Cybersecurity Company CrowdStrike, CEO George Kurtz Complete First Year as Official PWC Sponsor

Sunnyvale, Calif. — George Kurtz, co-founder and CEO of cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, has completed his Pirelli World Challenge (PWC) race season and will close out the year with one more big motorsport event in California. The 2017 PWC champion of the GTSA class competed with a CrowdStrike-branded car in the nationwide sportscar racing series throughout the year, earning four top-five finishes over 17 rounds. Racing is just one facet of CrowdStrike’s involvement with motorsports, and its sponsorship achievements as the 2018 Official Series Sponsor and Cybersecurity Provider for the PWC are just as notable as Kurtz’ second full year of racing.

KURTZ’ SPRINT AND SPRINTX CAMPAIGN
From the PWC season opener in St. Petersburg, Kurtz set out to make a fast impression. He was the quickest GTSA driver to qualify in that weekend’s first race, starting his SprintX season with a pole position. Over the course of the next nine race weekends, he strove to hone in on the perfect setup for the Audi R8 LMS GT4 with help from Global Motorsports Group (GMG Racing). For half his weekends, Kurtz competed in the two-driver “SprintX” format, where he and successful racer Colin Braun would make a pit stop midway through the race to exchange driving duties. Overall, the No. 04 CrowdStrike/GMG Racing Audi R8 was one of the top 10 finishers in its class in 11 PWC races.

CROWDSTRIKE’S MOTORSPORT PARTNERSHIPS
CrowdStrike is the leader in cloud-delivered endpoint protection. It was just awarded its own top-10 achievement, earning sixth place on the Forbes 2018 Cloud 100, the definitive list of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world. The Silicon Valley-based cybersecurity company has exploded in growth over the past year and now serves over 20 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Its inaugural year of partnership with PWC has been rewarding, with multiple partnerships forged over the course of the series’ races in key North American markets.

Kurtz showcased the CrowdStrike brand across the United States and Canada at PWC races throughout the season. The red and silver CrowdStrike-branded Audi was part of the company’s larger partnership with PWC as its official series sponsor and cybersecurity provider. CrowdStrike enjoyed deep immersion with the sportscar series, which often shared race weekends with IndyCar, and its partners, using the events to host a number of CXO Summits. The company’s falcon logo was emblazoned on all series drivers’ suits, on the winners’ podium and across the series’ collateral.

CROWDSTRIKE’S “CXO SUMMITS” BRING RACING AND BUSINESS TOGETHER
At CrowdStrike’s CXO Summits, key innovators and leaders in cybersecurity were invited to attend spectacular events during PWC race weekends. Guests participated in CrowdStrike-led conferences to discuss the biggest global problems in security today before enjoying all-access hospitality at the racetrack and private, upscale wine dinner events in the evenings. Sponsors like AWS and LaSalle Solutions were on hand to bring key guests to contribute to roundtable conversations.

The celebration of the race season concluded not far from the home office. CrowdStrike hosted a CXO Summit and weekend of entertainment in the California wine country as part of the IndyCar season finale at Sonoma Raceway. Guests from the Bay Area and beyond enjoyed incredible private dining events at awarded wineries, resort-style accommodations and a private race viewing suite at the center of it all — right on the start-finish line of the raceway. Though the PWC season itself ended just before this event, the IndyCar weekend presented a fitting wrap-up to a successful Sprint and SprintX season.

CLOSING OUT 2018
Next, Kurtz will race in the SRO Intercontinental GT Challenge California 8 Hours presented by Pirelli World Challenge, an endurance race to be held at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in late October. There, he’ll compete with the father-son team, Bryan and Colton Herta, in the team’s Hyundai i30 N TCR. This will be the North American endurance debut for this Hyundai and Kurtz’ first time racing at this unique event. The final CXO Summit of the 2018 race season will be held at the track and in nearby Monterey and Carmel.

Follow along with George Kurtz and CrowdStrike on social media: on Twitter at @crowdstrikercng and Instagram @crowdstrikeracing. Race videos, photos and news updates can be found at crowdstrikeracing.com.

About CrowdStrike®
CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity technology company, is the leader in cloud-delivered endpoint protection. Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform offers instant visibility and protection across the enterprise and prevents attacks on endpoints on or off the network. CrowdStrike Falcon deploys in minutes to deliver actionable intelligence and real-time protection from Day One. It seamlessly unifies next-generation AV with best-in-class endpoint detection and response, backed by 24/7 managed hunting. Its cloud infrastructure and single-agent architecture take away complexity and add scalability, manageability, and speed.
There’s much more to the story of how Falcon has redefined endpoint protection but there’s only one thing to remember about CrowdStrike: We stop breaches.

Learn more: https://www.crowdstrike.com
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© 2018 CrowdStrike, Inc. All rights reserved. CrowdStrike®, CrowdStrike Falcon®, are among the trademarks of CrowdStrike, Inc. Other brands may be third-party trademarks.

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Photos: SSP, DSOTM