Crowdstrike Founder/Owner Leads LMP2 Standings for Bronze Drivers; Brendan Iribe Heads up Akin Award Points in GTD
By Jeff Olson
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – George Kurtz sees the similarities between himself and Jim Trueman as motivation to pursue the award named after the legendary former race team owner.
Like Kurtz, Trueman was an entrepreneur who turned his success in business into success in racing. Like Kurtz, Trueman had some major race victories on the international stage.
Kurtz (shown at right) currently leads the standings for the Trueman Award, which goes to the top finisher in points among Bronze-rated drivers in the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Trueman parlayed his success as founder of Red Roof Inns into a second career as a driver and team owner. He drove sports cars and Can-Am cars for nearly two decades, winning a pair of SCCA national championships. He purchased Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 1982 and the family owned it for nearly 30 years. His race team, Truesports, won the 1986 Indianapolis 500 with Bobby Rahal. A cancer-stricken Trueman drank the winner’s milk alongside Rahal in victory lane and died 11 days later.
“(Trueman) used his success to help lots of people and certainly was able to push motorsports forward,” said Kurtz, co-founder and CEO of cybersecurity company CrowdStrike and co-driver of the No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07 that leads the LMP2 overall season standings. “If you look at what we do at CrowdStrike and how we’ve been successful in motorsports in various areas … there’s certainly a lot of similarities.”
Like Kurtz, the leader in the standings for the other Bronze-rated driver award is a major figure in the tech world. Brendan Iribe, co-founder and former CEO of Oculus VR Inc. and Scaleform, is pursuing the Bob Akin Award, which goes to the highest points finisher among Bronze drivers in the GT Daytona (GTD) class. In addition to leading the Akin standings, Iribe (shown at left) and No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 co-driver Frederik Schandorff are fourth in GTD season points.
With three LMP2 races and four GTD races remaining in the WeatherTech Championship season, Kurtz has a 90-point lead over Ben Keating (No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA) in the Trueman standings. Iribe leads Alan Brynjolfsson (No. 77 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R) by 130 points in the battle for the Akin Award.
Both awards secure an invitation to race in the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans. Kurtz was part of the winning Algarve Pro Racing team last month at Le Mans in LMP2 ProAm with co-drivers Colin Braun and James Allen.
“It was a magical Le Mans for us, with the first time being there and being able to get the win in pretty difficult conditions,” Kurtz said. “The ability to win (the Trueman Award) and guarantee ourselves the Le Mans entry is a big prize. It’s super prestigious to be able to do that.
“What the award embodies is really special. If we could get a guaranteed Le Mans entry, that would be the icing on the cake.”
Akin, a standout IMSA driver in the 1970s and ‘80s, won the Twelve Hours of Sebring in 1979 and 1986, when he also claimed the World Endurance Championship. He died after being injured in a vintage race at Road Atlanta in 2002.
The awards journey for Kurtz and Iribe continues next week with the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Live coverage of the race begins at 11 a.m. ET Sunday, Aug. 6 on USA Network.