Brodie Kostecki’s route to the very top of Australian motorsport has not only been unconventional but is also a story of huge courage and determination.
It’s a story that deserves telling, in a small way, today.
When measured against the security and stability of the lives of recent past champions, such as Jamie Whincup, Scotty McLaughlin, and Shane van Gisbergen, Brodie’s recent years have been far tougher. He’s had to be very resourceful and resilient since he returned to Australia from his stint in the USA.
Brodie started his Supercars career in an old Super2 Falcon back in 2017 whilst his cousins, Jake and Kurt, were in ex-Triple Eight VF Commodores. He learned the basics of Supercar racing as well as some of the tracks, but not that much else.
Then, in 2018, he joined the family Super2 team with Jake and Kurt and spent his non-racing hours working on both his car and those of his cousins. Now, with good equipment and using his own skill sets, he worked his way to the pointy end of the grid, winning on the streets of Newcastle at the end of the year in what was a self-prepared car. Brodie finished the year fifth in the points standing and easily the best Kostecki.
Over the summer of 2018/19, when most of Brodie’s contemporaries were out on their jet skis, Brodie was working hard preparing young Ryan McNamara’s sprintcar. He’d picked up plenty of expertise in the sprintcar world as a mechanic by that time and he put it to good use with Ryan.
He was also sleeping on floors wherever he could find somewhere, including many nights with the McNamara household. That’s Ken and Wendy Mac, who own and run KRE Race Engines, sole suppliers of the Chevrolet Camaro power plant to the Gen3 Supercars programme.
Into 2019, with Kurt Kostecki now at Triple Eight, the call was made after Round 2 by the family team that Brodie would stand down from driving in Super2 whilst his car was converted into a ZB Commodore in order to compete as a wildcard entry in the Bathurst 1000.
So, Brodie was tasked with doing the bulk of the work in building up the facelifted car for he and Jake to drive at Mount Panorama. No mean feat.
By this time, I’d come across Brodie whilst he was working with Ryan McNamara and around the paddock a few times so, with input from Paul Morris, I decided to give him an opportunity to do a test for Triple Eight at Queensland Raceway around mid-2019. The test day was a success and Brodie did exactly what was asked of him.
But there was one issue. And that was that Brodie was simply too big to be taken seriously as a professional Supercar driver going forward. I told him in words of one syllable my opinion.
And to his eternal credit, he reacted immediately and put his head down to lose weight and be ready for Bathurst. He lost around 30kg and also got stuck into training.
Come Bathurst, Brodie was looking much sharper. Unfortunately, a cool box malfunction and subsequent inhalation of carbon dioxide on the way to the grid didn’t start the day well and he and Jake DNF’d. But not without learning a great deal.
As 2020 loomed, Brodie had nothing on the table. The family team had been disbanded post-Bathurst 2019 and he was left with no programme, apart from couch surfing.
Enter Paul Morris and the Egglestons.
Paul persuaded Ben and Rachael to give Brodie an opportunity in one of their Super2 cars, on the basis that he’d earn his drive through helping Ben with the preparation of the cars. This wasn’t some young bloke coming through the door with a swag of dollars to buy a seat.
This was an unemployed mechanic with an aptitude for thorough race car preparation who was so keen to prove himself as a driver that he’d sleep on any floor, drive any shitbox, and go to whichever corner of the country he needed to at the drop of a hat if it even smelt like half an opportunity.
At the first Round in Adelaide, Brodie duly won two of the three Super2 races. And then COVID hit.
In the ensuing weeks of uncertainty, Brodie would travel between the Egglestons and the Morris enclave when borders allowed, sleeping rough if he had to. That was a time when the Norwell Motorplex became our social club with the focus on building and testing Hyundai Excels.
We had a memorable road trip in June 2020 down to Sydney Motorsport Park where Broc Feeney and Nash Morris raced their Excels. Brodie was a part of the support team as lead mechanic, race engineer, and tyre man. In fact, he was pretty much everything apart from my chauffeur. That was Broc.
And when Victoria decided to close up completely, Brodie stayed in Queensland with Paul, famously arriving with all his worldly goods in two bin liners.
He and Nash then built a brand-new Excel that debuted at the Townsville street race in September. A couple of podiums later and the car was sold for a record price for an Excel at the time! That helped keep Brodie in shoes for a little while.
One of the greatest achievements of the Supercars management at the time was enabling the Bathurst 1000 to run that year, given the COVID-induced obstacles. And Brodie was given a break by Barry Ryan at Erebus.
He co-drove with Anton de Pasquale in one of the Erebus entries and famously diced with Jamie Whincup early in the race showing that he wasn’t fazed in the least by going head-to-head with the GOAT, who came off worst on the day.
The #99 car went on to finish ninth that day and in doing so, slightly nudged open a door for Brodie that would eventually lead him to his Supercars Championship.
With both Anton and David Reynolds leaving the team at year end, and Will Brown already slotted into one seat, there was an opportunity.
Here’s where Paul Morris played a huge role. Whilst Barry Ryan was prepared to consider having two rookies in the Erebus Supercars team in 2021, Betty Klimenko wasn’t. Until Paul worked his charm and persuaded her to give Brodie a chance.
Betty, to her credit, understands as much as anyone just how important it is to be given a break in life. And she gave Brodie that break.
The rest is recent history.
Gen3 gave Brodie an opportunity like no other. He could use his adaptability, his experience from driving all sorts of often substandard cars, and his mechanical ability to get the most from the new car whilst many others floundered.
He also demonstrated that he’s got a real racing brain on track, rarely getting involved in marginal situations that could result in penalties or a DNF, whilst all the time reading the shape of the race. That’s how championships are won.
His Larry Perkins-like engineering understanding was a vital ingredient to his success this year, but in this day and age you also need sheer outright pace to win. Like Brodie showed by taking two poles on the streets of Adelaide last weekend.
In only his third season, Brodie has beaten many drivers who have been in the championship for many years without ever looking like winning. And, even if you just take the Chevrolets, everyone started the year with equipment that had never been more equal in the history of the sport.
It’s truly refreshing to see a young guy make it all the way to the top of the sport in this country without a silver spoon anywhere near his mouth.
From professional couch surfer to Supercars Champion in four years. Huge congratulations Brodie.
It’s now incumbent upon Supercars as an organisation to ensure that this fabulous Australian Story is far more widely told in the coming weeks.
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