Champions' mission to unearth future star takes next step

Helping young talent rise through the ranks has encouraged Will Brown and Brodie Kostecki’s special initiative.

The Supercars champions have pledged to give $20,000 to a young driver through a knockout competition in their Lucky Dogs podcast.

Dubbed the 'Top Dog Challenge’, Brown and Kostecki have set up a series of head-to-head match-ups with Supercars rivals to find a winner.

While they go head-to-head on the track, Brown and Kostecki engaged all Supercars drivers to nominate a rising star. Every single driver responded.

The idea of the challenge is simple: take 24 drivers, seed them via the championship standings, and run a single-elimination bracket — one knockout round at each event, leaving a last man standing.

Each head-to-head is decided on which driver scores more points across that event, whether that’s the round total at a sprint event, or the race result at the enduros.

The structure of the Top Dog Challenge saw the top eight drivers in the current Supercars championship get a bye for Perth, where the challenge began.

After a series of eliminations, the top eight — including Brown and Kostecki — come into the fold for Ipswich. The challenge rolls through the enduros at The Bend and Bathurst, before it concludes on the Gold Coast.

Brown — who nominated Nick Percat protégé and GR Scholarship competitor Harry Bresnahan — has been pitted against 10th placed Jack Le Brocq, while Kostecki — who nominated karter Alfi Luchetta — will go up against 14th placed Andre Heimgartner.

All told, the outcome of the challenge carries the most weight, because while they’re now household names, Brown and Kostecki were once kids fighting for their careers, and having to stretch every dollar they had.

"No way around it"

Brown and Kostecki have forged successful careers in Supercars, winning races, driving for the biggest teams, and reaching the pinnacle of the sport on its biggest days.

For every success story, though, others slip through the cracks, and oftentimes, it's not because of a dearth of talent. As Brown put it simply — motorsport isn’t cheap.

That was something 2025 Supercars champion Chaz Mostert explained in a recent podcast with his fellow drivers, revealing that his family re-mortgaged their house twice to keep his own racing dream afloat.

"Motorsport's the most expensive sport in the country, there's no way around it,” Brown told Supercars.com.

"I was lucky, my family gave up an enormous amount to get me karting and so did many other families of Supercars drivers, like Chaz who we just had on the podcast said his dad mortgaged their house twice to get him in Formula Ford.

"I know plenty of kids just as fast as me who never got that shot simply because of what it costs.

"$20,000 would have gone a very long way for me when I was coming through the ranks so if we can grab one of those junior drivers and help give them a real crack at making it into main game or even an international category, that's massive.

"You never know, the bit of money we put in now might be the whole reason a future Supercars champion makes it. That's what makes this so cool to be part of."

"The hard truth"

Brown and Kostecki, through Lucky Dogs, have championed the next generation for some time. Last year, they sponsored Charlie Parker, Cooper Barnes, Elliott Cleary and now main game rival Zach Bates. Already, $40,000 has been given to junior drivers.

The Top Dog Challenge takes Brown and Kostecki's vow to support the next generation to a new level. However, you also have to look at the buy-in from their Supercars rivals, and personal sponsors, to understand just how shared the initiative is to get young kids coming through.

Every single Supercars driver nominated a junior to receive the $20,000 if they win the challenge. The purse is funded by the podcast and four additional sponsors: KMC Wheels, Advanced Air Conditioning, Uniden, and GR Custom Diecast Creations.

The funds are designated for the young drivers. Be it new tyres, new parts or even support for travel, the funds could steer a youngster towards becoming the next Brown or Kostecki.

At its core, the Top Dog Challenge doesn’t want a potential champion driver to miss out on a career, simply because of financial stress. As Kostecki explained, the time and effort will be worth it if even one youngster's life can change.

"I come from a racing family, so I've seen exactly what it takes with the hours, the money, the sacrifices behind the scenes that nobody ever sees,” Kostecki told Supercars.com.

"The hard truth is that there are kids out there who never got their chance to make it where we are, purely because of what the sport costs.

"To be able to take some of that weight off a family and give a young driver some support is one of the reasons we started the podcast in the first place: to give back to our sport and the fans.

"We've sponsored a couple of guys in Toyota 86's, Super2 and even Batesy in Supercars. If this challenge changes even one kid's life or ability to race, the amount of time and effort we have put into the podcast and sponsorships is more than worth it."

The 2026 Repco Supercars Championship resumes at Queensland Raceway on August 21-23.

Supercars drivers: 2026 Top Dog Challenge junior nominated drivers