Hailing from Launceston, 22-year-old Lachlan “Lochie” Dalton is a young gun in the world of racecar driving. He has a stacked year ahead of him. Not only is he competing in the Super2 Series, he’ll be taking on the Supercars Championship and Bathurst 1000, which will be the toughest challenge of his career so far.

Where did you grow up and where do you live now? I’m from Launceston around Prospect and went to school at Sacred Heart. I grew up doing all the fun things. Motorbike riding, skiing, and gokart racing, which I competed in around Tassie until I was about 11 or 12, then started competing nationally. I’m now based between Sydney and Melbourne.

When did you figure out you wanted to be a racecar driver? Ever since I can remember, to be honest. I remember my Dad getting nice model cars and I’d destroy them, pretending to race.

How did your parents react to your career goals? Dad was positive, but it’s an expensive hobby. He loved it but he was also like, “Great, this is going to be expensive.” I think my Mum was a bit scared of it. I was a seven-year-old doing 100 kilometres in a go-kart. It’s not for every parent. But she’s into it now!

How did you start racing professionally? I was very fortunate. I raced in go-karts locally a lot and raced a couple of times on the mainland at some of the bigger events. But it’s a very expensive thing to do, so I got selected to be a part of a team back then, AWC Motorsport Academy, which was fielded by Andrew Walter. He started this Tasmanian karting team and helped find a lot of young drivers to race in the Australian Championships and provided the best karts and the best mechanics. He gave us the opportunities to succeed at the highest level. He really backed and understood that it was a hard challenge for Tasmanians to race in a championship. That was my first big break and I continued that relationship over the years, then moved onto cars.

Tell us a bit about what you do now. I drive for Tickford Racing in the Super2 Series, which is like the VFL to the AFL, but then this year I’ll also race three to four times in the main series, the Supercars Championship.

It was recently announced that you’ll be stepping up to compete in the Supercars Championship this year. How are you feeling? I’ve known for a little while so I’ve had some time to process it. It feels good to be at the pinnacle of Australian motorsposts, it’s where I want to be. It’s a dream come true. But then reality kicks in and you’ve gotta knuckle down and realise you’ve got a job to do. I’ll try to make the most of it and do the best job I can.

So you’ve got plenty of training over the next few months? Yeah. We’re training in Noosa with the team, and I just finished up two days practicing. Test Days we call them. A lot of preparation goes into it.

Which races have you got coming up in 2025. I started off my racing year at the end of February in Sydney, in the Super2 Series. I’ll do six rounds of that throughout the year. The Tasmanian event will be in May. Alongside that, I’ll jump into the main series, the Supercars Championships, in Perth, and then do the Bathurst 1000 and also The Bend 500, which are the endurance races. They’re the longer races where you share the car with another driver. The Bathurst 1000 is the biggest motor race in Australia. That’ll be really cool. I’m very excited. I’ll also be racing in the GT4 Australia Series in a Mercedes for Buckby Motorsports, a Tasmanian-based team, which is another national championship. It’s a seven-round championship. So there’s lots of racing this year in some very cool cars.

What goes through your head when you’re in a race? There’s excitement but there’s also that bit of pressure, you want to do well and succeed. You do it because you love it.

What’s one thing about being a racing driver you wish more people knew? Like any sport, a lot of people think it’s glitz and glamour. And there’s heaps of good parts about it, for sure, but there’s a lot of nitty gritty stuff people don’t see behind the scenes. There’s a lot of hard work and sacrifices families make to be able to get people to these levels. But all that said, it’s worth it. It’s awesome.