JACKSON Walls has recounted the cool suit failure that crippled his strong Saturday run at the Townsville 500.

The Supercars rookie had qualified 14th, ahead of Triple Eight stablemate Broc Feeney, only to fade in the race as he dealt with nasty overheating.

“It’s pretty tough when a cool suit lets go,” Walls reflected to V8 Sleuth.

“Thankfully it wasn’t as hot as Sydney or Darwin, but it’s still pretty warm in Townsville.

“While it’s happening you’re in just an absolute mental battle, you’re just arguing with yourself the whole time.

“It’s so easy to lose focus and you obviously become fatigued quite quickly.

“I feel like we did all that we could while I was in the car: we changed the water bottle, we cut the line to the cool suit to try to bleed it as much as possible.

“The team and the medical staff, I can’t really thank them enough. They did everything they could the second I got out of the car to make it as preventable as possible to get rid of the heat stroke.

“Within 60 seconds I was in a bath, 10 minutes after that I was on an IV drip.”

Walls ended up recording his best round result, riding consistency to rank 17th of the 26-car field on points accumulated across the Townsville weekend.

“Everyone keeps reminding me that it’s my rookie year. You get sick of hearing it a bit but I guess it is a reality,” he said.

“This was probably our best weekend yet.

Pic: Ross Gibb

“Really frustrated (with Saturday), I feel like if that cool suit hadn’t have failed, we could have really gone further forward and possibly got to the 10.

“I feel like we’re doing the right things away from the track and at the track to go forward.”

Next up is Perth, followed by Queensland Raceway where Walls broke through for a Super2 race win last year.

Then it’s onto the enduros, for which the 23-year-old will be joined by the ultra-experienced Jack Perkins.

“You want a guy that can tell you everything good and bad about a car – he is definitely one of them, and he’ll have some secret sauce from 15 years ago that will still work,” said Walls.

“It’s going to be awesome to have him.”

Perkins has kept sharp this year by competing in Mustang Cup Australia.