Latest / Rusty's Garage / The Motorsport Brief: with 2023 Supercars Champion Brodie Kostecki

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The Motorsport Brief: with 2023 Supercars Champion Brodie Kostecki · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:05
  Welcome to the Motorsport Brief.
• 0:07
  It's a special edition on this Thursday, the 30th of November 2023.
• 0:12
  A new champion will join us to answer some of your questions and share a little of his journey from couch surfer to winning one of the biggest prizes in motor racing in this part of the world.
• 0:26
  Hi, everybody.
• 0:26
  Greg Rust with you for this edition of the Rusty's Garage Shortcast.
• 0:30
  Our latest feature ep dropped on Tuesday, and it's a beauty, a proper, passion-fuelled convo with Gabriele Tarquini, the 1994 British touring car champion.
• 0:42
  You may remember he won for Alfa Romeo at the height of the two-litre supertouring era when Murray Walker was commentating.
• 0:49
  What you may not know is that Gabriele made it to Formula One.
• 0:53
  We'll talk about those struggles.
• 0:55
  And then on the other side of the ledger, winning touring car world titles and world cups in his 40s and 50s.
• 1:03
  Plus his new role with Hyundai on the TCR World Tour.
• 1:07
  Wow.
• 1:08
  A quick thanks as well to all of you who listen to our guests, our partners and my team at Listener, including Tom Dullard and Link Kelly.
• 1:17
  We won the Best Radio Show Podcast Division at the 2023 Supercars Media Awards in the past week.
• 1:25
  There are some seriously good pods in our game and it's a peer vote.
• 1:30
  So it's a very hard one to win.
• 1:32
  It's the third time we've been lucky enough to put the Rusty's Garage name on that trophy.
• 1:38
  And I am very, very proud.
• 1:39
  Thank you again.
• 1:41
  Now, there's a great yarn on the Speed Cafe website today by Roland Dane that I would encourage all of you to read.
• 1:48
  It's called Roland's View, As Inspiring as Chariots of Fire, and it charts an against-the-odds path to the supercar's title.
• 1:59
  It reminds you of the value of unwavering commitment, sacrifice, and how not having a silver spoon doesn't mean the end of a dream in a business or sport,
• 2:10
  that is generally pretty expensive.
• 2:12
  In the closing paragraph, Roland says it is incumbent on the sport to do something to share the Brodie Kostecki story.
• 2:20
  So I intend to do a bit of that today.
• 2:23
  The 2023 Supercars champion, the new champion, is on the line.
• 2:28
  Hello, mate, and congratulations.
• 2:30
  Yeah, thank you.
• 2:31
  It's nice to be on the show again, Greg.
• 2:34
  It's been a while since I've been on here and I guess a lot's changed actually.
• 2:38
  A lot has changed.
• 2:39
  So a few days to let it sink in.
• 2:42
  How surreal does it feel?
• 2:44
  Honestly, it's a feeling you can't really explain.
• 2:49
  You've worked something so hard for your whole life and I'm a pretty simple person.
• 2:54
  I just like to take it one baby step at a time and try not to look too far ahead.
• 3:00
  So the challenge isn't too daunting, but it's been a busy last couple of days.
• 3:06
  And it really started to sink in probably late yesterday when I got home.
• 3:11
  And when I walked through the door, I felt a bit different.
• 3:16
  And it was a nice way to send off the season at the Gala as well, and to be the driver's driver as well was a very unexpected experience.
• 3:26
  award but uh yeah honestly it's been yeah just if you know i can't express my emotions it's it's um yeah it's it's quite hard to put it all in the words i think the collective is amazing mate i mean obviously to to claim the crown obviously but then to have your peers do that driver's driver right to to stop and acknowledge uh you on track off track etc that's a pretty big endorsement too mate isn't it
• 3:49
  Yeah, most definitely.
• 3:50
  I was joking at the table that it's probably something that I may never get.
• 3:59
  But honestly, I've got a pretty good relationship with all the drivers.
• 4:02
  And we like to have a chat off the track all the time.
• 4:06
  But when the helmet goes on, everyone has their own experience.
• 4:09
  I guess version of themselves likes to come out.
• 4:11
  And I always try to race pretty hard when I'm out there and fair and try to put on the best show that I can for the fans.
• 4:19
  But yeah, it was a very unexpected surprise.
• 4:21
  And yeah, I'm very grateful for it.
• 4:24
  In Roland's story, he recounts the investment that you have made in building and working on race cars, often for other people.
• 4:33
  Investment, Brodie, probably actually isn't the right word for it.
• 4:37
  It's more been, I think, at times necessity, right, to put food on the table, to pay bills and so on.
• 4:43
  How valuable, when you look back on that now, has that investment been in this title?
• 4:50
  Yeah, I think it's one of those times in your life where you can look at one scenario and you can look at it as a glass half full or a glass half empty.
• 5:02
  And I always got told when I was a young fellow from my granddad, just take every opportunity and maximize it as much as possible.
• 5:11
  you know, just make the most of everything, try to be the best person you can be and don't leave, you know, a stone unturned.
• 5:17
  So, yeah, it was actually a pretty enjoyable, you know, time of my life, to be honest.
• 5:23
  You know, racing around, I guess, the East Coast and, you know, bouncing around from place to place and, you know, just trying to, I guess, make ends meet.
• 5:30
  And, you know, I got to meet so many great people throughout that journey as well.
• 5:34
  And, you know, got a lot of advice and, you know, in the space of two years, which was really cool.
• 5:38
  You have...
• 5:39
  couch surfed as I said in the introduction you you famously I think as Roland recounted turned up at Paul Morris's um with most of your life in a couple of of like garbage bags or or bin liners um did you ever get to the point Brodie in all of that sacrifice where you wondered if you could keep it going if you wondered whether you might have to do something else was there ever a moment of doubt or were you unwavering about this
• 6:05
  I never let that side of me really...
• 6:09
  It's funny when you talk about it now and you show up to someone's house with, I guess, your clothes in garbage bags.
• 6:14
  And that's what I did when I showed up to Ben and Rachel Eggleston's joint as well.
• 6:17
  And they sort of looked at me like I was funny and like my life was falling apart.
• 6:23
  But to me, it was just another journey, like another adventure.
• 6:27
  And, yeah, I never let that side of it really, you know, and I never thought of it as of, you know, is it worth it or is it going to be too hard?
• 6:36
  I just, you know, was always looking forward to the next day and, you know, what the next day could bring me, what challenge and, yeah, just, you know, try to make the most of it.
• 6:45
  And, yeah, I guess it's...
• 6:49
  I guess a pretty good feeling when you win the Drivers' Championship and you see that it's all worth it.
• 6:54
  But regardless, anyways, I had a great time no matter the outcome and I've had a great journey to this point.
• 7:00
  Fabulous outlook, mate.
• 7:01
  I'm glad you brought up the Egglestons too.
• 7:03
  There's lots of different people along the way that have played significant parts.
• 7:06
  Can we talk Paul Morris here for a moment?
• 7:08
  You've spent a lot of time at Norwell.
• 7:10
  I know that's been beneficial for you, Brodie, in all sorts of ways.
• 7:17
  chatting to Betty about you and perhaps helping to get her to give you that chance.
• 7:25
  Tell us your side of that and what you know about it and ultimately how much it helped.
• 7:31
  Yeah, most definitely.
• 7:31
  I wasn't really too aware of all that until just recently when Betty actually told me the story that happened and how it all sort of come about.
• 7:41
  But how I guess it sort of come up and I guess rejogged her memory a little bit was when...
• 7:47
  I was talking to her before the weekend on the Thursday when she got there.
• 7:51
  And I said, oh, do you remember 2019 at Newcastle when I walked into the garage?
• 7:57
  And I went up and introduced myself.
• 7:59
  At that time, I'd just signed to be a co-driver with Erebus.
• 8:02
  It was the last round.
• 8:04
  And she didn't know who I was or where I'd come from.
• 8:07
  And yeah, it was quite a funny experience.
• 8:10
  you know, interaction and, and, you know, Shannon then walked over and said, Oh bro, he's going to be co-driving with the team.
• 8:14
  And she was like, Oh, that's like a surprise to me.
• 8:17
  And, um, sort of, she sort of turned around and put a headset back on, you know, went on about what she was doing, which I think, you know, qualifying was about to start at the time.
• 8:25
  And, um, but yeah, we've been able to develop such a great relationship over the past, um, you know, three, three to four years with, you know, Betty and Daniel and, and, and myself.
• 8:34
  And, and, uh, you know, I see myself as a pretty simple person and, uh, uh,
• 8:40
  you know, myself and Betty, you know, get along like a house on fire and it's always a pleasure having her around.
• 8:45
  She's always got something really funny to say or, you know, she's always full of wisdom as well.
• 8:49
  So it's, you know, it's great when she's around and, you know, the team really enjoyed as well.
• 8:54
  If I know her well, she'll, that aspect of your character is something that she has clearly gravitated to, right?
• 9:01
  Your message to Shane Van Gisbergen on his post, his end of season post, I thought was really gracious, Brodie.
• 9:08
  The mark
• 9:08
  I think, already of a good champion.
• 9:11
  Did it get stressy at all between you two in the run-up to Adelaide, given what was at stake?
• 9:18
  And does winning this against him, because you know each other so well, you know how talented he is, does that make this even sweeter?
• 9:26
  Yeah, I think yes and no.
• 9:28
  It's actually pretty mixed emotions for myself.
• 9:30
  You know, I had really enjoyed racing Shane, you know, this year.
• 9:34
  And, you know, I was, you know, as happy as I am to see him go, you know, I would like to race him some more.
• 9:40
  You know, he was someone that I really looked up to.
• 9:43
  And, you know, he's probably, you know, one of the best drivers I've ever got to witness drive a race car, I guess, you know, my career.
• 9:50
  And, you know, the past few years, I haven't
• 9:53
  haven't really had the chance to battle him too much he was always a little bit too fast at that point in my my career but to be able to you know race him this year and and to you know fight with him was um you know something that i'll uh always you know remember and uh yeah he's um he's yeah i guess being someone that i've looked up to and and um yeah i'll i'll be watching him you know very closely with you know what he does over there in america and and uh yeah i you know wish him nothing but the best
• 10:18
  You're chatting to us from The Sim, which I love.
• 10:21
  Will you treat yourself to anything after winning the title?
• 10:24
  Will there be a little guilty indulgence here that you can rightly go, you know what, I've earned that?
• 10:29
  I don't think so, no.
• 10:30
  It's a funny feeling.
• 10:32
  It's like, you know, we...
• 10:35
  We won it on the Saturday and quickly I didn't let myself worry about it too much.
• 10:41
  I really wanted to finish off the year on a high and obviously getting the pole position and race didn't quite go to plan.
• 10:46
  But yeah, it's like one of those things where we did the...
• 10:51
  the Sunday, did the burnout, got the trophy, celebrated with the team, you know, went to the gala, did that.
• 10:55
  But, you know, straight away after that all ends, I got home and I was just thinking about the next test day, you know, what we can do better and, you know, how we can, you know, carry this, you know, success on, you know, for the next following few years.
• 11:09
  And yeah, you know, I'd like to be a multiple champion someday.
• 11:13
  And, you know, to do that, I think you have to
• 11:21
  I haven't really been that sort of person to really get caught up in the moment for too long.
• 11:26
  It's like I feel like I'm rushing through life at times.
• 11:29
  But yeah, I guess that's just the type of person that I am.
• 11:33
  Tremendous.
• 11:34
  Barry Ryan messaged me for this.
• 11:36
  He says, you are the most committed and intense driver that he's ever worked with.
• 11:41
  And he goes on to say that your passion, your craft of driving is a huge reason why you've tasted success so early in your supercar's career.
• 11:52
  He then joked with me, no lattes and Lycra, just hardcore racer.
• 11:57
  I love what you said a moment ago, mate, that you're already thinking about 2024.
• 12:02
  What would you change, though?
• 12:04
  What would you change for next year or tune up if that's a better choice of words?
• 12:08
  Yeah, there's always, you know, there's always little things.
• 12:11
  And, you know, no one's perfect.
• 12:12
  And it's, you know, you can't expect 100% out of a...
• 12:15
  I guess a single person all the time, but that's the lovely thing about having a team around you is to have people around you.
• 12:24
  If you can't perform to 100% that day, there's someone else around you that can pick up the slack for that day.
• 12:29
  So I've been very fortunate the last few years to...
• 12:33
  have the same people around me, um, at Coca-Cola Racing, powered by Erebus.
• 12:37
  We've been, been able to build up a great, um, you know, foundation and, and, and trust and, you know, the faith between, you know, believing in each other and, and, you know, that's a big part of it is, you know, team culture.
• 12:47
  So, and, you know, we're on the younger side, um, as far as, you know, our, our average age of, of our team is, you know, quite, quite young.
• 12:55
  Um, our mechanics are all young, crew chief is young, Brad Tremaine.
• 12:59
  And, you know, even our engineers to a point, you know, we've got Tom Moore on wheels car, who's only a few years older than me.
• 13:05
  And George is probably one of the oldest, you know, apart from Barry, the old dinosaur.
• 13:10
  So, you know, it's, yeah, it's a great culture to be around, you know, when we're at the track and, you know, we're going racing, everyone has a great time, but it's, you know, there's, no one's ever perfect, but it's just all about trying to, you know, build, you know, build the relationships up.
• 13:24
  And, you know, we did make mistakes this year.
• 13:26
  We had a bit of a,
• 13:27
  rough part to the season halfway through and obviously bathurst didn't quite got a plan when we had you know a very fast car and and you know whatnot so there's you know a few bucket list races i want to win and you know the team wants to win again as well so yeah there's there's always little things and it's just you know it was while while it's fresh in my mind you have to you know write these things down and you know i guess just ask the questions and and um yeah i guess um you know going back onto those words what barry said earlier i'm probably am too intense at times um
• 13:57
  Barry and I have a pretty funny working relationship.
• 14:00
  It's very colorful at times, but we both want to see success, which is the ultimate goal.
• 14:06
  I think he loves that almost Larry Perkins-esque feel about it.
• 14:10
  I really sense that.
• 14:13
  You are off to have some minor surgery.
• 14:16
  Just tell us what you can about that.
• 14:18
  Has it given you some grief during the year and have you had to manage that?
• 14:21
  Yeah, a little bit.
• 14:23
  I've been sick a few times this year and it's sort of...
• 14:26
  It's tonsillitis, mate.
• 14:28
  Is that right?
• 14:28
  Yeah, tonsillitis.
• 14:29
  So I've been sick a few times this year and I've been overseas a few times.
• 14:34
  And so I guess being on a plane for a while doesn't really help either.
• 14:37
  But yeah, I've been sick a few times and yeah, it was always... Every time I got sick was always around the time close to when a race event was about to start or I was about to go away.
• 14:48
  So I didn't really have time to...
• 14:50
  you know, get my tonsils out.
• 14:52
  So it was, you know, pretty much, you know, after Gold Coast, I was quite sick for two to three weeks and, you know, leading up to the last round and, you know, finally got myself on the mend.
• 15:00
  And it's one of those things, you know, you want to take medication for it, but you can't, you know, because of how the ruling works.
• 15:07
  And, you know, so just got to try and minimize all the risk as much as possible.
• 15:10
  And, you know,
• 15:12
  But yeah, so I'm off in two days to get my tonsils out.
• 15:16
  Thank God, finally.
• 15:17
  And, you know, hopefully that part of my life's over because that's, you know, pretty annoying.
• 15:21
  All I want to do is go race cars, but I can't.
• 15:23
  So it's, yeah, we'll get that out and sort that problem out.
• 15:27
  Power on.
• 15:28
  Good on you.
• 15:28
  We wish you a speedy recovery with that.
• 15:30
  Quickly, Richard Childress was in Adelaide.
• 15:32
  You took him for a hot lap.
• 15:34
  What was his reaction?
• 15:35
  What did he say?
• 15:36
  To be honest, I was pretty unsure with how he was going to, I guess, enjoy the weekend as a whole.
• 15:41
  It's obviously a lot different to how they go racing over in America, but to see his joy when I was taking him around, you know, the...
• 15:53
  the Adelaide circuit was quite incredible.
• 15:55
  I was glancing up in the mirror a few times and seeing how his reaction was.
• 16:01
  And yeah, he enjoyed every minute.
• 16:03
  And it was pretty damp at the time.
• 16:05
  And as we come up to stop, he said, oh, if you drive like that on the weekend,
• 16:09
  you know, you'll have a good weekend.
• 16:11
  So, yeah, it was a pretty cool feeling.
• 16:14
  And, you know, to have him there and show what supercar racing is all about, you know, it was pretty cool.
• 16:19
  And to do it from our perspective as well by, you know, winning the driver's championship and the team's championship.
• 16:24
  And I guess with what happened with Will on the weekend to the poor bugger with, you know, getting taken out and then, you know, the team having to rebuild the car, you know, that's a whole different world to him as well.
• 16:35
  You know, they have backup cars there.
• 16:36
  They just roll out a new car, whereas we have to fix ours.
• 16:39
  So, you know, I guess for all that to happen and, you know, for him to show and, you know, to see the passion that, you know, we show here in Australia was, you know, really cool.
• 16:47
  We'll take a break here on the Motorsport Brief.
• 16:49
  More with the newly crowned Supercars champion Brodie Kostecki, including your questions right after this.
• 16:58
  This is the Rusty's Garage Shortcast with our special guest this week, fresh from the Supercars end-of-season gala and all those title-winning celebrations, the burnout.
• 17:08
  It's Brodie Kostecki.
• 17:09
  Thanks to all of you who have sent in some questions via socials.
• 17:13
  We will get to those shortly.
• 17:15
  Let's launch back into it now with the Coca-Cola Racing Erebus Star.
• 17:19
  The Gen 3 car.
• 17:20
  So much has been said about it this year.
• 17:22
  Did the variety of things that you have engineered and have raced over your career so far kind of help you with this for 2023?
• 17:30
  Absolutely.
• 17:31
  Yeah, most definitely.
• 17:32
  Yeah, I've always been pretty hands on with every car that I've raced and I would like to think I have a decent engineering understanding of how race cars work and whatnot.
• 17:42
  But to go into this year with a whole new car and a new set of rules and regulations are a lot different than what supercars had in the past 15 to 20 years was...
• 17:55
  Something I was pretty excited about was a complete reset for the category.
• 17:59
  Everyone's got pretty much the same machinery underneath the skin.
• 18:04
  And it was a good opportunity for myself to take it with both hands and just maximize it as much as possible.
• 18:11
  And from the start of the season, obviously...
• 18:14
  The Gen 3 cars had a few hiccups here and there, as expected when a new car comes in.
• 18:19
  But we never really let that get the best of us and just always focused about on trying to maximize our track time at test days, not let it get to us too much and just make the most of it, which is, I guess, why I get to sit here today and be the champion and be part of the team that won the team's championship.
• 18:39
  Would you mind, I asked for some questions on social media, if we bounce through some from fans, from listeners.
• 18:44
  We've got one here from Cody Hughes.
• 18:47
  What are you expecting in regards to the dynamic with Will Brown next year?
• 18:51
  You've travelled as teammates.
• 18:52
  You've hung out a bit this year.
• 18:54
  Now he's off to your rivals at Triple Eight.
• 18:56
  Yeah, it's going to be sad to see Will go.
• 18:58
  He's been a massive part of the Erebus rebuild from when we first signed as rookies, but I'm sure he'll enjoy his time at 888.
• 19:09
  And for us to be rivals next year is something that I'm looking forward to.
• 19:14
  We've been very close in pace as teammates over the past three seasons.
• 19:19
  But yeah, I'm actually looking forward to seeing a different side of Will and being able to race him.
• 19:26
  I'm not saying that we didn't race at Erebus, but we always put the team first.
• 19:30
  And we both know exactly what we're like off the track and what we're like on the track.
• 19:34
  We let, I guess, each other see that side of us.
• 19:37
  Yeah, it'll be interesting if we meet on track, how the battle will go.
• 19:40
  I'm sure it'll be pretty epic for the fans.
• 19:43
  I'm pretty excited to see that and see what it's about.
• 19:46
  Good on you.
• 19:47
  Emmett Loomish, not so much a question here, more of a compliment to pass on.
• 19:54
  Loves that the number one is coming back on the car after the absence of it so long.
• 19:58
  Thank you for bringing back that tradition.
• 20:01
  One from Tony Nacastri and a few others have gone with this theme too, and it leads to America.
• 20:08
  How long your plans are for Australia?
• 20:10
  Will you continue to pursue and follow, reignite that US dream?
• 20:15
  Yeah, I enjoy racing here in Australia, to be honest.
• 20:18
  And supercars is something that I'm highly passionate about.
• 20:21
  And I want to check a lot of boxes off and achieve some goals that I've set out for myself before I do anything.
• 20:28
  Yeah.
• 20:29
  And I'm not close to any of those yet.
• 20:32
  But yeah, I see myself racing supercars for a few more years at least.
• 20:37
  And to be honest, it's just one of those things where I don't even look that far ahead.
• 20:43
  I know that I'm racing next year, obviously.
• 20:46
  And I'm just looking forward to that.
• 20:48
  And then we'll just see what happens from there.
• 20:51
  Yeah, I don't know.
• 20:51
  It's just like one of those things.
• 20:52
  I like racing everything.
• 20:53
  I race my sprint car.
• 20:55
  I race other forms of category, the Trans Am, I guess.
• 20:59
  And I just like driving.
• 21:01
  So, yeah, I'm just going to try to fill up my calendar as much as possible with it.
• 21:05
  Can you do the odd NASCAR appearance next year if that fits the 24 schedule?
• 21:09
  Will you?
• 21:10
  Yeah, most definitely.
• 21:10
  We're pretty close to organizing four or five races for next year, which would be quite cool.
• 21:15
  Yeah, so obviously I had the one-off this year.
• 21:17
  And, you know, I really enjoyed my time working with RCR.
• 21:21
  They're, you know, a great team, you know, a great bunch of people.
• 21:25
  And, yeah, I got to experience that again and I guess reopened that chapter of my life that I thought that, you know,
• 21:31
  may have been closed forever, obviously, you know, living over there for a few years, but didn't quite have the result that I wanted and made a little mistake in qualifying.
• 21:41
  But I had an absolute ball over there.
• 21:42
  And yeah, I'm looking forward to next year.
• 21:45
  Maybe this is more of a question for Betty or Barry combined.
• 21:49
  This one's from Jamie Macro, wondering if there might be a closer connection or tie between Erebus and Richard Childress Racing.
• 21:57
  Yeah, I'm not too sure.
• 21:58
  I don't necessarily have too much involvement with that side of it, to be honest.
• 22:05
  When I raced with RCR this year, I obviously got introduced to some people at RCR through Terry and Dana Wahoon, which own Image Racing and have fielded some really cool, some young talents that have come through the Super 3.
• 22:18
  And they just won the Super 3 Championship actually with Jobe Stewart.
• 22:22
  So I got introduced to some people there through them, which was really cool.
• 22:26
  And Terry's got a great partnership with some people at RCL, which is pretty cool.
• 22:31
  And he goes over a few times a year and they have a supercar and they take it out and go get some road racing miles with Kyle and Austin, which is pretty cool.
• 22:40
  But yeah, I'm not too sure about the partnership stuff.
• 22:43
  I don't really get too involved in it.
• 22:45
  That's probably above my pay grade, to be honest.
• 22:47
  Dylan Angel on X or Twitter, he says, how's the head?
• 22:51
  Fine, actually.
• 22:53
  I didn't actually drink that much due to being a little bit ill. Ill, okay.
• 22:58
  Yeah, I would have liked to a little bit more, but honestly, I wasn't capable of it.
• 23:02
  Yeah.
• 23:04
  Fair enough.
• 23:04
  Yeah, I know that there's a few sore heads still today by team, which is pretty funny.
• 23:09
  But yeah, that's the way it goes sometimes.
• 23:13
  Okay.
• 23:13
  Adam Malloy, also on X.
• 23:15
  And you sort of lent or ventured this way before.
• 23:18
  Any more sprint car drives coming up?
• 23:20
  Yeah, most definitely.
• 23:22
  I'm trying to work out when I can do some races in between, I guess, my supercar season starting that through a few spanners in the works, but it's starting a little bit earlier.
• 23:31
  But yeah, I love racing the sprint car.
• 23:33
  It's one of my favorite cars to race and drive.
• 23:36
  It's so different to what I'm used to.
• 23:40
  The discipline is so different.
• 23:42
  30, 40 laps, so hard, fast paced.
• 23:45
  And yeah, it's sort of interesting, you know, supercar racing.
• 23:47
  We get to some of the venues on the Wednesday.
• 23:50
  We do set up and, you know, we're there for four or five days.
• 23:54
  Supercar racing, you show up at lunchtime and you're out by 10 o'clock that night.
• 23:58
  And it's just everything has happened so fast.
• 24:01
  And yeah, it's, you know, really cool to be around.
• 24:03
  The fans are really passionate as well.
• 24:05
  Yeah, I'll be back on the sprint car soon.
• 24:08
  Cool.
• 24:08
  A couple of listener questions to finish here.
• 24:10
  One quickly from Bryony Pitts-Wesley, who says, best advice you've been given and perhaps an idol if you have one?
• 24:16
  Oh, that's a tricky question.
• 24:17
  But to be honest, I probably don't have one.
• 24:22
  I probably couldn't put it down to one, but I've been given a lot of advice in the last four to five years from various different people.
• 24:29
  But yeah, but I can't really put down to one.
• 24:32
  And so what was the last question again?
• 24:33
  Yeah.
• 24:34
  Idol.
• 24:34
  Do you have an idol or someone you looked up to when you were younger, perhaps as a racer?
• 24:38
  It could have been a NASCAR driver, Ayrton Sinner, whoever it may have been.
• 24:42
  Yeah, I grew up watching supercars at a young age and I really liked Marcus Ambrose.
• 24:48
  And my family had a good connection with Stone Brothers at the time, with some of the engine stuff they were doing back then.
• 24:55
  Yeah.
• 24:57
  Yeah, and I watch NASCAR quite regularly.
• 24:59
  My idol was Jimmy Johnson, you know, watching him go through his peak of his career, which is really cool.
• 25:05
  And yeah, I guess those are the two people that I looked up to.
• 25:09
  Cool.
• 25:09
  This is testing your voice.
• 25:10
  I'm conscious of that, mate.
• 25:11
  Last one from the listener.
• 25:12
  Sorry, mate.
• 25:13
  Hang on one sec.
• 25:14
  Chris, you're right.
• 25:16
  Okay.
• 25:17
  Chris Crouch, an observation on talent coming through.
• 25:20
  Is there anyone that you've noticed that you've kind of kept an eye on that might be main game worthy in the years to come?
• 25:26
  Honestly, I feel pretty, I guess, sorry for some of the young guys coming through.
• 25:32
  You know, I guess, you know, COVID threw a real spanner in the works for some of the junior categories, obviously not being able to race for two years.
• 25:40
  And it was only, you know, I guess the, you know, the top level sports.
• 25:43
  But, you know, it was great to see the, you know, the Super 2 championship go down to the wire with, you know, Kai and Zach Bess.
• 25:51
  And, you know, those two teams to battle it out.
• 25:53
  And I was, you know, pretty pleased to see, you know, Ben and Rachel get another trophy.
• 25:57
  And, you know, there's the Super 3 category as well, where we saw Jobe take out the Super 3 title.
• 26:03
  And, you know, Cammy McLeod did a fantastic job this year as well and probably put himself out with a few D&S.
• 26:10
  But, yeah, there seems to be a good crop of young fellows that are coming through that are, you know, ready to...
• 26:16
  I guess, you know, show what they're made of and probably a little bit green, some of them.
• 26:20
  But yeah, I'm sort of, you know, really looking forward to seeing how they sort of progress.
• 26:24
  And we're starting to see a new wave in supercars as well.
• 26:26
  I guess, you know, Matty Payne just won a race in his, you know, rookie season on the Sunday at LA, which obviously Brock won the year before.
• 26:34
  So I guess that's sort of a bit of a special track for that, I guess.
• 26:37
  So yeah, I don't know.
• 26:38
  I'm actually really looking forward to next year to, you know, raise some of those guys and, you know, bring back, you know, I guess some real live action back into the sport.
• 26:47
  It should be pretty cool.
• 26:48
  Well done.
• 26:49
  Well, let's finish it there because there's some great young talent coming through and we're going to enjoy that new wave.
• 26:54
  Well done on winning the crown.
• 26:56
  You are living proof that –
• 27:00
  You know, hard work does pay off.
• 27:02
  I know you'll probably be thinking, as I can tell already from this interview, that backing it up may even be tougher, as they say, but you'll pursue that mission doggedly.
• 27:11
  Brodie, congratulations to you, to Betty, to Barry, Shannon, George, all of the team on an incredible achievement.
• 27:18
  Being a champion, mate, comes with great power for good too.
• 27:22
  So use that.
• 27:23
  Make your mark.
• 27:24
  I can feel like you're already doing that.
• 27:25
  Rest up with those tonsils.
• 27:27
  We hope that operation goes well.
• 27:28
  Merry Christmas to you and all the very best for 2024.
• 27:31
  Thank you very much.
• 27:34
  I just think that is an awesome story and we will get him back on one day for a full length feature episode.
• 27:40
  I think he's got a few more chapters to write first.
• 27:43
  You can sense that, can't you?
• 27:44
  I put those posts up only a few hours on both Facebook and Twitter and threads before we recorded.
• 27:51
  So we've had a heap of responses to those.
• 27:54
  To all of our followers and listeners whose questions I didn't get to, my apologies.
• 27:58
  I tried to make sure we covered the main themes or the common questions as best we could.
• 28:04
  Before we go, some other bits of news.
• 28:07
  Congratulations to Matt Payne, the young Kiwi winning on the Sunday at the Adelaide 500.
• 28:13
  Brodie talked about it in the chat there.
• 28:15
  Another bright young star has arrived in motorsport in this part of the world and certainly in supercars.
• 28:22
  Well done to Callum Hedge, who won the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia title there on the streets of Adelaide at the end of a massive year for the Kiwi.
• 28:30
  He also took out the Formula Regional Americas Championship and finished on the podium at the prestigious New Zealand Grand Prix earlier in the year.
• 28:37
  He is off to drive in Indy Next in 2024.
• 28:41
  The experts at the Newcastle Council, I say that lightly, experts, have put the final nail in the street race there, unfortunately.
• 28:50
  Nice post by Ryan Walkinshaw on this.
• 28:52
  He was fantastic on the short cast last week, by the way.
• 28:56
  That's worth a listen.
• 28:57
  I'm paraphrasing here on what he said on Twitter, but basically that the majority of people loved that event, and it's a crying shame that the council caved to the minority.
• 29:08
  Max Verstappen won again to close out the F1 season in Abu Dhabi.
• 29:12
  Mercedes picked up second in the constructors at the final round, finishing just three points ahead of Ferrari.
• 29:18
  They are already into post-season testing there, with Jack Doohan at the wheel of the Alpine, making it three Aussies in action as Oscar Piastri and Dan Ricciardo also undertake some valuable development miles for next year.
• 29:33
  Mark Marquez has had his first runs on a Ducati, having made the big switch after spending over a decade with Honda in MotoGP.
• 29:42
  The onboard vision from Valencia looks smooth and effortless early days, but it looks like he will be a force on that Grissini machine next year.
• 29:51
  And finally, Harry Bates will join us on the short cast next week after that epic finish to the Australian Rally Championship.
• 29:58
  He and Coral Taylor took it out by one point
• 30:02
  at the end of the season, which literally came down to the final stage there in Canberra.
• 30:08
  So keep an eye out for notifications on that one next week.
• 30:11
  We hope you enjoyed hearing from Brodie Kostecki.
• 30:14
  Have an awesome weekend, everybody.
• 30:15
  Bye for now.