Jack Perkins #22 Co-Driver

In 2017 Jack Perkins will join the Walkinshaw family for a third straight endurance season and will team up with James Courtney in the #22 Mobil1 HSV Racing Commodore.

The third-generation racer has followed in the footsteps of his famous grandfather Eddie and father Larry. Perkins started his racing career in karting at just 11 years old.

He worked hard to save money and in 2005 was finally able to afford a formula ford car. The highlight of his year was a podium finish at the Sandown 500 national round, racing against the likes of Daniel Ricciardo.

In 2006 he moved up to the Development Series (DVS) driving for Perkin’s Engineering and finished an impressive 3rd overall in his debut year. It was a milestone year for Perkins as he also competed in his first ever Bathurst 1000 as co-driver for Perkin’s engineering teammate Shane Price. They were the youngest pairing ever to contest the ‘Great Race’, but unfortunately the mountain defeated them and they and walked away with a DNF.

2007 was one of the most significant in Perkins’ racing career. He scored a full-time drive in the main game and replaced Paul Morris in the Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport (LDM) #11 Commodore.

That same year Perkins was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and while he continued to race for some time without telling anyone about his condition, he eventually was made the decision to step down before the end of the season to concentrate on his health.

It wasn’t long before Perkins was back racing and in 2008 re-emerged in DVS and was also back in the LDM #11 Commodore as a co-driver for the main game endurance races. That same year he achieved his first ever DVS race win and round win at Oran Park.

The newly formed Kelly Racing Team was Perkins’ home for the 2009 season where he drove full-time, but it was a tough season and a lack of quality results saw him leave at the end of the season.

Between 2010-2013 Perkins was a regular in DVS and was a co-driver in the main series driving with the likes of Paul Morris Motorsport, Sonic Motorsport, James Rosenberg Motorsport and Garry Rogers Motorsport. He also had a successful stint in the NZ Super Tours with Greg Murphy.

In 2014 Perkins was re-signed as a full-time driver in Supercars when an opportunity presented itself with Charlie Swerkolt’s new stand-alone team. While overall he didn’t achieve the results he had hoped for, he did produce one of his career highlights when he contested the Top 10 Shootout at the Bathurst 1000.

The biggest achievement of his career came in 2015 as co-driver with James Courtney and the Holden Racing Team when he won his first ever Supercars race.

It was a fairy-tale finish to a horror endurance season which saw him thrust into the role of main driver for the Sandown and Bathurst events when Courtney was badly injured in a freak helicopter accident at Sydney Motorsport Park.

He and Courtney were unable to replicated the same result in the 2016 endurance season, but will fight it out again this year when they compete under the new Mobil1 HSV Racing banner.

Away from the track Perkins is a television commentator with Channel 10 and is a spokesperson for Diabetes Australia.