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Kostecki Brothers Racing is working “full gangbusters” to prepare for its Pirtek Enduro Cup wildcard after a confidence-inspiring pre-Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 test day.
The family-run team joined the Shell V-Power Racing Team, Red Bull Holden Racing Team, and Matt Stone Racing at Queensland Raceway on Monday, where cousins Brodie and Jake Kostecki shared the team’s recently converted ZB Commodore.
KBR normally competes in the Dunlop Super2 Series and with a full-time workshop crew of four, including the drivers themselves, the task of stepping up to the biggest events in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship is an enormous one.
Brodie Kostecki says that scale of the exercise will probably only become fully apparent once the car is loaded for its trip to Mount Panorama from this Sunday morning.
“I think it’ll definitely sink in once we get the car loaded into the truck for the final time,” he told Speedcafe.com.
“I think we’ll definitely have to sit down for a bit and understand how big this is for us and how lucky we are to be able to do this.
“But right now, it’s just full gangbusters at the workshop trying to make sure that everything gets done and the car’s a hundred percent going into the mountain.”
The chassis which the Kosteckis will race in the Pirtek Enduro Cup first turned a wheel in its ZB specification at a shakedown at the start of September.
Its outing at Queensland Raceway was therefore KBR’s only pre-Bathurst 1000 test, but Brodie says the day has left the team confident ahead of its tilt at the Great Race.
“We had a pretty big test plan to go through, and try and understand the ZB from the VF that we’ve been running,” he explained.
“We got plenty of data from the day and Jake and myself got plenty of laps and plenty of pit stop practice, so all in all it was a good day, no issues, and got through our full plan.
“I think we’ve got everything sorted as far as car-wise and sort of preparation for the crew, and just all the small little bits and pieces that you don’t see on TV, (such as) the brake changes and stuff like that, so I’m pretty confident about all that part.
“I think it’ll just be all the small things like when it comes time to do a driver change, just to make sure that we don’t forget all the important stuff, and just little things like that, that Jake and I will have to be on top of, but I’m pretty confident going in.”
Unusually, KBR will contest all three enduro events, with backing from Boost Mobile for the Bathurst 1000.
It will be joined at Mount Panorama by a Walkinshaw Andretti United wildcard for Alexander Rossi and James Hinchcliffe, the former of whom is cutting laps at Winton today in the first of three days of testing for the IndyCar stars.
Practice starts at Bathurst on Thursday, October 10.
