Kostecki opens up: 'I almost blacked out'

Brodie Kostecki has recounted the ‘scary’ scenes of his Bathurst formation lap hiccup that caused him to sustain carbon dioxide poisoning and nearly pass out at the wheel.

The 21-year-old was forced to stop his #56 Commodore on Conrod Straight after a cool box malfunction and was helped to the medical centre, in a horror start to his Great Race debut.

“I flicked my helmet fan on going into Turn 2, obviously just leaving the grid doing the outlap for the race, and I got to The Cutting, Turn 3, and instantly my eyes were burning,” Kostecki told Supercars.com ahead of the Vodafone Gold Coast 600.

“We got up to three and I started losing my breath and I knew something wasn’t right so I just took my helmet fan off – but by that point the whole cabin was full of carbon dioxide fumes from the dry ice.

“As soon as the cabin started to clear a little bit, I just stopped the car straightaway when I realised what was going on and I almost blacked out in the car.”

Elaborating on the severity of the situation, Kostecki said: “You just become completely delirious to what’s actually going on around you and it was a frightening feeling.

“I got out of the car and I realised how far I had actually driven and I couldn’t even remember where I had sort of come from.

“So it was pretty scary but the medical staff were absolutely fantastic.”

Younger cousin Jake Kostecki ended up taking the wheel for the start of the race, with Brodie later returning after getting the all-clear from medics.

“I wasn’t 100 percent confident [of getting the green light to race] but I wanted to make sure they did more than necessary to make sure I was good to go in the car,” he said.

“They did a SCAT [Sport Concussion Assessment] test to make sure that I wasn’t delirious or anything like that.

“I was fighting fit and 110 percent so I jumped in for a double stint.”

Their day would finish early, however, with a lap 113 crash for Jake leaving the team with a mountain of work to make the Vodafone Gold Coast 600 this weekend.

Brodie credited experienced team manager Rob Crawford for helping keep their entire crew calm across a tricky first weekend as a Supercars wildcard entry.

“He did a really good job with that,” he said.

“We were just fighting a few small battles that really affected us during practice; we have got all of those things nailed down and Gold Coast should be better.”

The Kosteckis are the only drivers in this year’s PIRTEK Enduro Cup field to have never before raced at the Surfers Paradise street circuit.