Brodie Kostecki has paid tribute to the Egglestons and Paul Morris for their critical roles in his road to Supercars glory.
It means that tomorrow he will officially be crowned champion after just his third full season in the Repco Supercars Championship, all three of which have been spent at Erebus Motorsport.
The relationship between Erebus and Kostecki formally began in 2020, when he was signed up as Anton De Pasquale’s co-driver for the Bathurst 1000.
However, there is another team which played a pivotal role in his rise to Supercars superstar that year, namely Eggleston Motorsport.
“At the end of 2019, when I finished up racing with my family [Kostecki Brothers Racing], doing the wildcards, I honestly had nothing organised for 2020,” recalled Kostecki.
“I called Ben and Rachael and said, ‘I don’t really have any money, and I don’t have a place to stay either, so I want to go racing, but obviously, it costs money.’
“But, they were really good to me and gave me an opportunity and obviously I was able to come here in 2020 and win in Adelaide.
“I got signed with Erebus that year to co-drive with Anton and that sort of kicked off my career, and that all falls back to just having good people around me.”
Morris has been another major figure in Kostecki’s career, mentoring ‘Bush’ for several years now.
“Paul Morris has been a massive part of my career,” he added.
“He’s guided me through this year and always seems to call me right at the right times, which is pretty cool.
“I just I have a really good support system around me, which has been really beneficial to make good decisions and not make bad ones.”
Kostecki has also developed a close friendship with van Gisbergen over the years, with this season being their last together in Supercars before the New Zealander moves to NASCAR next year.
Van Gisbergen was always an outside chance once he arrived at Adelaide at 131 points in arrears, but his hopes were essentially dashed as soon as he was unable to avoid a collision with the other Erebus entry of Will Brown on Lap 1 of Race 27.
“Shane is someone I looked up to when I was racing the junior categories and he’s probably one of the best drivers in the world,” said Kostecki, who finished sixth on the day.
“He’s got a really good racing brain and understands how everything works, and we’ve seen so many great races with Shane.
“He’s been great for this sport and I’m going to follow him quite closely when it goes over to America.
“It’s unfortunate what happened to him today to not have the championship go to tomorrow, but it’s just one of those things, and I look forward to seeing what he does in the future.”
Erebus’ next task, beyond rebuilding Brown’s #9 Coca-Cola Camaro overnight, is to try and win the teams’ championship also.
It will take a 161-point lead over Triple Eight Race Engineering into Race 28 with a maximum 288 on offer.
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