Kurtz, CORE Autosport Seek Sebring Repeat - Speedway Digest

Only three months into 2022, George Kurtz and CrowdStrike Racing have already had quite the successful racing season. It continues this weekend with the famed Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, where Kurtz will rejoin CORE autosport in the highly competitive Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) category of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Kurtz will team up with Jon Bennett and Colin Braun behind the wheel of the No. 54 CrowdStrike/Flex-Box Ligier JS P320 a year after claiming a landmark victory at the famous race in Florida – one of sports car racing’s biggest events.

This year’s running will be even bigger for CrowdStrike – a leader in cloud-delivered protection of endpoints, cloud workloads, identity and data – which was named in January as an OfficialPartner of IMSA, the sanctioning body for the WeatherTech Championship.

The IMSA Experience

Sebring is CrowdStrike’s second full event as an IMSA Official Partner after launching the relationship at January’s Rolex 24 At Daytona. The commercial partnership adds to an impressive portfolio that includes a major sponsorship in SRO Motorsports America, where CrowdStrike is the Official Internet and Cloud Security Provider.

The IMSA partnership also provides the opportunity for CrowdStrike to host CxO Summits at select IMSA race venues, such as the Daytona event.

With Sebring as the second round of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup – which includes four long-distance rounds on the calendar – CrowdStrike will play a role in another highly visible effort as the sponsor of the new Endurance, Teamwork, and Speed Award at the Michelin Endurance Cup events. The award will recognize a team in each IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship class demonstrating strategic teamwork that is critical to success in long and grueling IMSA endurance races.

Speed, endurance and the focus to win as a team are all qualities that mirror CrowdStrike’s approach to protecting the endpoints, cloud workloads, identity and data, of organizations around the globe. It takes a team to stop breaches and deliver a top performance on the track and we Win as One.

CrowdStrike has redefined security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform that protects and enables the people, processes and technologies that drive modern enterprise.

Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud, the Falcon Platform provides unprecedented levels of security to automatically stop data breaches and attacks like ransomware.

In addition to sponsoring the Endurance, Teamwork and Speed Award, CrowdStrike’s IMSA partnership will also include on-track signage at the Michelin Endurance Cup tracks (Daytona International Speedway, Sebring International Raceway, Watkins Glen International and Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta) and IMSA VIP experiences at other IMSA races throughout the season.

Winning With Speed

A combination of Endurance, Teamwork and Speed put Kurtz and CORE autosport over the top in the 12 Hours of Sebring a year ago. The Kurtz/Bennett/Braun trio won a hard-fought race in 2021 as the top three LMP3 entries finished within 3.201 seconds of each other after 12 hours.

With a margin of victory that close, all elements of the team had to work in sync. The CrowdStrike-sponsored effort made the fewest mistakes and set the fastest LMP3 lap of the race.

“Sebring is one of the most iconic and demanding tracks in all of sports car racing,” said Kurtz, CrowdStrike co-founder and CEO. “Speed and reliability are critical to achieving success. I know we have one of the best teams on the IMSA paddock. If we can maintain our focus, I’m confident we’ll have all the right components to achieve another victory.”

Kurtz is coming off an incredible start to his racing season with podium finishes around the world. He recently opened SRO America’s GT America season with a victory and third-place showing at St. Petersburg; had a runner-up finish at the Rolex 24 for CORE autosport with Bennett, Braun and Nic Jonsson; and secured a second-place finish at the 24 Hours of Dubai.

“I am feeling confident heading into Sebring,” Braun said. “We had a great test a few weeks ago and a strong result in 2021. We know what it takes to make our CORE autosport/CrowdStrike/Flex-Box Ligier fast and reliable, we just need to execute. The goal is the same as it was for last year and at Daytona: be consistent and keep pushing to improve every time we go to the track. That way of racing has always served us well: focus on our own improvement and the results will take care of themselves.”

The 12 Hours of Sebring is scheduled for 10:10 a.m. ET on Saturday, March 19. The race will air across the USA network and the Peacock network. IMSA Radio also will have a live broadcast on IMSA.com and the IMSA app.

For more information, visit CrowdStrikeRacing.com. Follow #CrowdStrikeRacing on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for updates.

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Adam Sinclair

NHRA, IHRA, Motocross and other forms of motorsports Staff writer
About Me: Adam has been a race fan since the first time he went through the tunnel under the Daytona International Speedway almost 30 years ago. He has had the privilege of travelling to races all across the state of Florida (as well as one race in Ohio), watching nearly everything with a motor compete for fame and glory, as well as participating in various racing schools to get the feel of what racecar drivers go through every week. Adam has spent the last three years covering motorsports for Examiner.com., where he had the opportunity to see the racing world from behind the scenes as well as the grandstands. He invites everyone to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus, and looks forward to sharing his enthusiasm for all things racing with the readers of SpeedwayDigest.com.Be sure to tune in for his weekly sports talk program, Thursday Night Thunder, where he discusses the latest in motorsports news with drivers, crew members, and fans. The show takes place every Thursday at 8:00 pm EST on the Speedway Digest Radio Network.