Buy tickets<\/a><\/p>\nDJR saw Waters pitting and in turn changed its strategy, opting to keep Kostecki out for a further six laps.<\/p>\n
He rejoined fourth but made short work of Kai Allen, chased down and overtook Payne, and then fell just 0.2s short of Waters at the flag.<\/p>\n
Complicating the pit puzzle for Tickford, Waters\u2019 teammate Randle had been running sixth early and was scheduled to pit on what proved the critical lap.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were certainly pitting #55 (Randle), and then obviously Brad overruled that,\u201d Roberts added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThankfully, Tommy saw Cam in pit lane [and chose to stay out]. It could have ruined his race.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pit crew worked really well, had great communication there, and we switched the cars.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a big reaction and it was a split hair in the moment. Ultimately that\u2019s what wins you races these days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Randle ultimately finished sixth \u2013 his best result since a podium at Albert Park in March.<\/p>\n
It was a second Friday win in as many events for Waters, who broke a 16-month drought last time out in Darwin.<\/p>\n
Having not done so in Darwin, Waters asked his team on the cool down lap whether he could perform a burnout and was given an enthusiastic green light.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to him on the radio, \u2018you\u2019re the burnout king, go and rip it\u2019. He deserved it,\u201d beamed Roberts.<\/p>\n
Roberts said there was no concern that the burnout would cause any damage to the car\u2019s engine ahead of the weekend\u2019s twin 200km races.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a smart driver,\u201d he added. \u201cHe\u2019s got engine alarms in place and he knows how to do a burnout.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cam Waters celebrates victory at the Townsville 500. Image: Supplied Waters led the way from Dick Johnson Racing\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[43205,111,139,69,1058,213,43207],"class_list":["post-519225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cam-waters","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-slot1","tag-sports","tag-thomas-randle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Inside](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/006-Waters-EV07-34523MH6_1073.jpg\")
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