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Waters gaining more confidence on the dirt

waters

By Thomas Miles

Cameron Waters has swapped his Ford Mustang Supercar for a sprintcar this summer and is becoming more accustomed to life on the dirt.

After his flying finish to the 2023 Supercars Championship which included wins on the streets of Surfers Paradise and Adelaide, Waters has returned to sprintcar racing with Chief Racing.

Having made a handful of appearances in recent seasons, the Tickford driver is back on the dirt this summer and gaining confidence.

Waters has made seven starts since the start of November with the early races being four of the seven rounds of the SRA Open Sprintcar Series.

After back to back top 10 finishes before the VAILO Adelaide 500, everything clicked when Waters returned to the speedway world at Simpson Speedway.

At the December 27 meeting which doubled as round seven of the SRA Open Sprintcar Series, Waters scored an impressive second.

After 30 laps of racing he was just 2.6s away from race winner and sprintcar regular Tate Frost.

The following night he headed to Mount Gambier’s Borderline Speedway on the Speedweek but could only manage a P7 in the B-Main.

On December 30 he remained in the Speedweek spotlight at Avalon and scored another top 10 in the B-Main.

However, Waters maximised everything in the Speedweek finale at Warrnambool’s Premier Speedway.

In a field featuring massive names such as James McFadden and Jock Goodyer, Waters scored an impressive fourth place.

Cameron Waters flying around Premier Speedway in the Chief Racing #V6. Image: Chief Racing

Only the likes of Jamie Veal, Goodyer and McFadden kept the Supercars star off the podium.

Waters described the result as his “most satisfying run yet” of his speedway career.

“The level of competition was so high, so to run fourth with the best racers in Australia and the Americans as well was fantastic,” he said.

“We had a good night at Simpson, then struggled at Mount Gambier and Avalon, so to bounce back at Warrnambool was great.”

Following an intense run of four events in six days spread across South Australia and Victoria, Waters is heading north to Queensland’s Hi-Tec Oils Toowoomba Speedway this weekend.

He will take on the venue’s high banks at the three night NuTrend Homes Red Hot Summer Shootout.

In addition to Waters adding some Supercars stardom, six Americans will be on show including Sheldon Haudenschild and former Toowoomba winning Texan Aaron Reutzel.

Each competitor of the record-setting 60-car entry list will have their eyes on the $100,000 in prize money, including $30,000 for the winner of the Sunday night final.

Waters is looking forward to tackling Toowoomba’s high banks for the first time.

“We are carrying some momentum into Toowoomba this weekend where it’s a high-speed track,” he said.

“It will be the first time I’ve been to Toowoomba Speedway since the early 2000’s when I was watching my dad race in the Modified Production Sedan Australian Title. 

“I was probably only about 8 years old at the time, but from what I’ve seen on ClayPerView, it’s changed a lot since then and it’s a really racey track so I’m really looking forward to it.”

Sprintcars are on track from 5:15pm each night and tickets are available from www.speedwaytickets.com or you can watch live on www.clayperview.com

Image: Ross Gibb Photography/Supplied

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