurry, 16, who was runner-up in Round 10 two weeks ago at Road America.

 “We started in second place, and going in to Turn 1 someone pushed us off and then I was in the very back,” McMurrary added. “I battled my way back up to second. On a yellow, I got right behind Mikhail (Goikhberg), but on one of the restarts Andrew (Novich) got by me, and they got away a little bit and I just couldn’t catch back up to them. But still finished third, so I’m happy considering we went all the way to the back. I think we can do a little bit to the car before tomorrow, and with new tires I think we’ll be good.”

Robert Alon, from Encino, California, finished fourth in the No. 9 Performance Tech entry. Enzo Potolicchio, from Hollywood, Florida, rounded out the top five and was the first Masters (age 40 and over) finisher in the No. 4 8Star Motorsports Élan DP02 chassis powered by a Mazda engine. 

Pole winner Andrew Novich

Goikhberg passed Novich for the lead early in the 45-minute race during which the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda cars shared the 17-turn, 3.27-mile circuit with the Prototype Challenge class of theTUDOR United SportsCar Championship. But Novich hung tough, staying within a second of Goikhberg for the next 15 minutes. 

Then Novich, from Novato, California, went off track due to a clutch problem. McMurry climbed to second, 15.223 seconds behind Goikhberg, after turning blistering laps to rally from 14th place after dropping through the field during a first-lap incident. 

But then Joel Janco hit the barrier in Turn 5 due to a mechanical problem in his No. 125 Performance Tech Motorsports entry, causing a full-course yellow. Goikhberg’s lead evaporated, but he was able to fight off McMurry on the restart with eight minutes remaining. 

Novich clawed his way through the field and pulled to within a car length of Goikhberg on the final lap despite his clutch nearing failure. But Goikhberg held off Novich through the final turns for victory and the season title. 

Masters

 

Potolicchio earned his first Lites 1 Masters victory of the season with a strong performance. 

 “It was difficult.,” stated Potolicchio. “We’ve been struggling with some gearbox issues, and the setup wasn’t the ideal. My son (Christian Potolicchio) was battling for second place in the championship, and now I think he fell back to third. But there’s still a long way to go with three more races. 8Star has to figure out what other people have and the advantage on speed, but we’ll keep working. We have a great engineer and a great team, and everybody’s motivated to get us the best car possible. But I won Masters and am taking something home. And my team won the PC race, so it was a good day, obviously, for 8Star Motorsports.”

Lites 1 Masters podium finishers (from left): Michal Chlumecky, Enzo Potolicchio, Don Yount

Michal Chlumecky, from Windsor, Ontario, avoided numerous incidents that exploded in front of him to earn his third runner-up Masters finish of the season despite running a limited schedule in the No. 31 Eurosport Racing entry. 

 “It was very exciting,” Clumecky stated. “There was a lot of action and a lot of activity in front of me, and I was very fortunate to avoid most of it just by the skin of my teeth. It was pretty close on several occasions. But this is a wonderful facility. It’s my first time here, and I absolutely love the track, and I’m just happy to be where I am today. It was really slippery out there today. It was considerably more work than I expected to keep the wheels to the pavement, but it was a good time today.”

Don Yount, from Dallas, earned his fifth Masters podium finish of the season in the No. 28 Yount Motorsports entry. Yount fought his way to the podium after he was shoved off track in a Turn 1 incident that knocked his steering out of alignment. 

 “It was an incident in Turn 1 that I probably got in the dirt,” commented Yount. “So it may have knocked me out of alignment, and I got hooked back pretty far. But it was fun. I love the track, and I got to move up through the field. It was a lot of excitement. Everybody played relatively pretty nice even though there was a lot happening.”

Lites 2

 

Alder earned his eighth Lites 2 victory of the season. He has finished first or second in Lites 2 in all 11 rounds this season. 

Lites 2 podium finishers (from left): Todd Slusher, Brian Alder, John Salmon

Todd Slusher, from Las Vegas, finished second in Lites 2 in the No. 62 ONE Motorsports entry after battling back from a couple of off-course excursions due to contact. Slusher was turning the quickest times in Lites 2 over the closing laps, but he fell 6.025 seconds behind Alder at the finish.

  “I got knocked off in Turn 1 at the start of the race, and I was about 25 seconds down and I worked my way back up to the leader,” stated Slusher. “We had some traffic, we had some incidents on track. I made a couple of mistakes, and after that I just had to claw my way back again. And then we had the restart, and I was right behind my leader (Brian Alder), and again we had some more traffic. And it got really nasty in the esses, a lot of cars coming through. We’re not sure why we started the way we did, but be that as it may, we had a little bit of contact out there, and I lost my position. There was a couple laps to go, and I finished P2, so I’m really happy. My car was fast. I think I drove it pretty well. I was putting down good lap times. So there’s lots of encouragement there even though I didn’t get P1.”

John Salmon, from nearby Lynchburg, Virginia, finished third in the No. 46 V.I.P.E.R. entry in his Lites 2 season debut.

 “It was very hectic,” added an exhausted Salmon. “We had a little mechanical issue in the middle, and I just wanted to be sure I could finish. The guys here, we’re based here, they got me back out there so I could come back out and finish out. It’s such an honor to be out here and run. What a pleasure.” 

Round 12 of the season, a 45-minute race, is scheduled to start at 10:45 a.m. (ET) Sunday. For live updates on all the action, follow @IMSALive on Twitter.

 

Adam Sinclair
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