Cam Waters has led the opening race at the Townsville 500 from start-to-finish to take his second win of the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship season.
Waters held off a late charge from pole-sitter Brodie Kostecki to take back-to-back Friday wins after greeting the flag in Darwin.
The Monster Castrol Racing Ford Mustang won the start leaving Kostecki to deal with the Penrite Racing entry of Matt Payne and Chaz Mostert in the lead Toyota.
Both Payne and the reigning champion managed to overhaul Kostecki, with Mostert putting his Mobil 1 Optus Racing Toyota GR Supra in second.
The trio battled for much of the opening laps to allow Waters to extend his lead, but both Payne and Kostecki soon disposed of Mostert under brakes at Turn 11.
From there, Mostert started to drop away into the clutches of Payne’s teammate Kai Allen, while the Red Bull Ampol Racing duo of Broc Feeney and Will Brown made rapid progress to be on the outer reaches of the lead pack.
Kostecki bounced back to pass Payne and start eating into Waters lead approaching the pit stops.
Allen was the first to enter pit lane on lap 13 of 35 and this allowed the Penrite Racing driver to close in on the leaders through the undercut.
Mostert pitted four laps later and lost ground to Allen as did Payne.
Waters came in on the very next lap as Kostecki waited until lap 24 to pit, but was positioned between Allen and Mostert.
The charge was on for Kostecki as he disposed of Allen, then Payne on the penultimate lap to attack Waters, who was 1.2s in front.
Payne maintained third ahead of Allen and Mostert to complete the top five.
Thomas Randle completed a solid performance from the Monster Castrol Racing squad to be sixth ahead of a great comeback from Brown, Mobil 1 Truck Assist Racing’s Ryan Wood, Jayden Ojeda for PremiAir Racing and Feeney completed the first 10.
Qualifying for the second race of the weekend will commence at 11:25am AEST.