{"id":39997,"date":"2025-08-02T12:52:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T12:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/39997\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T12:52:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T12:52:12","slug":"grant-denyer-reflects-on-cam-waters-2011-bathurst-1000-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/39997\/","title":{"rendered":"Grant Denyer reflects on Cam Waters’ 2011 Bathurst 1000 debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEXT weekend, Cam Waters<\/a> will chalk up his 300th Supercars Championship race start in the Sunday leg of the Ipswich Super440.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll become the 32nd driver to hit that number; he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

But all this started with an October Sunday in 2011 after winning the inaugural Shannons Supercar Showdown television contest.<\/p>\n

It was when a 17-year-old from Mildura took on Mount Panorama with a TV star \u2013 and lost. Their Kelly Racing-run #77 Shannons Mars Commodore did not complete enough laps to be classified after a brush with Forrest\u2019s Elbow.<\/p>\n

It was Waters\u2019 first main game start and co-driver Grant Denyer\u2019s last, but the latter \u2013 whose previous couple of Bathurst 1000 campaigns had also come alongside young guns Alex Davison (2006) and Michael Caruso<\/a> (2007) \u2013 saw enough to know there were better things to come.<\/p>\n

\"\"The car Waters and Denyer shared. Pic: an1images.com \/ Justin Deeley<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving been in motorsport all my life, I was always aware that sometimes the cream didn\u2019t rise to the top just because they were never given the opportunity or didn\u2019t have the financial means to back their talent,\u201d Denyer reflected to V8 Sleuth.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I loved the concept of the show and proudly hosted it, and he really was a standout kid.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuper quiet, extremely shy, but clearly very naturally gifted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd to see him go on to achieve what he has, I feel like a proud Dad. It\u2019s really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"Pic: Supplied\/Mark Horsburgh<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the first time he drove, he could barely see past the many pimples that he had on his face,\u201d Denyer chuckled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t say a word on the radio but we could see it on the data and it wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure his heart rate was up, but that\u2019s when I realised \u2018this kid is made of the good stuff\u2019. That was one of the greatest all-time catches of anyone, let alone someone on their first appearance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Denyer himself was a four-time Super2 race winner endorsed by Dick Johnson<\/a> as being worthy of a graduation. He opted to pursue the TV route, but is glad to have played a part in Waters\u2019 story before exiting.<\/p>\n

\"\"Grant Denyer competing for DJR in the 2009 Homebush Super2 round aboard a BF Falcon. Pic: an1images.com \/ Justin Deeley<\/p>\n

\u201cI was driving for Dick Johnson Racing, it would have been 2009\u2026 it was my strongest year in motorsport and Dick was like \u2018you\u2019re good enough to go up to the main game now\u2019,\u201d Denyer recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said \u2018however, there\u2019s a big catch: you\u2019re going to have to choose one or the other, motorsport or television\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time I was doing both and it was a real stretch. I was the Sunrise weatherman and hosting things like Australia\u2019s Got Talent and lots of other big primetime shiny floor shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2019t capable of delivering. So it was an honour.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEXT weekend, Cam Waters will chalk up his 300th Supercars Championship race start in the Sunday leg of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-39997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}