In this edition of the JConcepts Friday5 we talk to Australian team driver, Lachlan Donnelly!
1. When you first got into RC racing, what pro driver did you look up to and why? Or maybe there was a local/regional driver that you followed?
It would have to be Spencer Rivkin, him being a world champ at such a young age, I wanted to be like him. I also won one of his 1/8th shells back in 2019 which I thought was quite cool.
2. In your region you do quite a bit of racing on outside off-road dirt surfaces. It seems like today’s car designs and more geared towards indoor dirt or carpet/turf surfaces. Why do you think this is and how have you adjusted to the current vehicles to stay competitive on those outdoor tracks?
I think cars today are designed for high grip surfaces as most tracks around the globe are now clay and carpet and are privately owned , whereas in Australia all our tracks are council (government) owned which leads it to being outdoors as being indoors is too expensive. In terms of making our cars competitive we have to work extremely hard on race days and practice days to test unique setup ideas on our unique low grip tracks.
3. Stock or 17.5 2wd Buggy is the biggest class in off-road electric racing currently. Why do you think this is and do you see these as a problem moving forward with the racing industry?
Modified is simply too fast for a new driver and even some more experienced drivers to handle on our surfaces so instead they all race 17.5 Stock. I don’t see it as much of a problem as long as the hobby grows here. It is a bummer sometimes having lower modified numbers, but hopefully one day some stock drivers will step up into modified.
4. To date what is your favorite JConcepts product of all time and why?
Favorite JConcepts products would have to be the Sprinter tire as it works extremely well here in Australia, also looking forward to trying out the new pin tire.
5. You are obviously highly skilled when it comes to RC cars, but what is one skill or hidden talent that folks might be surprised to find out about you?
Although it’s not an exciting or cool talent, I’m quite good at mathematics.