Kurtz Aims to Finish on High Note in Season’s Final IMSA Endurance Race - Speedway Digest

George Kurtz and CrowdStrike Racing return to competition in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship this weekend with the 10-hour Petit Le Mans sports car race at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.

As he has at three previous WeatherTech Championship events, Kurtz will team with Jon Bennett and Colin Braun – Kurtz’s teammate in SRO Motorsports America competition. The trio share the No. 54 CrowdStrike/Motul/FLEX-BOX Ligier JS P320 in the Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) category.

It concludes Kurtz’s 2022 program with CORE autosport as part of the Michelin Endurance Cup, the four endurance rounds on the WeatherTech Championship’s schedule: the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen and Petit Le Mans.

Kurtz, Bennett and Braun have been stellar together this season in the previous three long-distance rounds. They opened the IMSA season with a third-place showing in LMP3 at the Rolex 24, followed by fifth at the Sebring 12 Hours. In the most recent Endurance Cup round at Watkins Glen, the No. 54 Ligier was runner-up in class. Road Atlanta presents the final chance for Kurtz and CORE autosport to win a Michelin Endurance Cup event.

Bennett and Braun have won two races in LMP3 to put them in the class championship hunt. That places even more importance on a strong result for both the LMP3 full-season championship and the year-long Michelin Endurance Cup championship.

“I’m looking forward to getting back in the LMP3 car with Jon and Colin at Petit Le Mans,” Kurtz said. “Jon and Colin are in the hunt to win the championship, so we’re going to put our heads down and put in the work to make it happen. We’re prepared for a strong performance.”

Endurance, Teamwork and Speed: CrowdStrike as IMSA Partner

Petit Le Mans also marks the end of CrowdStrike’s first season as an Official Partner of IMSA and presenting sponsor for the new-for-2022 Endurance, Teamwork and Speed Award for Michelin Endurance Cup events.

The honor recognizes the team in each IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship class demonstrating the unique qualities needed to be successful in long and grueling IMSA endurance races. It’s the reward for a difficult combination of performance on the racetrack and the pitlane:

Endurance: Running at the finish of the race
Teamwork: The most efficient time on pitlane, putting a premium on efforts by the driver and crew
Speed: A car’s best qualifying time and fastest race lap

The prizes for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen will be awarded during Sunday’s pre-race ceremonies at Watkins Glen.

Those philosophies within the Endurance, Teamwork and Speed Award mirror how CrowdStrike approaches its role as one of the world’s leading providers of cybersecurity services. Monitoring systems and preventing breaches is a long-distance and long-term effort that contributes to the overall success of the CrowdStrike-customer relationship, also a form of teamwork.

Speed is essential in both racing and security, whether it’s responding to breaches and attacks or responding to threats from fast racing competitors.

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 stops data breaches and attacks like ransomware by protecting the most critical areas of risk: endpoints, cloud workloads, identity and data.

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 such as Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. and IMSA VIP experiences at select IMSA races throughout the season.

The 10-hour Petit Le Mans is scheduled for 12:10 p.m. ET on Saturday, Oct. 1. The race will air live on NBC from noon-3 p.m. ET and from 7-10:30 p.m. ET on USA. Peacock will have live flag-to-flag streaming from noon-10:30 p.m. ET. IMSA Radio will provide live audio coverage Saturday on IMSA.com, XM 207 and SiriusXM Online 992.

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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.