Kurtz collected a Rolex as LMP2 champion with Alex Quinn. The Trueman Award was worth more: a Le Mans invitation with his own name on it. (Photo: IMSA)
The Rolex watches got the photo op. The more useful prize from IMSA’s 2026 season was a two-line entry on a list published in France: two amateur drivers, by name, already holding tickets to the 2027 24 Hours of Le Mans before most teams have even filed an entry.
IMSA named George Kurtz, Bronze-rated co-driver of the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07, as winner of the Jim Trueman Award, and Orey Fidani of the No. 13 13 Autosport Corvette Z06 GT3.R as winner of the Bob Akin Bronze Cup Award at its WeatherTech Night of Champions following Motul Petit Le Mans. The Automobile Club de l’Ouest then listed both men among the first seven invitations to the 95th running of the 24 Hours, set for June 9–13, 2027: Kurtz in LMP2, Fidani in LMGT3. The other five went to European Le Mans Series teams.
Note that word: teams. The ELMS invitations are attached to entrants. The IMSA ones are attached to drivers. That one detail explains most of what these awards are for.
What the Trueman and Akin awards actually reward
Both trophies go to the top-scoring Bronze-rated driver in their class: LMP2 for the Trueman, GTD for the Akin. Bronze is the bottom tier of the FIA driver categorization, the gentleman-driver rating, and IMSA named the awards after two businessmen who raced. Per IMSA, Jim Trueman founded Red Roof Inns, owned Mid-Ohio and ran Truesports, whose team won the 1986 Indianapolis 500 with Bobby Rahal; Trueman died of cancer 11 days later. Bob Akin ran Hudson Wire Co., won the Sebring 12 Hours in 1979 and 1986, took the 1986 IMSA GTP title and went into the IMSA Hall of Fame in 2025.
The Le Mans link is real and documented. IMSA confirmed that the 2023 winners, Kurtz and Brendan Iribe, raced Le Mans in 2024 on their invitations. The 2024 winners, Nick Boulle and Fidani, earned 2025 entries; the 2025 pair, PJ Hyett and Fidani, went in 2026. The honor roll is short and repetitive:
- 2023: Kurtz (Trueman), Iribe (Akin)
- 2024: Boulle (Trueman), Fidani (Akin)
- 2025: Hyett (Trueman), Fidani (Akin)
- 2026: Kurtz (Trueman), Fidani (Akin)
Four years, five names. That isn’t a quirk. The pool of full-season Bronze drivers in IMSA’s two pro-am classes is small, and the ones who stick around tend to be the ones who own, fund or run the program.
Kurtz’s 2026 was not a cameo
It’s easy to file a tech CEO with a liveried prototype under expensive hobby. Kurtz’s year makes that lazy. He opened with an LMP2 win at the Rolex 24, a race IMSA notes he had lost by 0.016 seconds in 2023 and 6.8 seconds in 2024. This one came after a first-corner incident, two unscheduled repair stops and a stop penalty. Two weeks later he clinched the Asian Le Mans Series LMP2 title with Malthe Jakobsen, which delivered the No. 4 car’s automatic 2026 Le Mans entry.
At Le Mans he, Alex Quinn and Laurin Heinrich won LMP2 Pro/Am, his second Le Mans class win after 2023. At Road Atlanta, Quinn held off Tom Dillmann by 0.666 seconds to win the class and seal the LMP2 driver, team and Endurance Cup titles. The provisional final standings show Kurtz and Quinn on 2,322 points against Jeremy Clarke and Dillmann’s 2,302. IMSA says Kurtz is the first driver to win the Trueman twice.
“This is incredibly special because it was really a team effort,” Kurtz said after the race, in IMSA’s report.
The structural point: in IMSA’s LMP2 class the Bronze is not a passenger. Heading to Road Atlanta, IMSA listed Clarke, Kurtz, Daniel Goldburg and Hyett as the Trueman candidates. Those were also the drivers in the four cars still chasing the title. For three straight seasons (Boulle, Hyett, Kurtz) the Trueman winner has also been the LMP2 champion. In this class the amateur’s stints decide the championship.
Fidani has turned the Akin into a habit
Fidani’s win is his third straight. IMSA’s 13 Autosport release puts his Akin total at 3,110 points, 1,580 of them from Endurance Cup rounds, 10 clear of Iribe’s No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari. It was tight all year. After eight rounds Iribe led by 20, with Iribe stronger in the sprints and Fidani in the long races. Fidani went to Road Atlanta 30 points up, and Iribe needed to finish two Bronze positions ahead of him.
It’s a GTD story, not a headline-results story. The No. 13 shared fifth in the overall GTD driver standings with Matt Bell, 16 points ahead of Iribe. The team’s best 2026 finish was third at Indianapolis, and it came back to fourth at Daytona after a practice fire. The real result is in the margins. The Akin rewards a Bronze who keeps the car out of trouble for a full season, which is less glamorous than a pole lap and more valuable to whoever is paying for the car. (For the wider GTD picture, see how a Ferrari customer-team collision decided the Endurance Cup.)
Le Mans owes him one. In June the No. 13 retired after an accident triggered by damage from another car. The 2027 trip is a do-over, and the program behind it isn’t going anywhere. Fidani has taken over the team and is building a shop in Mississauga, Ontario, with Bell confirmed full-time and Lars Kern for the endurance rounds. “I’m planning to be around for a long time,” Fidani said.
Why IMSA hands out Le Mans tickets to amateurs
This part is analysis. Pro-am sports car racing runs on the Bronze. The pros are on salary; the Bronze is often the reason the car is on the grid at all, as owner, sponsor or both. Kurtz’s prototype carries his company’s name. Fidani is now the man signing the lease on the shop. Take those drivers out and you lose the entries, the crew jobs and the customer-car sales that keep LMP2 and GTD viable.
A guaranteed Le Mans invitation is a cheap way for IMSA to reward them. The ACO gives up the slot, and the invitation spares a privateer the selection-committee lottery for a crowded grid. It also gives a Bronze a reason to run a full IMSA season instead of picking off the endurance rounds. In a season when Cadillac clinched GTP before the green flag, the pro-am titles still went to the last lap, and that is not a coincidence.
What to watch next
- Whether CrowdStrike Racing by APR also chases the Asian Le Mans Series again. The ACO says more invitations follow that season, which starts Nov. 13.
- Fidani’s bid for a fourth straight Akin in 2027, with Iribe the obvious threat after losing two straight at the final round.
- Jeremy Clarke, 20 points short of the LMP2 title and the only other Bronze who took the fight to Road Atlanta, as the next Trueman favorite.
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