CrowdStrike Racing Celebrates Race Wins, Championships at Indianapolis Finale

CrowdStrike Racing | October 11, 2022

Highlights

  • George Kurtz, Kevin Boehm complete 10-win championship seasons
  • Boehm finishes podium-perfect season in TC America with CrowdStrike/AWS HPD Civic
  • Kurtz, CJ Moses sweep weekend in GT America Powered by AWS classes
  • Kurtz, Colin Braun, Ben Keating manage misfortune in Indianapolis Eight Hour Presented by AWS
  • CrowdStrike celebrates multiple race wins, championships with guests on Championship Weekend

INDIANAPOLIS (Oct. 11, 2022) – CrowdStrike Racing celebrated another landmark season in SRO Motorsports America with its year-end event at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

CrowdStrike Racing had a banner weekend, earning six wins and seven top-10 finishes on the weekend across seven races in three SRO America categories. The team also earned three Driver Championships for the 2022 campaign.

The weekend included a bevy of activation and hospitality activities from CrowdStrike, taking advantage of its position as Official Internet and Cloud Security Provider for SRO Motorsports, and culminated in Sunday night’s SRO America gala, where CrowdStrike Racing’s George Kurtz, CJ Moses and Kevin Boehm officially claimed their championship trophies for their respective series.

Championship Coronations

After clinching their championships at the previous SRO America event in Sebring, Fla., Kurtz and Boehm each put a bow on their dominant seasons with weekend sweeps to give each driver 10 victories on the season.

Kurtz, CrowdStrike co-founder and CEO, swept GT America races on the same weekend for the fourth time this season and won five straight races to close his year. 

Friday, Kurtz had to drive through the GT3 field from the back of the grid and overcame a 10-second deficit in his No. 04 CrowdStrike/AWS Mercedes-AMG GT3 to take the lead with 11 minutes to go. He went on to win by 16.248 seconds.

There were more good laps Sunday as Kurtz led from green flag to checkered flag to move into double-digits for victories. 

“It’s a little easier starting the race from the front, I wanted to have fun and clear the traffic!” Kurtz said. “While the pressure wasn’t on after winning the championship at Sebring, we wanted to end the season with a strong finish. Those were good laps you’ll remember over time.

“It certainly was a great year with a great team from Riley Motorsports for CrowdStrike Racing,” he added. “They gave me a great car all season. We’ve had some ups and downs in some other series, but overall we did really well. We showcased our talents and a strong team effort. It was just a breakout season.”

Also in GT America, CJ Moses completed his first season in GT2 by winning the class Driver Championship with the No. 58 CrowdStrike/AWS Audi R8 LMS GT2. At IMS, he recorded his eighth trouble-free race – a successful development campaign for the GT2-spec Audi. His best result of the weekend came Friday with a season-best, fourth-place overall finish.

“This car is a blast,” Moses said. “The long straights play to its extra horsepower. GMG Racing set up a perfect car for this track. I was able to go out and run the whole race in qualifying mode – qualifying laps after qualifying laps. The tires fell away just a little bit at the end, but other than that it was great.”

SRO GT2 cars have significantly more power than GT3 and GT4 entries but less downforce. That meant the grip on the chilly IMS surface – Sunday’s track temperature started at 45F – was particularly low but Moses was able to weather the challenge. 

Boehm closed the season by finishing on the podium in all 14 races in his No. 9 CrowdStrike/AWS Honda Performance Development Civic Type R TC. Indianapolis was another strong showing for Boehm with the pole positions and fastest race laps for each contest.

Boehm also won in TC America at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the third time in two years.

“This has been a year I’ll never forget,” Boehm said. “I can’t thank the Skip Barber Racing School enough for prepping the car all year. We were only on the podium every race because of reliability all year, first and foremost. Getting CrowdStrike and AWS on the top step of the podium for both races this week. We have guests here today so I’m happy to give them someone to celebrate. Thanks to everyone that puts this together and gives us a chance to come out here and be successful. The future for me is to try and do this again.”

Indianapolis Eight Hours

Kurtz and CrowdStrike Racing with Riley Motorsports had their eyes on the Fanatec GT World Challenge America Powered by AWS championship heading into Saturday’s Indianapolis Eight Hour. Unfortunately, the No. 04 CrowdStrike/AWS Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Kurtz, Colin Braun and Ben Keating retired just past 75 percent distance after early race incidents spoiled the trio’s championship run.

Kurtz had to avoid a spinning car on the race’s formation lap, and Keating suffered damage during a stint when a slower car attempted to rejoin the field before the three-hour mark. The CrowdStrike Racing with Riley Motorsports team replaced the Mercedes’ radiator but the lost time and laps meant the team’s race ended early.

“We had a great championship run in World Challenge America,” Kurtz said. “Going into Road America, we had a pretty nice lead and we were just clean and consistent with a lot of podiums and an overall win, which was fantastic. Through some bad luck – a lot of it not our fault – we got put into a bad position. We had a shot to win it all… all three cars (in the championship fight) did but luck just didn’t go our way. Unfortunately the car had some damage and we were never really able to get it back on track to try and win the race. Hats off to the winners but we’re already looking forward to coming back next year.”

Braun wrapped his SRO season with Kurtz and Riley at Indianapolis. 

“Going into Indy the CrowdStrike/Riley team was in great position to bring home a championship,” Braun said. “We had a fast Mercedes and unfortunately Ben had some unavoidable contact that forced us into the garage for repairs and that ended our championship fight. I’m really proud of this team for their effort this year. Three wins, including an overall win at Watkins Glen, podium finishes, poles, and being in championship contention until the end shows the dedication and tenacity this team has. I’m also really proud of George and all that he accomplished this year including the GTA Championship! His work ethic sets the tone for the entire team and that’s how we’re able to win. It’s an honor to share a seat with George and represent CrowdStrike!”

The CrowdStrike Experience

CrowdStrike brings out its best at GT racing’s biggest events, and the Indianapolis Eight Hour certainly qualified.

The staple of CrowdStrike’s at-event activations are its CXO summits. Held in conjunction with AWS, a CXO summit brings together executives from CrowdStrike and AWS to meet with and discuss issues and trends in the cybersecurity arena. Summit guests at Indianapolis heard from Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike Services and chief security officer (CSO), and Angelo Comazzetto, principal in the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer (OCISO) at AWS. 

CrowdStrike and CrowdStrike Racing also played host to local student groups with the Indianapolis SAE International (Society of Automotive Engineers) chapter and participated in additional SRO activations throughout the weekend.

CrowdStrike also provided trackside hospitality for its VIPs in addition to garage and meet-and-greet tours with its race teams along and chances to compete in an SRO esports competition.

CrowdStrike & Operation Motorsport

Just as successful as CrowdStrike Racing’s season on the track has been its experience with Operation Motorsport (OpMo) throughout 2022.

A not-for-profit, OpMo provides a chance for retired and disabled service members to use their skill sets in a variety of areas including paddock operations, car and tire prep, marketing, social media and other key areas that are part of a racing program. 

Multiple CrowdStrike Racing efforts welcomed OpMo beneficiaries during the season. At Indianapolis, Craig Neri, Retired – U.S. Air Force, and Retired Air Force Technical Sgt. Michael Neri finished their seasons by working on Boehm’s title-winning HPD Civic and celebrating the TC championship. In GT America, Brandon Mateo, Retired – Army National Guard Master Sgt., spent his first season working with OpMo and in SRO America by being part of Moses’ crew. OpMo offered opportunities for returning veterans in other positions within the series, including scrutineering, race operations, marketing support, and numerous team functions.

Throughout the season, all three – and other beneficiaries – carried on the OpMo mantra of “Recovery Through Motorsports #OneAtATime.”

In addition to helping place veterans into some of its race team operations during the last three seasons, CrowdStrike has celebrated a long-term partnership with OpMo that will support the goal to professionalize the organization so that it may better serve the military service member community and increase the number of beneficiaries in the program.

Key features of the partnership will include:

  • Multi-year donation of $400,000, paid through the CrowdStrike Foundation
  • Future employee volunteer opportunities at the Patriot Corral at SRO Motorsports Group events
  • Future employee skills-based volunteer opportunities to support OpMo program needs
  • Future mentorship opportunities for CrowdStrike employees paired with OpMo beneficiaries 
  • Future internship opportunities for OpMo beneficiaries 
  • Future scholarship opportunities for beneficiaries to pursue higher education focused on cybersecurity

About CrowdStrike

CROWDSTRIKE RACING

At CrowdStrike, we believe racing and cybersecurity go hand in hand. Whether we’re racing or defending our customers, winning performance is measured in seconds—and a refusal to accept second place. Staying ahead of threats on and off the track takes relentless innovation, extraordinary feats of engineering, and a team equipped with a shared sense of responsibility. 

When every second counts, CrowdStrike’s industry-leading protection doesn’t slow you down. It fuels your momentum.

CROWDSTRIKE

CrowdStrike (Nasdaq: CRWD), a global cybersecurity leader, has redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk — endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data.

Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud and world-class AI, the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence, evolving adversary tradecraft and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities. Purpose-built in the cloud with a single lightweight-agent architecture, the Falcon platform delivers rapid and scalable deployment, superior protection and performance, reduced complexity and immediate time-to-value.

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Media Contact

Danielle Crespo, Sr. Racing Program Manager, CrowdStrike

danielle@crowdstrike.com