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Kostecki Brothers Racing has successfully shaken down its newly re-skinned ZB Commodore which will contest this year’s Pirtek Enduro Cup.
The Queensland based team has been working on converting a Super2 VF Commodore into a current ZB Commodore for Brodie and Jake Kostecki to drive in the upcoming three enduro events.
After months of work, the car logged its first miles in its new ZB configuration at the Norwell Motorplex on the Gold Coast.
The squad had to seek permission from Supercars to conduct a 60km shakedown given the car is not actually a new chassis.
Both Brodie and Jake jumped behind the wheel of the car, logging 46km in total.
“It’s a 60km day but we stopped short at 46km. We were happy with what we got through and did some driver changes and just double-checked out the mechanical side of things,” said Brodie Kostecki.
“I’m pretty happy with how the whole car ran today. It’s full steam ahead to the first test day in a few weeks.
“We had to ask for permission to do this day because of the conversion and also the 2019 ECU rollout.
“Super2 run under 2018 rules for that area of the car, so it was quite a bit job overhauling the whole config inside the car, so we wanted to make sure it all worked.
“It was just to try and make sure all of that worked before the first test day.
“We actually had a really good day. We had one little issue this morning with power steering, but it was sort of rectified straight away.
“It took about five minutes to sort out and then we were back straight on track.”
Having spent countless man hours preparing the car with limited resources at KBR, Kostecki admitted it was an emotional moment seeing the car complete its first laps.
“It was really exciting to see; it was almost teary seeing it come to life,” added Brodie.
“Kurt (Kostecki, Brodie’s cousin, workshop crew member) was here as well today, he ran the car for the day, in charge of that, and it was pretty good to get through the day with no issues after such a big family effort.”
The team is now set to conduct two full test days at Queensland Raceway before the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 (October 10-13) enduro cup opener, where the car will be backed by Boost Mobile.
“We’ve been granted two test days with our tyre bank prior to Bathurst,” he said.
“We can choose any track in Australia, but I think we’re going to lock down Queensland Raceway for both days.
“I know that the 30th of this month will be locked in, joining Triple Eight, Penske and Matt Stone Racing, and we’re going to try and do a day prior to that, just to get a handle on this aero package and a better understanding for it.”
KBR is not the only wildcard set to feature at the Great Race with Walkinshaw Andretti United fielding a Holden for IndyCar stars Alexander Rossi and James Hinchcliffe.
