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The South Australian landed at Matt Stone Racing after two seasons with Walkinshaw Andretti United, the first of which he finished 15th in the championship standings and the second in which he slumped further to 10th, after the Gen3 ‘reset’.
It was perhaps an ominous sign when he said in June last year, in announcing a factory deal with Fernando Alonso’s FA Kart, that running a karting team “was always the plan for me and my dad if the driving side didn’t work out.”
Ironically, it was the children in the JND team who helped him realise he still loved driving in Supercars, despite a tough 24-month period at WAU.
“To be honest, the JND karting team, those 10 kids – they’re all nine to 15 – dream of being in a Supercar,” said the 2011 Bathurst 1000 winner, who has become a regular kart racer again in recent years.
“They pretty much just gave me a clip around the years and said, ‘Nick, you need to keep racing. We love watching you if you can get in the right car.’
“That gave me a lot of motivation and when I met Matt [Stone] and the team and understood what they were doing there, I was like, ‘I’ve got to be in this car.’
“I got pretty low. I was, like, trying to avoid coming to the track; get here as late as possible, leave as quick as possible. Yeah, it was average.
“But, it’s pretty cool when you can have young karters that dream to race cars motivate you so much when it’s getting a bit tough, and they probably give you a reality check.
“There’s 25 – or whatever it is [Ed: 24] – seats available and they love watching it if you come last or first.
“There was a complete other group of people that were there helping as well and keeping it going, but it’s all worked out well.”
Percat’s win last Sunday in the #10 Bendix Camaro was his first since the opening half of the 2020 season, when he was a Brad Jones Racing driver.
He now sits fourth in the drivers’ championship, with MSR also fourth in the teams’ standings.
