JACK Perkins is an Australian-based racing driver who has forged a career as a full-time, and more recently endurance co-driver, in the Supercars Championship in Australia.
The son of racing legend Larry Perkins, Jack made his V8 Supercar debut in a Perkins Engineering-built and run Commodore in the 2006 Fujitsu Series after previously competing in karts and Formula Ford.
He made his Supercars Championship debut later that year at the Sandown 500 sharing a Jack Daniel’s-backed Commodore with Shane Price for the Perkins team. His Bathurst 1000 debut a few weeks later came to a quick end on the first lap when, unsighted, he hit a limping Mark Skaife and his HRT Commodore.
Perkins moved into the V8 Supercars Championship Series full-time in 2007 in one of the Perkins team’s Jack Daniel’s Commodores, though stepped down late in the season in the wake of discovering he had Type One Diabetes.
He returned to racing in 2008 in the Fujitsu Series in a Mack Trucks-backed Commodore and finished eigth in the two endurance races at Phillip Island and Bathurst sharing a Jack Daniel’s Holden with Nathan Pretty.
Perkins drove full-time for Kelly Racing in 2009, the team born out of the closure of Perkins Engineering, before moving to Queensland to work in the Paul Morris Motorsports workshop. He did some racing in the Fujitsu Series and shared a Stone Brothers Racing-run Falcon with Tim Slade in the endurance races.
A co-drive with Russell Ingall followed in 2011 in a PMM Commodore, in the same season Perkins drove a Triple Eight-built Falcon for Sonic Motor Racing in the Fujitsu Series.
He signed with Garry Rogers Motorsport to co-drive with Alex Premat in the 2012 endurance races and shared a Commodore with Scott McLaughlin in 2013 (he also drove for Eggleston Motorsport in the Dunlop Series that year) before vaulting back into a ‘main game’ seat in Charlie Schwerkolt’s JELD WEN Falcon run out of Ford Performance Racing in 2014.
That deal lasted one season and Perkins moved to the Holden Racing Team/Walkinshaw Racing, where he spent the next five years as an endurance co driver, primarly with James Courtney.
He and Courtney teamed to win the Sunday race at the 2015 Gold Coast 600, marking Perkins’ first V8 Supercars Championship race win.
The duo also finished third in the 2019 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 in a Walkinshaw Andretti United Commodore.
Perkins has continued to be a regular on Channel 7’s motorsport broadcasts in recent years in addition to continuing his time as an endurance co-driver in Supercars. He drove with Brad Jones/SCT Motorsport at Bathurst in 2020 and spent three years as Will Brown’s co-driver at Erebus Motorsport from 2021 to 2023.
Last Updated – January 10, 2024
