Kurtz kicked off the weekend with a victory Saturday in GT America. He started from pole position in the No. 04 CrowdStrike/AWS Mercedes after posting the fastest qualifying time on his final lap of the session.
The early portion of Race One was a little closer than Kurtz would have liked with a gap of less than a second over the second-place entry before a full-course caution nine minutes into the race.
Kurtz picked up his momentum again from qualifying when the race went green again by jumping out to a 2.5-second lead on the first lap after the restart. He increased his lead to eight seconds with 10 minutes to go and set the CrowdStrike Fastest Lap of the Race in the process. He won by 9.740 seconds.
Things were a little more tense in Race Two. Kurtz again began from pole and held a slim lead through the first 10 minutes before he came up on a large pack of slower GT4 cars. He navigated the traffic to retain his lead, but the second-place car made contact with a GT4 car while trying to stay with Kurtz. The other driver served a penalty for contact, and all of a sudden, Kurtz led by more than two seconds.
The gap grew to more than three seconds before a late-race, full-course caution period that bunched up the field again for the final two racing laps. Kurtz held steady and won by 0.595 seconds. The two wins on the weekend gives three on the season and first place in the Drivers Championship.
“It’s important to clear traffic, particularly if you build up a lead because it can evaporate quickly,” Kurtz explained. “We did a good job of getting through the traffic and gapped our competitors.
“The most important thing is getting the tires ready to go,” he added. “We had a lot of safety cars this weekend and we kept the tires clean, which is important on this track, which I love. The CrowdStrike Riley guys gave me a great car, just like they have all season.”
Meanwhile, Moses enjoyed two clean, trouble-free races in his No. 58 CrowdStrike/AWS Audi R8 LMS GT2. It was the first event for Moses in GT America since the season-opener at St. Petersburg, and he made it count.
Moses qualified eighth on the overall grid but started Race One from pitlane. Despite being mired behind slower machinery, Moses calmly and quickly worked his way past 18 GT4 cars without incident and got around a GT3 entry to finish seventh overall.
Race Two was a more traditional run with Moses beginning the race eighth. Another faultless run netted him two positions to sixth place at the end – again without issue while a handful of other cars had incidents of their own.
“It’s such a good feeling to drive a fast car around a place like VIR,” Moses said. “It’s a track that’s even more enjoyable in a car like the Audi GT2. It felt really strong all weekend, and I was pleased with the performance in traffic during Saturday’s race. It wasn’t great starting from the pitlane but in hindsight, I learned a lot about racecraft and dealing with slower cars. I have three more races this season, and if they’re all as smooth as this weekend then it will be a successful season.”