Loftsgard Tops Sebring Practice

Photo: Wes Duenkel/Ford

Cole Loftsgard led the way in practice for this week’s pair of Mustang Challenge North America season opening races at Sebring International Raceway.

The Round 3 Racing driver took his No. 42 Ford Mustang Dark Horse R to a chart-topping 2:12.564 in Wednesday afternoon’s session to edge out morning pacesetter Will Lucas by 0.937 seconds.

Wheelhouse Motorsports teammate Michael Tosi was third quickest in the combined time charts, with Sandy Satullo and Tate Pritt completing the overall top-five for Wheelhouse and Automatic Racing, respectively.

Devin Anderson was sixth quickest in his TechSport Racing Mustang, with Dark Horse Legends pace-setter Alec Bachoura seventh overall.

Bachoura, however, was handed a five-minute stop and hold penalty at the start of second practice for taking more than one checkered flag in the opening session.

Practice 1 otherwise ran relatively clean, aside from the No. 63 Wheelhouse Mustang of Joseph Dederichs going off course in Turn 16, before continuing.

A crash for Bruce Griffin in the No. 25 Flying Lion Motorsports entry in Turn 15 led to a lengthy red flag in Practice 2, which saw officials extend the session by five minutes.

Griffin was evaluated and released by the medical center following the incident.

Qualifying is set to get underway at 4:05 p.m. ET.

RESULTS: Practice (Combined)

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John