Cook Wins Kelly Moss Female Driver Shootout, Full-Time Drive

Sabre Cook has won Kelly Moss’ female driver shootout, securing a full-season seat in one of the team’s Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars in Porsche Carrera Cup North America presented by The Cayman Islands next year.

Cook was one of three finalists to have taken part in the shootout at Putnam Park last month, beating Sarah Montgomery and Loni Unser for the coveted prize.

“When it came to making the final decision, Sabre has an incredible amount of experience,” said team co-owner Victoria Thomnas. “She is definitively an athlete.

“And with her engineering background, her ability to articulate what’s happening with the car and be able to understand what that means and how to read the data, we feel like it really gives us a leg up.

“And with that, the enthusiasm with the announcement of Sabre is equaled by the enthusiasm that has been picked up by the awareness we’ve raised.”

Cook, a national and international go-kart champion who stood on the podium competing in the W Series, is also a mechanical engineer who earned her degree at Colorado School of the Mines.

She was selected to the Infiniti Engineering Academy in 2019, earning the chance to work in an engineering capacity for Infiniti in England.

That led to a technical position at the Renault Formula 1 team before her ‘driver’ instincts convinced her to accept a chance to compete full-time in the W Series.

“Having the opportunity to run a full season in a series like Porsche Carrera Cup with a top team is an opportunity I’ve never had the blessing to do before,” Cook said.

“To have such a great program for success is honestly everything I’ve been working towards for a while, and I’m really happy it’s all come together and I’m really excited to see what we can do together.”

The funding for Cook’s 2023 season includes all 16 races, multiple tests, race entry fees, plus all the must-haves from tires and fuel to the Kelly-Moss championship team of engineers and technical experts.

Thomas said was so impressed by the work of Unser and Montgomery at the shootout that she hopes there may be other opportunities with the team for at least one of them in the future.

“When one went on track, the others were like, ‘You’ve got this,’” Thomas said. “They truly believe that together they are stronger. It’s such a difference.

“We chose to invite women who have shown they can compete at the level necessary.

“We feel the Kelly Moss pedigree, with 35 national championships under our belt, truly gives the support necessary to break the barrier of the first female-owned-team, female-pro-driver championship in motorsports history.”

Among those who provided input was Lyn St. James, the two-time Rolex 24 At Daytona winner, 1990 class winner at the Twelve Hours of Sebring and 1992 Indianapolis 500 rookie of the year.

IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship driver Katherine Legge, Porsche Carrera Cup driver Riley Dickinson and longtime motorsports journalist Jeremy Shaw helped with evaluations as well.

Holly Cain/IMSA NewsWire contributed to this report