'It's impossible': The tough chat that sent rookie down Supercars path

Jackson Walls may only be two rounds into his Supercars journey, but a career crossroads just two years ago could have sent the rising star down a completely different path.

Walls is one of five rookies on the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship grid, and arguably arrived against the backdrop of the most scrutiny.

The Sydney-born driver is racing for SCT Motorsport, as they begin their new era in Triple Eight-built machinery. With the announcement of the deal, naturally, came plenty of attention.

An Aussie V8 is a far cry to the cars Walls cut his teeth in — he began his car racing journey in Australian Formula 4 in 2018, picking up four podiums across two seasons, and also scored podiums in the F3 Asian Championship and New Zealand's Toyota Racing Series.

At the turn of the decade, Walls then shifted from open wheelers to GT machinery, finishing second in both Porsche Carrera Cup Australia and Lamborghini Super Trofeo Asia in 2023.

It was then, that a tough chat with father Tony — himself a veteran GT racer — triggered Walls to pursue a career in Supercars.

However, it wasn’t an overnight thing — the right opportunity needed to present itself, and it eventually came in a revived Triple Eight Super2 effort.

"We kind of came to a crossroads midway through 2024 where my dad was like, 'if you want a professional career, like you're not gonna get one in GT'," Walls said on the latest Drivers Only episode.

"It's impossible. To do a Matt Campbell now is like winning a Supercars Championship, it only happens to very few people.

"So we switched sides. We wanted to go to Super2, couldn't get a drive, funnily enough. Dad messaged Jamie in anger and was like, 'can you sort this out?’

"And within 48 hours, Jamie [Whincup] had gotten two cars, and assembled a team. It was pretty surprising."

Walls this year became the first driver since Ryan Wood to make his full-time Supercars debut before starting a main game race. He is also the first driver since Broc Feeney to graduate from Triple Eight's Super2 program into Supercars.

It all led to tension for Walls over the impending announcement of his deal, which came after SCT Motorsport and Triple Eight revealed their deal late last season.

"I was more nervous about it being announced than I was before the first race," Walls said.

"I was just like, 'oh my god, I'm being announced'. And it's like, of all the teams, it's Triple Eight and it's just like, 'oh, this is gonna blow up so hard in all the wrong ways', which it kind of did, which I don’t care about to be fair.

"I got bagged, but like, whatever, I don't care. I'm the one with the contract, I signed the piece of paper, so have that."

"With Broc and Will [Brown] together... you've got guys winning races every weekend, so there are no excuses to not learn as much as possible. We consistently have a pretty good car, it seems.

"If I only get the two years and that was it, I'd still be like, I had two years as a professional race car driver at the best team arguably in this part of the world, that's pretty special in itself."

In what has been a bruising start to 2026 for all five rookies — Jayden Ojeda and Zach Bates have both crashed, while Rylan Gray and Jobe Stewart have suffered from car issues — Walls has quietly climbed through the field.

Notably, Walls raced from 22nd to 11th, and 21st to 16th in the last two races in Melbourne.

"As a collective group, we’re in a learning phase at Objective Racing,” Team Principal Andrew Jones said.

"An 11th place finish in the third race of the [Melbourne] weekend highlights that we're learning and we've got results in us as a group.

"Excited to get [to New Zealand] and do back to back weekends, especially that race in Christchurch which is a level playing field for everyone being a new track to the 2026 calendar.”