Meet a broker who throws as much drive and dedication into his racing pursuits as he does his accolade winning brokerage.
The founding director of award-winning Opal Finance in only its second year, knows if the odds stack up, just brush yourself off and get back in the race.
Brendon Marshman, director of a young Western Australian brokerage Opal Finance, has a passion for driving Formula 500 racing machines on dirt-track speedways at over 100 km/hour.
When asked what it is about high-speed racing that appeals to him, Marshman says it’s difficult to say but more a combination of things. “The competitive nature that comes out in me, definitely,” he says. “But the speed is good; the experience, the thrill of going out there and racing at that sort of speed and hopefully passing more cars next season.”
Formula 500s are powered by a Yamaha 600CC motorbike racing engine, which Marshman races at the Kwinana motorplex south of Perth. “It varies on the calendar; I might race three weekends in a row and then have a month off. It’d be nice to race at least twice a month.”
Growing up in Darwin, Marshman raced junior sedans when he was younger but found an interest in speed racing after hearing stories from his grandpa’s racing days, who now visits to watch his grandson race. “He’s in his late 80’s now, but the more we spoke about it, the more I grew interested and finally bought a car and got into it.”
Marshman clearly enjoys combining the two competitive pursuits of broking and racing.
“I’m very particular about the car; it has to be perfect in terms of all the nuts and bolts. You’ve got to be so careful - if they break, that could be your steering and you don’t want to be losing that at 100km/hr.”
In a way, that perfectionism similarly applies to the nuts and bolts of brokering. Precision, accuracy and attention to detail are all applied to Marshman’s brokerage in the same amount as his races. “Applications, clients’ finance - the documentation has to be perfect and that’s what we pride ourselves on; getting quick approvals based on our method of lodging applications.”
Like starting a new business, speedway racing isn’t without its risks. Marshman recently escaped a six-car pileup on the track with relatively few injuries, one of many crashes he says happen often in the sport.
A car rolled in front of a group of racers in hot pursuit, taking them all down with him at 100km/hr, but Marshman’s steel chassis took the brunt of the impact. “I was pretty lucky. I’ve got a bit of a sore shoulder, but it just feels like you’re playing a game of football; you just get general soreness but that goes after a couple of days anyway.”
Marshman said Opal finance is standing out among the broking sphere already. “Last year was our first financial year trading, so we settled just over $52 million worth of business. It really feels like about eight months’ worth of work because the amount of work we had to do was really the start-up phase of business.”
In that time, he obtained its Australian credit licence, transferred aggregators to Connective, is creating a new website and moved into a new office - and he’s only 30. “The business went from myself working from a spare room at home to an office with 5 staff.”
This article originally appeared in Australian Broker issue 12.09.
Brendon Marshman, director of a young Western Australian brokerage Opal Finance, has a passion for driving Formula 500 racing machines on dirt-track speedways at over 100 km/hour.
When asked what it is about high-speed racing that appeals to him, Marshman says it’s difficult to say but more a combination of things. “The competitive nature that comes out in me, definitely,” he says. “But the speed is good; the experience, the thrill of going out there and racing at that sort of speed and hopefully passing more cars next season.”
Formula 500s are powered by a Yamaha 600CC motorbike racing engine, which Marshman races at the Kwinana motorplex south of Perth. “It varies on the calendar; I might race three weekends in a row and then have a month off. It’d be nice to race at least twice a month.”
Growing up in Darwin, Marshman raced junior sedans when he was younger but found an interest in speed racing after hearing stories from his grandpa’s racing days, who now visits to watch his grandson race. “He’s in his late 80’s now, but the more we spoke about it, the more I grew interested and finally bought a car and got into it.”
Marshman clearly enjoys combining the two competitive pursuits of broking and racing.
“I’m very particular about the car; it has to be perfect in terms of all the nuts and bolts. You’ve got to be so careful - if they break, that could be your steering and you don’t want to be losing that at 100km/hr.”
In a way, that perfectionism similarly applies to the nuts and bolts of brokering. Precision, accuracy and attention to detail are all applied to Marshman’s brokerage in the same amount as his races. “Applications, clients’ finance - the documentation has to be perfect and that’s what we pride ourselves on; getting quick approvals based on our method of lodging applications.”
Like starting a new business, speedway racing isn’t without its risks. Marshman recently escaped a six-car pileup on the track with relatively few injuries, one of many crashes he says happen often in the sport.
A car rolled in front of a group of racers in hot pursuit, taking them all down with him at 100km/hr, but Marshman’s steel chassis took the brunt of the impact. “I was pretty lucky. I’ve got a bit of a sore shoulder, but it just feels like you’re playing a game of football; you just get general soreness but that goes after a couple of days anyway.”
Marshman said Opal finance is standing out among the broking sphere already. “Last year was our first financial year trading, so we settled just over $52 million worth of business. It really feels like about eight months’ worth of work because the amount of work we had to do was really the start-up phase of business.”
In that time, he obtained its Australian credit licence, transferred aggregators to Connective, is creating a new website and moved into a new office - and he’s only 30. “The business went from myself working from a spare room at home to an office with 5 staff.”
This article originally appeared in Australian Broker issue 12.09.
