Two young Southlanders, brothers Damon and Brendon Leitch of Invercargill, have been handed an opportunity most can only dream of. They will team together to pilot an Aston Martin DBRS9 in next months Highlands 101 endurance race at Highlands Motorsport Park in Cromwell featuring the cars and stars of the Australian GT Championship.
Damon worked at the circuit prior to spending time in the United States recently while Brendon is currently working at the state of the art circuit driving hot laps for customers in cars such as Porsche’s and Lamborghini’s along with some driver training. It was while working at Highlands that Brendon was helping circuit owner Tony Quinn push the Aston Martin to a new spot in the circuit’s museum when Quinn remarked, “I can see you in this car.” Brendon’s response was quick. “So can I,” he said. Without missing a beat Quinn offered the brothers the car for the Highlands 101 race to be held at the circuit over the weekend of 8/9 November.
“I’m pretty excited to be racing such a car amongst some pretty big names, some of them my idols, but I’m really looking forward to it,” says Brendon. Damon too can’t hide his enthusiasm. “Last year this was a big meeting so l am looking forward to racing at it. It is great to be racing Tony’s Aston Martin and it will be cool to race with a roof over my head for once.”
Both brothers have excellent racing pedigrees. Both raced with much success in karts before stepping onto the national motor racing stage in Formula Ford. Damon spent three years in the class, winning the Class 2 title on debut before stepping up to Class 1 for two seasons where he was a frontrunner in the series. In 2011 he graduated into the Toyota Racing Series, a series which attracts up and coming international talent to New Zealand each summer. Despite only getting behind the wheel for this series each year to compete against seasoned racers from around the globe Damon has twice finished third in the series. Brendon followed Damon onto the national scene and he too spent three years in Formula Ford finishing third and then second in the national series after an initial learning year. In the past season Brendon also stepped into the Toyota Racing Series snaring several top ten placings in his debut season.
However this will be the boys debut in “tintops”. It will be the fastest car the boys have driven with 600kw of V12 power and a six-speed sequential gearbox. “It is a lot bigger than anything else we have driven,” says Brendon. The brothers are still a little short of the full budget to run the car in the event and are still working hard and making approaches to secure the remaining dollars to put them on the grid.
The car was brought by Quinn to race in the Australian GT Championship before he brought it to New Zealand. The car actually appeared at the Leitch brothers home circuit, Teretonga, last year in the South Island Endurance Series One Hour race in Quinn’s hands.
The Highlands 101 will take place over 101 laps of the 4.1 kilometre Highlands Motorsport Park circuit taking around three and a half hours to complete.
