Brett Kennedy: Truckie to the Supercars

G’Day From…

21 Aug

Brett Kennedy is one of a select band of men who haul V8 Supercars around the country, and he gets to do it in a Kenworth K200.

Brett started his driving career in the early 2000’s and pretty much jumped straight into the gig. For the next eight years he travelled ‘the Circuit’ before deciding to take a break and do something different.

“I walked right away from trucks and got a job running data cables,” said Brett. “Then Covid came along and the work dried up to an extent. As luck would have it, around the same time Tickford Racing were looking for a driver and came knocking. Next thing you know I’m locked in again.”

Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, or in Brett’s case, until it comes back again.

“I’m absolutely loving it,” he says. “The Supercars, the lifestyle, everything. It can be pretty full on at times but we have fun as well. I’m a single man and really, you have to be in this sort of a job.

“It’s probably worse than interstate in terms of being away from home, but like every truck driving job, there’s swings and roundabouts. We race every two or three weeks, so sometimes I’m away for four or five days and then back home in between. Then there’s the big trips like Darwin when it’s a couple of weeks away from home.

“There’s a real camaraderie between the drivers for the various teams. We’re like one big happy family – except maybe on race days (laughs).”

Brett sits behind the wheel of a Kenworth K200. “I’m a Kenworth boy through and through. Road Ranger of course! “I have to do everything for myself in the old Kenny,” he quips. “It’s real truck driver’s work compared to that,” he adds, pointing to a Mercedes-Benz Actros parked across the way. “And that the way I like it.”

At 48 Brett intends to keep on keeping on for the foreseeable future. “Big powerful engines hauling big powerful engines, it gets in the blood.”

Brett drives the Castrol sponsored Tickford Racing truck, one of four teams run by Tickford. Thomas Randle is the man behind the wheel of the No: 55 Castrol Racing Mustang. Then there’s No. 6: Monster Energy (Cam Waters), No: 56 Tradie (Jake Kostecki) and No: 5 Snowy River Caravans (James Courtney)

Created as Ford Performance Racing, before running at Prodrive Racing Australia from 2014 to 2017, the team was established in December 2002 after Prodrive, the world’s largest independent automotive engineering company bought Glenn Seton Racing.

In 2010, Rod Nash joined forces with the then Ford factory team and paired his Rod Nash Racing entry with Prodrive Racing, where his Ford would be run from their Campbellfield workshop. The association would eventually see Nash take control of the team by 2013. The team acquired an additional licence for 2018 to solidify a strong four-car line-up.