NEXT weekend, Cam Waters will chalk up his 300th Supercars Championship race start in the Sunday leg of the Ipswich Super440.

He’ll become the 32nd driver to hit that number; he’s already top 10 for most ATCC/Supercars Championship pole positions (with 32) and is steadily climbing the all-time race wins and podiums lists too.

But all this started with an October Sunday in 2011 after winning the inaugural Shannons Supercar Showdown television contest.

It was when a 17-year-old from Mildura took on Mount Panorama with a TV star – and lost. Their Kelly Racing-run #77 Shannons Mars Commodore did not complete enough laps to be classified after a brush with Forrest’s Elbow.

It was Waters’ first main game start and co-driver Grant Denyer’s last, but the latter – whose previous couple of Bathurst 1000 campaigns had also come alongside young guns Alex Davison (2006) and Michael Caruso (2007) – saw enough to know there were better things to come.

The car Waters and Denyer shared. Pic: an1images.com / Justin Deeley

“Having been in motorsport all my life, I was always aware that sometimes the cream didn’t rise to the top just because they were never given the opportunity or didn’t have the financial means to back their talent,” Denyer reflected to V8 Sleuth.

“So I loved the concept of the show and proudly hosted it, and he really was a standout kid.

“Super quiet, extremely shy, but clearly very naturally gifted.

“It was a fierce competition and an absolutely stacked field of gold-level talent (other contestants included Nick Cassidy and David Sera), so I very proudly play a very small role in the discovery of Cam Waters.

“And to see him go on to achieve what he has, I feel like a proud Dad. It’s really cool.”

Waters has three Bathurst 1000 podiums to his name to date. He has twice been championship runner-up. He is renowned as one of the fastest and hardest racers in Australia and has even set foot on the NASCAR stage in the US.

Pic: Supplied/Mark Horsburgh

“I remember the first time he drove, he could barely see past the many pimples that he had on his face,” Denyer chuckled.

“I tried to give him as much support as I could, having done it a couple of times, try to make that environment as natural and as easy as possible knowing he had the world on his shoulders and he had so much that he wanted to prove.

“It might have even been the first practice session, he goes across the top of the Mountain absolutely with his foot pinned and over McPhillamy he loses the rear end and just does this magnificent high-speed 360, somehow keeps it off the fence over the top, gathers it up and keeps going like it was nothing.

“He didn’t say a word on the radio but we could see it on the data and it wasn’t until we went back and had a look at the footage afterwards, we were gobsmacked, because it was an incredible catch and an amazing bit of car control.

“I’m sure his heart rate was up, but that’s when I realised ‘this kid is made of the good stuff’. That was one of the greatest all-time catches of anyone, let alone someone on their first appearance.”

Denyer himself was a four-time Super2 race winner endorsed by Dick Johnson as being worthy of a graduation. He opted to pursue the TV route, but is glad to have played a part in Waters’ story before exiting.

Grant Denyer competing for DJR in the 2009 Homebush Super2 round aboard a BF Falcon. Pic: an1images.com / Justin Deeley

“I was driving for Dick Johnson Racing, it would have been 2009… it was my strongest year in motorsport and Dick was like ‘you’re good enough to go up to the main game now’,” Denyer recalled.

“He said ‘however, there’s a big catch: you’re going to have to choose one or the other, motorsport or television’.

“At that time I was doing both and it was a real stretch. I was the Sunrise weatherman and hosting things like Australia’s Got Talent and lots of other big primetime shiny floor shows.

“He was right, I had to make an excruciating decision and just for the sake of my future family, I gave motorsport completely away to focus on television.

“I guess it was nice that on my way out, I brought someone in which was Cam Waters who went on to live the motorsport life that I wasn’t capable of delivering. So it was an honour.”