SUNNYVALE, Calif. – CrowdStrike Racing opened its season of SRO Motorsports America competition in stellar style with four weekend victories in six races at its home racetrack of Sonoma Raceway.
CrowdStrike drivers George Kurtz and Colin Braun scored a victory in the premier Fanatec GT World Challenge America Powered by AWS series in the second of two 90-minute races in the No. 04 CrowdStrike/AWS/DXDT Mercedes-AMG GT3. It was their fourth victory together in the last 10 races dating back to June.
The win was one of three on the weekend for Kurtz, who swept both rounds of the new GT America Powered by AWS. CrowdStrike Racing’s Kevin Boehm also won during his debut in the TC category of the Touring Car America Powered by Skip Barber Racing Schools.
Victories in three different categories on the weekend set a new standard for CrowdStrike Racing, which faced plenty of adversaries throughout the weekend – both in the form of competitors and in-race circumstances. But all came away with the best weekend in program history.
It’s not dissimilar to how CrowdStrike allows its customers to stay resilient in the rapidly evolving world of cybersecurity. In that sense, CrowdStrike teams up with its customers with one goal: stopping breaches. Success means the groups “Win as One.”
The Sonoma weekend marked the beginning of CrowdStrike’s fourth season of commercial participation in SRO America. As the Official Internet and Cloud Security Provider for Fanatec GT World Challenge America Powered by AWS, CrowdStrike has a platform to showcase its selection of security tools in a highly coveted environment.
CrowdStrike supplies its award-winning CrowdStrike Falcon® platform to all SRO worldwide entities, equipping them with world-class endpoint and cloud workload protection for its resources and assets. The Falcon is also the dominant feature on all CrowdStrike Racing entries in SRO America competition, another point of leverage that racing provides to tell the CrowdStrike story.
THE EVENT EXPERIENCE
The Sonoma weekend continued the commercial link-up between CrowdStrike and AWS, which again are combining to host their popular CXO summits in 2021, though events without spectators are hosted virtually. From Sonoma, an invited group of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) – led by CrowdStrike president Shawn Henry and Angelo Comazzetto, principal of AWS’ Office of the CISO – discussed a number of online threats and adversaries that cybersecurity companies face on a daily basis.
It is that type of leadership that led SRO Motorsports America to name CrowdStrike as Official Internet and Cloud Security Provider for Fanatec GT World Challenge America Powered by AWS. With its suite of Internet and cloud security tools – including the award-winning Falcon platform – CrowdStrike and SRO are set to “Win As One” throughout the season against online threats.
That expertise pairs with that of AWS, which is the Global Official Cloud Provider, Global Official Machine Learning Provider and Global Technology Provider of SRO Motorsports. That involvement elevates AWS to a unique position to help SRO with logistics, data collection and cloud storage – the latter a key team-up area for AWS and CrowdStrike.
Among the benefits to fans is the unique “Race Vision” program, powered by AWS. It allows the series to display performance data from cars on the track in the form of informational graphics to fans on SRO America’s event live streams or television broadcasts on CBS Sports Network. At Sonoma, fans were able to track the highest straight-line and cornering speeds in each race throughout the weekend.
TOURING CAR AMERICA
A year after winning TCA Championship, Rookie of the Year and six races, Boehm transitioned nicely into the TC America powered by Skip Barber Racing School category with a victory and another podium finish in his first race weekend with the No. 9 CrowdStrike/AWS/DXDT Racing HPD Civic Type R TC. The results came with an added benefit: he leads the TC Drivers Championship after the first weekend.
The TC category of Touring Car America traditionally is one of the most competitive in all of SRO Motorsports America, which makes Boehm’s debut in the class that much more impressive. He started and ran most of Saturday’s 40-minute race in second place but took the lead on a late-race restart with six minutes remaining before ending up third in his first TC race.
On Sunday, it all went right for Boehm from the start. From second place, he jumped to the lead at the start and just before a full-course caution on the opening lap. After circulating for more than 20 minutes behind the safety car, Boehm reasserted himself immediately. He led by 1.4 seconds on the first lap following the restart and grew that lead toward the end of the race. He eventually won by 7.7 seconds.
"It's all down to teamwork,” Boehm said. “When we got here, the car wasn't really suited to this track. Every time we went out there, we put our heads together and we came up with a plan. The final race here is a perfect example of not giving up and working together as a team. That's how you eventually get the results. I'm definitely surprised it came that quick. I didn't expect that race at all, but the car just felt amazing the whole time."
OPERATION MOTORSPORT
One of the keys to the successes of the CrowdStrike Racing programs at Sonoma were the contributions from Operation Motorsport beneficiaries. A not-for-profit, OpMo provides a chance for veterans 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.
For the Sonoma weekend, CrowdStrike Racing hosted four service members as part of its ranks. Staff Sgt. William Babineau (Ret.) and Staff Sgt. Katrina Williams were part of the effort on the No. 04 CrowdStrike/AWS/DXDT Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3. In TC America, Sgt Cody Reinecker (Ret.) and OpMo newcomer Chief Master Sergeant (Ret.) Craig Neri each helped to crew Boehm’s No. 9 CrowdStrike/AWS/DXDT HPD Civic Type R TC.
It continued a proud tradition of CrowdStrike supporting veterans and the Operation Motorsport program. Two OpMo beneficiaries were part of Boehm’s TCA championship campaign in 2020. CrowdStrike also is a proud part of American Corporate Partners (ACP), which provides CrowdStrike mentors for service members looking to transition to the private sector.
In addition, CrowdStrike is a partner with HireMilitary to provide meaningful internship experiences to service members exiting the military via the DoD SkillBridge program.
CrowdStrike Racing’s next GT World Challenge race weekend is April 30-May 2 at Circuit of The Americas near Austin, Texas. Find the complete schedule, news, and more at https://www.crowdstrikeracing.com.