April 29, 2024 • 50 mins
Liam’s adventures involve not just burning rubber on the race tracks but the life-shaping experiences and transformative power of sport are that he uncovers. The episode delves into the technicalities of drag racing, memorable milestones like the British Championship and numerous European victories. The tales are laced with an undertone of intense challenges, unyielding passion, undying spirit, and the deep sense of community within the drag racing world.
drag racing, bracket racing, junior racing, reaction times, pedaling, breakouts, achievements, sacrifices, racing community, fostering friendships, inclusivity, lessons learned, future of motorsport, media promotion,
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land
throughout Australia and recognise the continuing connection to country,
water and the community in which we live in.
I'm your host, Fiona, and I'm absolutely thrilled to welcome you back to Beyond
Sport with Fiona Stewart.
As a keen believer in the transformative power of sport, I'm excited to dive
(00:21):
into conversations with individuals from all corners of the sporting world,
whether it's your neighbourhood coach, coach, a childhood hero,
or a current sporting sensation,
this podcast is your ticket to explore the incredible stories behind the game.
Join me on this journey where sport transcends mere competition and becomes
a force for positive change and personal growth.
(00:43):
And hey, if you haven't already, be sure to hit that follow button wherever
you are listening so you never miss the drop of a new episode.
Trust me, you don't want to miss the inspiring stories I have in store for you. Let's dive in.
Today, we're revving up our engines and diving into the adrenaline-fueled world
(01:04):
of drag racing with none other than Liam McDonald.
From the tender age of eight, Liam has been burning rubber on the track,
carving his path in the junior side of bracket racing.
Join us as Liam shares his journey from his early days behind the wheel to his
impressive achievements, including winning the British Championship title and
competing across Europe.
(01:25):
But it's not just Just about the wins, Liam opens up about the sacrifices his
family made to fuel his racing dreams and the importance of community in the racing world.
So strap in and get ready for the ride as we delve into the world of drag racing with Liam Macdonald.
Hello, Liam. Thank you so much for joining us.
Hello how are you i'm good i'm good and you're up a little bit late tonight and i'm up early yeah,
(01:52):
yeah opposite sides of the world but it's an absolute pleasure
to have you on i would like to
know a little bit about your sport and how you got into it so
basically i'm involved heavily in drag racing and one thing about drag racing
that a lot of people don't know it's not exactly first to finish line there's
also a side of it called bracket racing and that's where i come in i race in
(02:14):
the junior side of that so it's the under 18s and mainly from eight years old till 18.
I started all because of my sister my sister
obviously you kind of want to follow your older sibling so I
seen her doing it and of course sibling reaction is
I want to do better it's rivalries it's always
in the family so I started that at
(02:35):
eight didn't really succeed until
I was about 12 13 and then of course COVID happens
everyone's in lockdown two three years I came
back two seasons ago only for half the season then last
year that's when I got most of my success and yeah
since then it's kind of just been building up from then just
a little few things about drag racing and my side of drag racing in
(02:58):
within bracket racing it's not done
first to the finish line it's actually times like giving
a time slot and you have to get as close to that as possible so for
me I'm aiming to get around 7.9 seconds
as a finish line time and if
you go quicker than that you get called a
breakout so a breakout is too fast
(03:20):
and you're kind of like in that zone of you're
no longer in the kid speeds you're technically
playing a game at the top end where you're on
the throttle off the throttle just placing your car milliseconds in
front of their car and it comes down to inches at
the finish line i've recorded winds by four
inches and i've recorded winds by feet it's so
(03:43):
variant on the day by the weather you get affected by everything and if it rains.
You're sat in your car for two three hours because of course you can't raise
some slick tires on the wet the wet prepped so it's it's crazy what happens
in the european tracks compared compared to the Americans.
Where they have the much more higher end.
But yeah, that's basically an overlay. In terms of the window that you have
(04:07):
to hit, is that because you're in the junior category?
Or is that also like an open? Oh, well, yeah, it's fully open.
So with the car racing, with the car classes, it's split into three from 8 to 18.
There's 12, no, 11.90 for 8 to 10.
10 to 13, you can go 8.90. And then with 13 to 18, you go 7.90.
(04:33):
So 7.90 seconds. These are all seconds.
And then with these, you can go from 14 seconds to 7.90 seconds.
You don't have to go 790 seconds you can give a
time of whatever it may be once it's slower than 7.9
seconds so if your
car isn't the same as someone else you have the
same equal chances of winning because
(04:55):
you'll get a handicap on the start line so you'll technically
start how much of a difference beforehand and
that other person has to try catch you and basically basically if
you're if that reaction times are good enough
and you will catch them if you're not good enough that
you won't catch them and they'll win but of course then it
falls into the if one person goes too quick then you
(05:17):
have a thing called the breakout and that breakout is
really confusing for people that don't have a clue what drag racing
is but i can walk through it just quickly it's too fast by milliseconds then
you're in a breakout and whoever has the smallest breakout out or whoever doesn't
break out is the winner and whoever has and then if both people don't break
out it's done a reaction time different like your reaction time plus the difference.
(05:42):
In your top line from your time so if i ran eight
seconds and you ran 790 seconds but i
had a better reaction time i could still win so it's
done on multiple different factors that like kind of
mathematically add together very intricate how do
you control that it is it you well
it's really hard to like fully control it
(06:03):
a lot of it is down to training your reaction times and once you have a good
reaction time you can then bring that across to your top line or your top top
of the track kind of like how to play it so there is a thing called pedaling
in my class and it's basically on and off the throttle to basically plant your car,
at the top end millis like millimeters in
(06:26):
front of them and if you do it wrong the other car
goes past you you lose the race because you took
too much time off your initial what you
wanted to and or you could
do it perfectly and you could actually slow yourself down enough
to go exactly on your time but that's
that's like the real advanced side of it yeah.
(06:47):
It's really advanced to it but there is of course the
people that are kind of not as advanced in it and they just go
i'm gonna go eight seconds and they could run 9.4 seconds
they don't care they just want to be there and everyone.
Has a good time afterwards so no one really minds but
it's it does get competitive but
everyone's yeah in terms of how
(07:09):
you train your reaction time i i grew up
a competitive swimmer so in like our
sprint races the time off the
block our reaction time that was part of our race too how
did you train yours so mine was
really just down to doing it
over and over again on there's an app that you
(07:30):
can just finger on finger off
and just seeing how your body reacts to the
lights coming down finding different like strategies a
lot of the younger kids which we always laugh at they go like three
two one go and you're like it's gonna
be very hard to do that when you're in sitting in the car about
to race you're just after all these pressures are on.
(07:51):
You especially at their age so you kind of have
to just find what i tend to do is i
hyper focus the the third bulb on a
four bulb tree which is what we use for the start line
and it comes down and stagger so it goes top bulb
top second bulb third bulb and the fourth one is either green
or it's red red is you went too early it's like
(08:12):
a false start in a sprint or green which
is of course you're fine it's green light
race so basically i focus
on the third yellow which is just before to go for like the last cautionary
before the go and it's a very hard technique to learn but when you master it
(08:33):
and you have it down you can kind of like bang out the same reaction time over
and over again because you're looking for a certain point in the light.
Because when you're hyper-focusing on this light, you can actually see the light
switch on and then actually close it back off.
And for me personally, I'm aiming for that middle to closing.
And once I see the closing, I'm on the throttle, I'm gone.
(08:55):
And I've actually recorded some of the times that you never really see in European
racing, which is the average is 0.1 of a second, which is like a blink.
If you think about blinking, that's 0.1 of a second roughly.
Whereas my best reaction times have been 0.000014 which is one one hundred thousandth
(09:17):
of a second and of course you can't even fathom one one hundred thousandth of
a second i've also just to prove it wasn't fluky i've had.
404 a 407 and a 408 which
are crazy and they've all been at different
tracks so i've had two in santa party england and
(09:37):
two in a track in germany so i
haven't yet seen someone else that's done four zeros
and qualifying or stuff like that but you know
it's something i really want to get again just to like have
on my waist to get five times but that's amazing
yeah so good i know
my swimming reaction times are awful it's one
(10:00):
of the main things that helped me like win a lot of
the time was just being so far ahead of the other person on
the start line you mentioned that you got into
it because of your sister and you followed yeah along along
the drag racing is there a
moment that you know that you knew like this is my sport and
it's not just i'm following my older sibling oh yeah yeah
(10:20):
so one thing with the racing was
you kind of did feel like oh
this is me following my my sister this is me
doing that but then you kind of get to an age where like you know
what look around you I played football soccer
and I played Gaelic football which is
an Irish sport I played hurling which is an Irish sport I've done most sports
(10:42):
most martial arts but nothing really ever gave me the same like kind of buzz
that the race never did and I think the social side of it also Also,
just kind of thinking to myself.
Especially last year, which is when that kind of moment was like,
this is my sport came to me, especially when I was sat around all my friends.
(11:03):
We're all just talking and you kind of just get that feeling where you're like,
this is where you want to be and this is where you want to stay on a thing.
And you get good moments in other sports, but I think when you find your sport
that you do love and you enjoy every moment of it, it kind of has that deeper feeling to it.
And it's kind of like a real special moment when you kind of finally realize,
(11:26):
I'm not just following my sister or my sister.
I'm not trying to just beat what she had a legacy of. I'm trying to create my own kind of thing.
But yeah, it's definitely to do with my social side.
I think I like asking that question because the answer is so different for everyone
and there is always that moment and I think it's one of the most magical,
(11:49):
not magical, but special things.
It's like, okay, I'm not doing this because my parents told me to or because
I'm following my sister.
It's like, no, this is what I actually want to do.
Last year you spoke about it was a big year.
You kind of took it to the next level. what
were the significant milestones in your journey let's go
(12:10):
into those points in time yeah so
my main ones were the main
achievements of last year just to like give a brief thing before
i go into the story side of it was i won
the british championship which is the europeans main championship
i also competed in scandinavia i
went to norway and sweden taking boat event wins
(12:32):
which was crazy for like a non-scandinavian to
do so and i think it was the first thing like 10 years
to do some of the junior classes and then i
was racing in germany france and holland
in or netherlands i was just being able to experience these like different ones
like different championships different people different cultures it was like
(12:56):
crazy but anyway the milestones that that I would say that are most important
to me were definitely the British Championship.
Having my sister being someone who previously won it, and being the first Irish
person, I kind of wanted to follow again, as I said, just match her.
So I done that last year, and I'm hoping to do it again this year, just to one-up her.
(13:18):
I think one thing that was kind of outside the box that not many people think
of was the travelling to then go on to win the German Championship.
Which I'd done last year, they were like these moments where you're up in Scandinavia
competing against some of the best up there.
Then you're in Germany competing against them.
(13:40):
All just to add together to make your best five events for the German championship.
It was just a crazy moment to finally say, I'm actually a multi-European champion
in like different countries, different places.
And you kind of sit back and you like look at your achievements and you say.
I've done this and no one else has ever done this before in my life.
(14:02):
No one else has traveled that much just in one year.
I think my dad racked up, what was it, 36,000 kilometers last year just traveling around Europe.
He was gone eight, seven months. He was just driving nonstop.
His car has less value in it, as you would say, but he didn't mind.
(14:26):
We had we had his his car on my dragster which is the car i drive on top of
my dad's skoda and that's how he transported everywhere so we had the the chassis
and body on top of his sedan,
and he had his engine in the boot of his sedan i
was sat in the back with all the suitcases and all the blankets covering me
and my mom and dad sat in the front obviously just going
(14:49):
around and it was honestly it was
achievement in its own it was a milestone in its own being
able to survive in that car for so long but we
made some of the best memories and I'll never forget
what I achieved or what we experienced in
these different places so were you gone for seven months last year so personally
(15:10):
I wasn't I was in school I had to still have school and stuff like that but
I was once school was done I was over there straight away with my dad kind of
I think he He was very lonely because my mom was working here to obviously fund it.
And obviously once he was over there, he was staying with family friends. He wasn't just alone.
(15:30):
He was staying with family friends from different races that we knew.
It was just like that kind of, I would be done school and I would be straight
over there. And I was away all of summer last year.
I was gone three months. I was even missing, I think, like nearly a month of
my last year of fourth year, which in Ireland, fourth year is kind of like,
transition year into higher like your higher education
(15:52):
so it wasn't that important like for
grades wise around so they understood
that what I was doing so they allowed me that time
off and that leniency but up until
then I had 100% like attendance I never was
sick never anything so they kind of allowed for that the schools
I had to thank a lot for that my parents I had to take
(16:14):
thank a lot for that and beyond the
winning itself of trophies and stuff like that achievement that
we achieved last year was the feeling of anyone can
win it because my parents slept on our couch
downstairs rented out bedrooms in our house with students
of exchange students so i can go racing i
currently have students staying with me so i can fund next year's racing
(16:36):
we come from no like no big sponsorship no.
Money we had no sponsors we've done it all ourselves all
i even on my sleeve and my shirt all i have is a
young girl that died racing in australia and then
on this side it's literally my local bank that
gave me like 100 euro two years ago so that's there's
no like great financial support within my
(16:59):
racing but kind of the achievements of what
we've done but so little it's just a lot more than
the championships was if that makes sense hugely i think it's a massive thing
especially motorsport you know you do need a little bit of funding behind you
to be able to do that by yourself without major sponsors exactly yeah it was
(17:22):
just kind of more like the,
The sacrifice you make kind of to get what you want to achieve was like so important
to us that we like kind of were okay with it. We slept in tents.
We stayed, we were sleeping in a tent in Norway in a thunderstorm.
They're worst in like 10 years in a forest. So that was the most scariest night of my life.
(17:43):
Water going all over me, the lightning outside.
Waking up the next morning having to race. Won the event. And I don't know how
or how we'd done it, but we were just thankful we survived the night,
let alone actually race the next day.
Amazing. I almost can't follow them.
Like traveling around Europe in a tent and a car and having your racing car up off the car. Yeah.
(18:10):
What were other teams like? What did other teams have? What were the other competitors?
So a lot of the teams, which is really funny, they had the generic motorsport
people like they had the hundred thousand dollar trailers that have the kitchens
bathrooms sleeping quarters tvs and you come over to our pits and we have a,
(18:32):
a tent with the biggest irish flag you
could find anywhere put on the front you have
to kind of move it out of the way when you want to get a tent because my
mom is very patriotic and inside that that
tent we had two rooms for bedrooms and we
had a living quarters in the middle which was like i'm saying
not that big and we had table mini gas
(18:52):
cooker and we had probably music playing half the time just to kind of drown
out the the like rain or the whatever it may be on the day that's amazing though
like i i grew up camping with my parents and i i'm just thinking like at At 17 or, you know, 16,
like those late teenage years, I definitely would not have wanted to be in such
(19:13):
close employment with them.
That's really awesome that you were, you know, doing that for three months and
that your parents were there supporting you. Mm-hmm.
Don't get me wrong, we got on each other's nerves more than anything.
I was the average teenager getting annoyed when it was early morning racing
or if it's late night driving.
I'm like, Dad, will you just pull over? I want to go to sleep.
(19:35):
And he's like, I don't know, we're nearly to this certain spot.
He wants to be certain places at certain times and stuff like that.
Bear in mind, he was driving at about 80 kilometers for the majority of our
travel because we did have a car on our roof.
So I was just calling him a granddad the whole time. he was
just slowly kicking along and it was we could
have been there so much quicker if we were a normal weighted car that wasn't
(19:58):
on the back hinge like a old muscle car we we we've done what we what we've
done what we wanted to do and we've done it with the most style possible so
you can't really complain i think it's fantastic if you were to go back and
relive a moment what would it be.
The thing is with like the last year i've had
so many like little funny moments of so many amazing moments
(20:21):
that are like kind of i'd love to do it again but of course like the main one
that comes to mind when you think about last year was that like childhood dream
of winning this the championship in england which is considered the great the
greater one in kind of europe,
with the most competitors stuff like that that feeling
(20:42):
once i got out of the car at the top of the track pulled around
I had to wait for the car behind me
who was the other person who was second place
in the championship if he won we go to the next round we have to see who would
take home the championship and if he lost I won the championship but for me
it was the person that I was racing against for this championship was my childhood
(21:06):
best friend who we grew up together, we were doing everything together.
But that person actually turned out to.
Not speak to me for a lot of that year because he was
kind of real competitive about the year and his family were like convinced
him not to speak to me so what we we.
Had ended up having the three best mates so.
Me my other really close mate
(21:28):
still and the other guy who used to be my best mate was
second place in the championship them two
are racing each other so i had my two best mates grace meet each other
if my old best mate won we
were fighting for the championship if my other best mate won I
had won the championship and he'd won it for me and I'd
owed everything to him up and like for that event anyway
(21:50):
but turns out he came down the
strip and I ended up winning the championship and
that moment when he put his hands out the car like that you've
done it it was just like a moment where all that
worry and stress of losing you're like really close friend
of fighting for a championship for the whole year for
traveling for all this just for this moment moment it
(22:12):
just all drains out of you i i think i'm not ashamed
to say i definitely shed a few tears just in
that moment just a lot of people didn't say
oh yeah i was i was just celebrating oh i was first thing
i thought about was crying i just let everything out
and i had one of my best mate
congratulating me and i was just thanking him
(22:32):
so much and i had the other guy who went out i went over
straight away and i said that was the best year of racing the most competitive
year of racing i've ever had i'm thankful for him didn't get many words back
from him but of course like you're going to be like upset about the year and
the kind of all his efforts like just for a second so i understood that.
(22:53):
And luckily, we kind of rebuilt that friendship. So that was great. That was good.
But I think that main moment where you're feeling that I've done this,
I've finally achieved it, it was just unbelievable and it was unmatched.
That moment, I could relive always.
And the feeling when I got back to the pits of where I was staying,
(23:13):
where all the younger kids who have been looking up to me for the year and who
have been supporting, who I've been playing rugby with, who I've been playing soccer with.
It i was always involved with the younger ones they came
rushing over all hugging me my girlfriend came running
down hugging me everyone just that whole feeling
of a kind of unity where it wasn't just
(23:33):
me who was feeling this joy it was everyone around me it was just kind of you
think this is what sport should be and this is what like competitiveness should
be put to the side at times and this is like the main reason but yeah no that
that like togetherness is unmatched and And I'd love to just have that feeling once again.
And hopefully again, it's this year. Hopefully less tears.
(23:59):
I think you might have a few more moments like that in your sporting journey,
but also it does transfer over, which I really, really like because my next question is,
what is the benefits that sports provided you that's transferred over to other parts of your life?
I'd really like to know how that's influenced you as a person. i'd
(24:20):
definitely say the main one was like the
socializing side like the building up
the friendships learning how to socialize from eight years
old it's very important to like know how to talk to people especially like people
are going to be spending weeks on weeks in that year with like you have to be
able to speak with them be able to like not fight to understand each other to
(24:44):
not like get mad and fall out for the whole time.
I think the main thing I would take from racing itself is.
How much you can build bonds from just like
small things you can build like personal bonds you can build financial bonds
with like different people that you can meet on the way and i think these little
(25:04):
things like just talking to people at the track playing sports with these people
they can all lead to like greater things like you can earn sponsorships from
these people you can earn.
Lifelong friendships and it's just very important that you
can take that and bring it into the outside world and
just have like the ability for as we're
speaking now me being able to speak to you being able to put myself
(25:26):
out there put myself in an uncomfortable position and be
able to just build on that and just be able to express myself fully
I think you've answered that very well and I was actually
going to say you are expressing yourself absolutely fantastic
especially you're 17 yeah 17 for
a 17 year old as a 17 year old I definitely couldn't do
this yeah I think I have
(25:49):
a I had a bit of experience with like I do
a lot of the speaking when it comes to the racing I like to help
out a lot of the younger kids because I know when I
was younger it's very clicky in racing that's one thing with the racing that
you can be very clicky and you can't get into these other groups and I want
to be in that group because they have the cooler boys bicycles they have the
(26:10):
nicer cars they have this stuff when you're younger so I always try if I see
a kid that's at the race And I'm like, Oh,
pass it past the ball or something like that.
We just getting them slowly involved with like other kids around them.
And I think that really builds into like a greater community along the line
because they want to come back because they made new friends.
(26:31):
They made three new friends and then they come back and now they have five, they have six.
And you see now we've kind of built a whole foundation of like a community rather than clicks.
And it's amazing. Amazing. And I'll talk about that later, about the projects
and stuff like that, that my parents have set up and stuff like that.
But within our race, it's becoming so much more of a family-orientated than
(26:55):
it is kind of cliques and groups and stuff like that.
Which is, like you said earlier, that is what sport should be. Yeah.
It should be that community and support network and family orientation.
I love that. That's what your focus is. yeah I think I think it's just so important
(27:16):
for especially for motorsport where it's like seen as this like kind of dangerous
but like exciting and like.
Only for people that have money and you think where money
comes it's like arrogance which a lot of
the time it doesn't they're the nicest people you can meet and it's
just down to how they're brought up rather than how
(27:37):
much money they have in the bank and I think that's mainly very
important especially not like understanding where they come
from stuff like that is there a lesson that you've
learned along the way that you'd like to share yeah so
the main lesson was was learning about how
different people react to different situations and also how you
can't let one like factor affect another
(27:59):
which would be the competitive side and kind of
the friendships and stuff like that you can't really let them
affect one another I think once I'm in
the car seat nothing else matters they're still
my friend but I'm only thinking about that race at
hand whereas a lot of other kids and
stuff like that especially even the older ones they see
(28:21):
it as a win is a win you need to do
these toxic things to win or.
You need to sabotage and you see these all you
see them quite like frequently nowadays and it's
kind of like where is this coming from why
are you being so like anti-social and
being so I need to win just because I want to impress my parents my grandparents
(28:46):
my such and such and I don't really care about the friendship side of it whereas
for me it's very much so I'd love to win I'm not saying who doesn't like winning but.
The thing is you need to understand that there's two sides to everything you
need to understand that you're affecting other people if you're messing with
other people's parts that's where it comes into the part where you're like oh
(29:08):
this is a bit dodgy my dad for example is we counted last event,
14 people came to him over a two day period of just for parts.
So they came for the car and come for carburetor parts.
Someone had my end, my spare engine last year in his car for the last event.
The second place in the championship lost his brakes in the third round,
(29:33):
and he didn't have the power to get sent from America. He would have been out.
My dad, knowing he was in second place, said, we're the better people, give him the power down.
So I brought down the power, put it in their hand, and the rest was,
we didn't mind after that.
We were like, you can't let this competitiveness
get in the way of like your deeper morals and say like this is the better thing
(29:58):
to do i need to be the better person and even if they're not the nicest person
to you it doesn't matter you need to have these deeper morals and say like your
reputation comes first and then competitive comes second did that come from
your parents it sounds like it's come from your parents.
Yeah very much so my parents are very like especially with my my mom especially
she has little projects gone but we'll speak about that later so so good you can speak now about it,
(30:27):
what what projects is your mom doing oh yeah perfect so so
basically my mom has these little events
every year she has main ones
are easter which just went by we had the easter
event it was called the easter nationals and my mom had an
easter icon for all the kids to get involved vault so she
set out she spent i think 300 or 400 euro
(30:50):
on different things for the kids to do we ended
up not even using half of them she had a bunny suit you had
a carrot suit she had little easter eggs
that me and the other ones hid around for
the younger ones to go looking for she had an egg and
spoon race and for her this
was what she loved to do but also what
(31:11):
we see it as is a time in
which everyone can come together and forget about
the racing and not stress about the competitiveness of it and the high heart
rates and it's kind of like a cool down just before the eliminations and you
see with the younger ones it really helps they open up so much more they're
(31:31):
playing together everyone's involved and you just see so many different.
Maybe different types of people like they have different
upraises but they all come together and this one time
and they're all enjoying themselves and then
again as we said the community vibe it's so much stronger
and it's so much like heavier built
(31:52):
during this time than it is throughout the rest of the season and then another
time we have which my mom is calling the junior dragster like awards she calls
it she made separate awards at the end of the year for every single kid to get
an award because she sees it as,
some people say it's the participation awards but it's not really she basically
(32:17):
buys a cup for every single person that raced that year.
And she goes through with a group of people and lists out who deserves what
trophy, who's been the best reaction time, who's been the most enthusiastic,
who's been the best sports person, the best sports woman, sports man.
Because there's all different types of people and all different incredible talents they have.
(32:41):
Some people are crazy at the reaction times, and we have trophies for the best reaction time in the JS,
which is the youngest, youngest and you have the JM which is the medium and
then JMA which is the oldest but the thing with my type of racing is we all
race together so I could race an eight-year-old tomorrow morning and,
(33:02):
people be like oh that's unfair but then you also think I'm sat
on the line for about seven eight seconds waiting for that car
to slowly ticker down the tracks and then I can chase after it
so my reaction times does take a
bit of a bang from that but the thing
with that is is every person lives there
with a smile on their face saying look i won
(33:22):
this look i won that i i'm coming home with
a trophy they may never win a trophy from the
actual races they may only win from these and we also have perpetual rewards
that she introduced for two people that passed away and two people that are
currently like still important people in the racing like scene for us And as
(33:44):
you know, as I mentioned earlier,
there's a little girl and she's actually from Australia and she was,
I think one of the first ever accorded debts from an accident in the junior classes.
And she was only an eight-year-old girl who only just started in Australia.
And her whole family was in the racing.
And it was all down to a bad decision from the top end workers who told her
(34:10):
to turn off when she was going too quick.
It was a very sad time. But we decided, because my mom was close to the family, she said,
we'll make a nice gesture on our tops and we'll also introduce a trophy that
a young driver who is in the ages of eight to 10,
who shows real like talent and
like potential that they would win this trophy and you
(34:31):
should see the size of these trophies one of them is i'm six
foot two and one of these trophies is hip height
is above hip height and i'm like ma'am
you're so overkill and she's just like she wants
the best trophies for them uh kids but i'm like how
are you meant to bring it home i ended up winning the group
one which all the kids voted for like it's like
(34:53):
the overall winner of the year I won it
last year and me bringing
it home on a Ryanair flight it had to have its own seat
belt that's how big it was it was bigger
than the seat it had to be put on the floor and strapped in it was crazy but
she does little things like that that she tries to make a nice image for the
(35:15):
kids to move on to and like look back on and say oh i won this i won that bring
it to school bring it to show and tell for the younger ones and say this is
what i done this week this is what i won.
Just stuff like that just to like show that they're not just
doing it for no reason like they have like a purpose and
that it's like encouraging them to stay in the
(35:35):
sport and like find what class may
best suit them next what they want to go on to next if
they're good at reaction times what they might do with that if they're
good at dial-ins or being accurate on
their times maybe they'll go into a class that's more
based on that maybe it's just reaction times they'll go into one that's first
to the finish line and the fastest car wins you never know but these kids always
(35:58):
like have this feeling that they accomplished something and now they can push
on to get something better in the future so I think that's really important
for the younger kids especially.
Especially definitely and that I guess transitions
into our next question which is where do you see the future of sport I know
your mum and you know your team is working towards creating a nice community
(36:20):
feel to that but where do you see where the future of your sport is for me personally
I definitely see like with the drag racing side I definitely see that we need to push more towards.
Getting more modern it's very old-fashioned it's shops to races races This is...
Very limited broadcast it's put on youtube promoted a tiny bit stuff like that
(36:44):
but i think they need to get someone behind it that's very media focused which
they are starting to do in america and just blow it up a lot more maybe get
as they did in the 80s where they had it on tv,
if they get it back on tv just to get like more viewers more
people that wouldn't have access to being able to go
onto youtube searching for this specific thing maybe it's
(37:05):
just on a random channel that they end up flicking onto
and they're like oh i'm interested in this it's kind of branching
into the media and maybe like obviously down
the line getting onto tv i think that's very important
for all sports everything having that like basis of really good promotion is
really important but where i know myself it is very hard like trying to promote
(37:28):
yourself i went from from sending out 300 plus emails, getting maybe two replies back,
maybe even four replies back and three of them being no's.
You kind of have to just keep pushing at these things until they flourish.
And I think that's what they need to focus on. If it goes wrong,
maybe if they don't get the views they want, if they don't get the promo that
(37:52):
they want, I think they need to just keep on going.
And I see where even with sport in general, with
one another topic that I want to touch
on quickly is the fitness side of it
as a lot of people know nowadays there's a
huge boom in fitness and getting
young people who are starting the gym if you look on things like tiktok and
(38:15):
youtube shorts everyone's starting gym related videos and gym related everything
which is amazing and for me personally I've started started training more specific
towards my sport, which is very limited.
It's very mental and it's a lot of,
training your reaction times your mental capabilities of keeping cool under pressure.
(38:37):
Having there's not much physical to it or then breaks throttle
stuff like that but the mental side is the real killer
and i know if you have a strong
mental and you have a strong body it's really
important to kind of go two and two together
it's really important to kind of like build both of them up at
the same time and not just focus on building up
(38:58):
a really strong physique zeke and forgetting about
your mental health so i know with
a lot of young racers it is really really like
dampering on them when they feel all
that pressure then toppling on top of them and they don't
realize then have school on top of on top of that and
they have like the older things but definitely i
(39:19):
think building up a strong like fitness within
yourself and also like a strong mental health is
really important for like sport just going forward and
like maybe capitalizing on the kids that
are starting these gym tiktoks and stuff like that maybe pushing
them towards training specifically towards what they
want to do if they want to do football maybe it's
(39:41):
plyometrics for explosiveness if it's racing
they can focus on meditation or they
can focus on like little things to help their mental
cool down and relax and stuff like that but i think a
lot of kids definitely need to understand that.
It's amazing to have this new fitness like boom but
they also have to realize what they're doing it for and how they can use it
(40:04):
to benefit themselves and not just do it because everyone else is doing it if
that makes sense yes yeah definitely makes sense it's using that mental and
physical fitness and directing it towards towards your specific sport. Yeah.
Now, I have a few quickfire questions. Perfect. No worries.
Are you ready? See if you can answer them in one or two words. Yes.
(40:29):
No worries what is your etpb etpb
my best time was definitely
it's a bit naughty because you're not really allowed to go fast in 790 but i
went 770 or 7 no 765 when i was in america which it was a test day it was allowed
you go as fast as you like i had no weight in the car and i just went as fast
(40:53):
as i could but yeah it was definitely 7.65 seconds and that's,
my car goes 0 to 60 mile an
hour in 2.4 seconds so you can imagine that was
quite fast a lot of people kind of laugh
because they're like oh you're only limited to 90 mile an hour but
then then again i'm telling them that my car accelerates faster
(41:13):
than a tesla lamborghini a lot of these other cars like
i would i've smoked i've smoked a lot
of bigger like kind of fancy cars
on test days where they're like oh yeah i'll race you i'll go against
you yeah come on on race to the eighth mile which we
normally race to and i would beat them there by two seconds and
they're like kind of looking at you like how have you just done that but
(41:35):
it's it's really important just fathom that
the et for our ets you're gonna have to have a quick get going speed to like
kind of reach them we've just had the f1 two weeks ago in melbourne so how does
that compare to to the speed of an F1 car.
(41:55):
I know Daniel Ricciardo is a big deal down here.
Okay. Yeah, no worries. So I'll explain.
For my cars, we are nowhere near. We're like three times slower.
But my sister went on to do a thing called Top Fuel.
So Top Fuel is the fastest of fast in drag racing. It's like the top of the top car.
(42:18):
So they go up to 300 mile an hour in America.
My sister went 266 mile an hour, which you would see some F1 cars going.
But she was 0 to 100 mile an hour in 0.8 of a second.
So I think with drag racing, you are going to these speeds that the F1 cars do get to.
(42:42):
But you're getting to them in seconds. You're getting there like one, two seconds.
You're going to 200 mile an hour whereas these top fuel now these f1 cars need aerodynamics.
That's why they have so much downforce that's why getting up to these speeds
is slower but they can keep at that speed and use it during turns deceleration and they're,
(43:05):
unbelievable as we're touching on fitness they have
this best fitness no one kind of thinks about
it their fitness is the top of the top they have
the best neck strengths body tensions everything
so it's for speed wise
we do kind of beat them on that but when it comes to fitness we have nowhere
touching them on their fitness side they have unbelievable fitness thank you
(43:28):
for for comparing them it's really it's it's an interesting thing to compare
different elements of motorsports and what the different strengths are for different
sports yeah now you're You're 17.
Do you have your general driver's license yet?
I'm allowed my driver's license, but I'm actually very lazy and I have not got it yet.
(43:50):
So my dad is very on my tail and he is saying.
Why don't you get your license and i'm like oh yeah i will i will but
then i'm like oh race season now i can't get it and
he's like you're just being you're just
being lazy like i'm just i don't want to study all the the
extra bits you have like the theory and then the
driving side of it will be fine like i i've known how
(44:12):
to drive since i was probably about 10 my dad's
had me in his car driving just saying he kind of
threw me in the car and just said go ahead and kind
of like most most dads like the most to kind of just give
it a go see how bad you can make it and then i'll kind of guide you
from there and then yeah it was kind of i think
i he had me up in like a car park doing
(44:34):
it a few times and so i have a rough idea
i know how to use a clutch everything everything's fine i
know all that stuff but it's just more the teary side of whether
or not to go on a pedestrian crossing i have no
clue i just wouldn't be able to tell you so that's where i'm
kind of need to to do my bit of research and stuff like that
there's no crossing that my drag strip so
(44:55):
I don't really know too well exactly I just found that so interesting that you're
able to drive such a high speed high power vehicle and then like yeah you're
not you're not driving on the road like it's old enough to but yeah it's just
I'm just not doing at the moment the Irish.
(45:15):
Association with the driving license they don't actually allow me to drive because
of of they didn't give me a racing license because they didn't recognize drag
racing because I'm literally the only one that does at the moment in Ireland,
whereas in England and the rest of Europe, it's huge.
But they didn't want to recognize it. So I actually had to go to FIA and get a full license from FIA.
And they actually sent me out too high of a license.
(45:38):
I could be sat in an F2, F3 car if I want right now with the type of license I have.
Don't tell the FIA because they will take that away from me.
But if I wanted to, I could step into an F3 car right now. So that's really cool.
I can't drive a road car, but I can drive two steps down from an F1 car.
So I'm not complaining. your version's a
(46:01):
lot more fun i can tell you that yeah exactly yeah
have you had any accidents no
i've never had like an accident where i've crashed or
anything but i've definitely seen kids roll their
car i've seen people crash into one another i've seen kind
of like the maddest stuff i've seen like cars actually
(46:21):
take flight thank god not our cars because they're
not fast enough but the top fuels have literally left the
floor and done barrel rolls in the air they're that fast because
you have to think about it they're built like beads of planes and at a certain
point a wing is going to want to take flight and since this car is built like
(46:43):
a wing in a reverse of a wing instead of taking flight it wants to reorientate it to a wing.
Because it's grabbed I don't know the wind I don't know the exact thing but
my dad definitely talked about a lot of times that it's kind of in my head where
I wants to go 180 and turn itself into a wing and that's why it ends up flying
(47:07):
up getting caught by the air flying up doing flips and landing wherever and
and you it's crazy when you do see it but yeah thank
god it hasn't happened in a good few years to kind of learn how to weigh
it down stuff like that yeah that would be scary so what
is next for you you mentioned that you want to have another
crack at the english championship what's next for
(47:28):
your journey in sport so definitely the
next step for me would be go on to the you know
top fuel which is the one i was talking about or the more like door car side
of it so like a kind of like a road car but like really really tuned and like
done up and it's like a real the proper drag car as you would say i like the
(47:49):
more that side of the more door car side of it that's like more of a.
Realistic feel to it because number one it's a bit slower and number two it's
like i don't know the like exact reason why it's just a feeling since i was
a kid i always wanted to do the kind of more door car maybe it's because i don't
want to follow my sister that much and i want to follow exact route and go the
(48:09):
exact same way but yeah I definitely want to give it a go at that but,
you'd need a lot of sponsorship for that so that's
what I'm aiming for I have to get a big name over here
so hopefully one day so where can the
audience find you I know there's a lot of listeners in
America as well as Australia where where can
they find you and follow your journey oh my.
(48:33):
Main places places that i'm on is instagram so
i have an instagram and i'm also starting up a facebook properly
it would be for facebook lean mcdonald's
and it's with my car has everything on it but it's
a bit easier on instagram it's mcdonald.motorsport i'm
the first option that comes up most of the time it's just of
(48:53):
my car so it's a long skinny car
that looks a bit like a canoe from first sight so
that's what you'd be looking for but yeah it's
definitely like something i really need to work on
is my social like promotion and i've have
grown it recently quite a lot i've grown 600 followers
in like the space of i think four weeks of just promoting
(49:16):
and promoting and promoting so it's been quite good that's amazing
and i'll be sure to link it in our socials as well
so people can easily find it thank you very much thank you very much and thanks
so much for having me on as well it's been amazing so thank you for coming on
and i know it's a little bit of a later night for you so thank you so much for
staying alert and awake i know if it was that time for me i'd be asleep no worries.
(49:48):
Thank you for listening to this episode of
beyond sport with fiona stewart this is a completely independent podcast that
has been created to share the journey and lessons of top level sporting professionals
but also your everyday lover of sport if you liked this podcast i'd really appreciate
if you could leave a review and share it with someone who you think would also enjoy it.
(50:11):
Music.
I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land
throughout Australia and recognise the continuing connection to country,
water and the community in which we live in.
I'm your host, Fiona, and I'm absolutely thrilled to welcome you back to Beyond
Sport with Fiona Stewart.
As a keen believer in the transformative power of sport, I'm excited to dive
(00:21):
into conversations with individuals from all corners of the sporting world,
whether it's your neighbourhood coach, coach, a childhood hero,
or a current sporting sensation,
this podcast is your ticket to explore the incredible stories behind the game.
Join me on this journey where sport transcends mere competition and becomes
a force for positive change and personal growth.
(00:43):
And hey, if you haven't already, be sure to hit that follow button wherever
you are listening so you never miss the drop of a new episode.
Trust me, you don't want to miss the inspiring stories I have in store for you. Let's dive in.
Today, we're revving up our engines and diving into the adrenaline-fueled world
(01:04):
of drag racing with none other than Liam McDonald.
From the tender age of eight, Liam has been burning rubber on the track,
carving his path in the junior side of bracket racing.
Join us as Liam shares his journey from his early days behind the wheel to his
impressive achievements, including winning the British Championship title and
competing across Europe.
(01:25):
But it's not just Just about the wins, Liam opens up about the sacrifices his
family made to fuel his racing dreams and the importance of community in the racing world.
So strap in and get ready for the ride as we delve into the world of drag racing with Liam Macdonald.
Hello, Liam. Thank you so much for joining us.
Hello how are you i'm good i'm good and you're up a little bit late tonight and i'm up early yeah,
(01:52):
yeah opposite sides of the world but it's an absolute pleasure
to have you on i would like to
know a little bit about your sport and how you got into it so
basically i'm involved heavily in drag racing and one thing about drag racing
that a lot of people don't know it's not exactly first to finish line there's
also a side of it called bracket racing and that's where i come in i race in
(02:14):
the junior side of that so it's the under 18s and mainly from eight years old till 18.
I started all because of my sister my sister
obviously you kind of want to follow your older sibling so I
seen her doing it and of course sibling reaction is
I want to do better it's rivalries it's always
in the family so I started that at
(02:35):
eight didn't really succeed until
I was about 12 13 and then of course COVID happens
everyone's in lockdown two three years I came
back two seasons ago only for half the season then last
year that's when I got most of my success and yeah
since then it's kind of just been building up from then just
a little few things about drag racing and my side of drag racing in
(02:58):
within bracket racing it's not done
first to the finish line it's actually times like giving
a time slot and you have to get as close to that as possible so for
me I'm aiming to get around 7.9 seconds
as a finish line time and if
you go quicker than that you get called a
breakout so a breakout is too fast
(03:20):
and you're kind of like in that zone of you're
no longer in the kid speeds you're technically
playing a game at the top end where you're on
the throttle off the throttle just placing your car milliseconds in
front of their car and it comes down to inches at
the finish line i've recorded winds by four
inches and i've recorded winds by feet it's so
(03:43):
variant on the day by the weather you get affected by everything and if it rains.
You're sat in your car for two three hours because of course you can't raise
some slick tires on the wet the wet prepped so it's it's crazy what happens
in the european tracks compared compared to the Americans.
Where they have the much more higher end.
But yeah, that's basically an overlay. In terms of the window that you have
(04:07):
to hit, is that because you're in the junior category?
Or is that also like an open? Oh, well, yeah, it's fully open.
So with the car racing, with the car classes, it's split into three from 8 to 18.
There's 12, no, 11.90 for 8 to 10.
10 to 13, you can go 8.90. And then with 13 to 18, you go 7.90.
(04:33):
So 7.90 seconds. These are all seconds.
And then with these, you can go from 14 seconds to 7.90 seconds.
You don't have to go 790 seconds you can give a
time of whatever it may be once it's slower than 7.9
seconds so if your
car isn't the same as someone else you have the
same equal chances of winning because
(04:55):
you'll get a handicap on the start line so you'll technically
start how much of a difference beforehand and
that other person has to try catch you and basically basically if
you're if that reaction times are good enough
and you will catch them if you're not good enough that
you won't catch them and they'll win but of course then it
falls into the if one person goes too quick then you
(05:17):
have a thing called the breakout and that breakout is
really confusing for people that don't have a clue what drag racing
is but i can walk through it just quickly it's too fast by milliseconds then
you're in a breakout and whoever has the smallest breakout out or whoever doesn't
break out is the winner and whoever has and then if both people don't break
out it's done a reaction time different like your reaction time plus the difference.
(05:42):
In your top line from your time so if i ran eight
seconds and you ran 790 seconds but i
had a better reaction time i could still win so it's
done on multiple different factors that like kind of
mathematically add together very intricate how do
you control that it is it you well
it's really hard to like fully control it
(06:03):
a lot of it is down to training your reaction times and once you have a good
reaction time you can then bring that across to your top line or your top top
of the track kind of like how to play it so there is a thing called pedaling
in my class and it's basically on and off the throttle to basically plant your car,
at the top end millis like millimeters in
(06:26):
front of them and if you do it wrong the other car
goes past you you lose the race because you took
too much time off your initial what you
wanted to and or you could
do it perfectly and you could actually slow yourself down enough
to go exactly on your time but that's
that's like the real advanced side of it yeah.
(06:47):
It's really advanced to it but there is of course the
people that are kind of not as advanced in it and they just go
i'm gonna go eight seconds and they could run 9.4 seconds
they don't care they just want to be there and everyone.
Has a good time afterwards so no one really minds but
it's it does get competitive but
everyone's yeah in terms of how
(07:09):
you train your reaction time i i grew up
a competitive swimmer so in like our
sprint races the time off the
block our reaction time that was part of our race too how
did you train yours so mine was
really just down to doing it
over and over again on there's an app that you
(07:30):
can just finger on finger off
and just seeing how your body reacts to the
lights coming down finding different like strategies a
lot of the younger kids which we always laugh at they go like three
two one go and you're like it's gonna
be very hard to do that when you're in sitting in the car about
to race you're just after all these pressures are on.
(07:51):
You especially at their age so you kind of have
to just find what i tend to do is i
hyper focus the the third bulb on a
four bulb tree which is what we use for the start line
and it comes down and stagger so it goes top bulb
top second bulb third bulb and the fourth one is either green
or it's red red is you went too early it's like
(08:12):
a false start in a sprint or green which
is of course you're fine it's green light
race so basically i focus
on the third yellow which is just before to go for like the last cautionary
before the go and it's a very hard technique to learn but when you master it
(08:33):
and you have it down you can kind of like bang out the same reaction time over
and over again because you're looking for a certain point in the light.
Because when you're hyper-focusing on this light, you can actually see the light
switch on and then actually close it back off.
And for me personally, I'm aiming for that middle to closing.
And once I see the closing, I'm on the throttle, I'm gone.
(08:55):
And I've actually recorded some of the times that you never really see in European
racing, which is the average is 0.1 of a second, which is like a blink.
If you think about blinking, that's 0.1 of a second roughly.
Whereas my best reaction times have been 0.000014 which is one one hundred thousandth
(09:17):
of a second and of course you can't even fathom one one hundred thousandth of
a second i've also just to prove it wasn't fluky i've had.
404 a 407 and a 408 which
are crazy and they've all been at different
tracks so i've had two in santa party england and
(09:37):
two in a track in germany so i
haven't yet seen someone else that's done four zeros
and qualifying or stuff like that but you know
it's something i really want to get again just to like have
on my waist to get five times but that's amazing
yeah so good i know
my swimming reaction times are awful it's one
(10:00):
of the main things that helped me like win a lot of
the time was just being so far ahead of the other person on
the start line you mentioned that you got into
it because of your sister and you followed yeah along along
the drag racing is there a
moment that you know that you knew like this is my sport and
it's not just i'm following my older sibling oh yeah yeah
(10:20):
so one thing with the racing was
you kind of did feel like oh
this is me following my my sister this is me
doing that but then you kind of get to an age where like you know
what look around you I played football soccer
and I played Gaelic football which is
an Irish sport I played hurling which is an Irish sport I've done most sports
(10:42):
most martial arts but nothing really ever gave me the same like kind of buzz
that the race never did and I think the social side of it also Also,
just kind of thinking to myself.
Especially last year, which is when that kind of moment was like,
this is my sport came to me, especially when I was sat around all my friends.
(11:03):
We're all just talking and you kind of just get that feeling where you're like,
this is where you want to be and this is where you want to stay on a thing.
And you get good moments in other sports, but I think when you find your sport
that you do love and you enjoy every moment of it, it kind of has that deeper feeling to it.
And it's kind of like a real special moment when you kind of finally realize,
(11:26):
I'm not just following my sister or my sister.
I'm not trying to just beat what she had a legacy of. I'm trying to create my own kind of thing.
But yeah, it's definitely to do with my social side.
I think I like asking that question because the answer is so different for everyone
and there is always that moment and I think it's one of the most magical,
(11:49):
not magical, but special things.
It's like, okay, I'm not doing this because my parents told me to or because
I'm following my sister.
It's like, no, this is what I actually want to do.
Last year you spoke about it was a big year.
You kind of took it to the next level. what
were the significant milestones in your journey let's go
(12:10):
into those points in time yeah so
my main ones were the main
achievements of last year just to like give a brief thing before
i go into the story side of it was i won
the british championship which is the europeans main championship
i also competed in scandinavia i
went to norway and sweden taking boat event wins
(12:32):
which was crazy for like a non-scandinavian to
do so and i think it was the first thing like 10 years
to do some of the junior classes and then i
was racing in germany france and holland
in or netherlands i was just being able to experience these like different ones
like different championships different people different cultures it was like
(12:56):
crazy but anyway the milestones that that I would say that are most important
to me were definitely the British Championship.
Having my sister being someone who previously won it, and being the first Irish
person, I kind of wanted to follow again, as I said, just match her.
So I done that last year, and I'm hoping to do it again this year, just to one-up her.
(13:18):
I think one thing that was kind of outside the box that not many people think
of was the travelling to then go on to win the German Championship.
Which I'd done last year, they were like these moments where you're up in Scandinavia
competing against some of the best up there.
Then you're in Germany competing against them.
(13:40):
All just to add together to make your best five events for the German championship.
It was just a crazy moment to finally say, I'm actually a multi-European champion
in like different countries, different places.
And you kind of sit back and you like look at your achievements and you say.
I've done this and no one else has ever done this before in my life.
(14:02):
No one else has traveled that much just in one year.
I think my dad racked up, what was it, 36,000 kilometers last year just traveling around Europe.
He was gone eight, seven months. He was just driving nonstop.
His car has less value in it, as you would say, but he didn't mind.
(14:26):
We had we had his his car on my dragster which is the car i drive on top of
my dad's skoda and that's how he transported everywhere so we had the the chassis
and body on top of his sedan,
and he had his engine in the boot of his sedan i
was sat in the back with all the suitcases and all the blankets covering me
and my mom and dad sat in the front obviously just going
(14:49):
around and it was honestly it was
achievement in its own it was a milestone in its own being
able to survive in that car for so long but we
made some of the best memories and I'll never forget
what I achieved or what we experienced in
these different places so were you gone for seven months last year so personally
(15:10):
I wasn't I was in school I had to still have school and stuff like that but
I was once school was done I was over there straight away with my dad kind of
I think he He was very lonely because my mom was working here to obviously fund it.
And obviously once he was over there, he was staying with family friends. He wasn't just alone.
(15:30):
He was staying with family friends from different races that we knew.
It was just like that kind of, I would be done school and I would be straight
over there. And I was away all of summer last year.
I was gone three months. I was even missing, I think, like nearly a month of
my last year of fourth year, which in Ireland, fourth year is kind of like,
transition year into higher like your higher education
(15:52):
so it wasn't that important like for
grades wise around so they understood
that what I was doing so they allowed me that time
off and that leniency but up until
then I had 100% like attendance I never was
sick never anything so they kind of allowed for that the schools
I had to thank a lot for that my parents I had to take
(16:14):
thank a lot for that and beyond the
winning itself of trophies and stuff like that achievement that
we achieved last year was the feeling of anyone can
win it because my parents slept on our couch
downstairs rented out bedrooms in our house with students
of exchange students so i can go racing i
currently have students staying with me so i can fund next year's racing
(16:36):
we come from no like no big sponsorship no.
Money we had no sponsors we've done it all ourselves all
i even on my sleeve and my shirt all i have is a
young girl that died racing in australia and then
on this side it's literally my local bank that
gave me like 100 euro two years ago so that's there's
no like great financial support within my
(16:59):
racing but kind of the achievements of what
we've done but so little it's just a lot more than
the championships was if that makes sense hugely i think it's a massive thing
especially motorsport you know you do need a little bit of funding behind you
to be able to do that by yourself without major sponsors exactly yeah it was
(17:22):
just kind of more like the,
The sacrifice you make kind of to get what you want to achieve was like so important
to us that we like kind of were okay with it. We slept in tents.
We stayed, we were sleeping in a tent in Norway in a thunderstorm.
They're worst in like 10 years in a forest. So that was the most scariest night of my life.
(17:43):
Water going all over me, the lightning outside.
Waking up the next morning having to race. Won the event. And I don't know how
or how we'd done it, but we were just thankful we survived the night,
let alone actually race the next day.
Amazing. I almost can't follow them.
Like traveling around Europe in a tent and a car and having your racing car up off the car. Yeah.
(18:10):
What were other teams like? What did other teams have? What were the other competitors?
So a lot of the teams, which is really funny, they had the generic motorsport
people like they had the hundred thousand dollar trailers that have the kitchens
bathrooms sleeping quarters tvs and you come over to our pits and we have a,
(18:32):
a tent with the biggest irish flag you
could find anywhere put on the front you have
to kind of move it out of the way when you want to get a tent because my
mom is very patriotic and inside that that
tent we had two rooms for bedrooms and we
had a living quarters in the middle which was like i'm saying
not that big and we had table mini gas
(18:52):
cooker and we had probably music playing half the time just to kind of drown
out the the like rain or the whatever it may be on the day that's amazing though
like i i grew up camping with my parents and i i'm just thinking like at At 17 or, you know, 16,
like those late teenage years, I definitely would not have wanted to be in such
(19:13):
close employment with them.
That's really awesome that you were, you know, doing that for three months and
that your parents were there supporting you. Mm-hmm.
Don't get me wrong, we got on each other's nerves more than anything.
I was the average teenager getting annoyed when it was early morning racing
or if it's late night driving.
I'm like, Dad, will you just pull over? I want to go to sleep.
(19:35):
And he's like, I don't know, we're nearly to this certain spot.
He wants to be certain places at certain times and stuff like that.
Bear in mind, he was driving at about 80 kilometers for the majority of our
travel because we did have a car on our roof.
So I was just calling him a granddad the whole time. he was
just slowly kicking along and it was we could
have been there so much quicker if we were a normal weighted car that wasn't
(19:58):
on the back hinge like a old muscle car we we we've done what we what we've
done what we wanted to do and we've done it with the most style possible so
you can't really complain i think it's fantastic if you were to go back and
relive a moment what would it be.
The thing is with like the last year i've had
so many like little funny moments of so many amazing moments
(20:21):
that are like kind of i'd love to do it again but of course like the main one
that comes to mind when you think about last year was that like childhood dream
of winning this the championship in england which is considered the great the
greater one in kind of europe,
with the most competitors stuff like that that feeling
(20:42):
once i got out of the car at the top of the track pulled around
I had to wait for the car behind me
who was the other person who was second place
in the championship if he won we go to the next round we have to see who would
take home the championship and if he lost I won the championship but for me
it was the person that I was racing against for this championship was my childhood
(21:06):
best friend who we grew up together, we were doing everything together.
But that person actually turned out to.
Not speak to me for a lot of that year because he was
kind of real competitive about the year and his family were like convinced
him not to speak to me so what we we.
Had ended up having the three best mates so.
Me my other really close mate
(21:28):
still and the other guy who used to be my best mate was
second place in the championship them two
are racing each other so i had my two best mates grace meet each other
if my old best mate won we
were fighting for the championship if my other best mate won I
had won the championship and he'd won it for me and I'd
owed everything to him up and like for that event anyway
(21:50):
but turns out he came down the
strip and I ended up winning the championship and
that moment when he put his hands out the car like that you've
done it it was just like a moment where all that
worry and stress of losing you're like really close friend
of fighting for a championship for the whole year for
traveling for all this just for this moment moment it
(22:12):
just all drains out of you i i think i'm not ashamed
to say i definitely shed a few tears just in
that moment just a lot of people didn't say
oh yeah i was i was just celebrating oh i was first thing
i thought about was crying i just let everything out
and i had one of my best mate
congratulating me and i was just thanking him
(22:32):
so much and i had the other guy who went out i went over
straight away and i said that was the best year of racing the most competitive
year of racing i've ever had i'm thankful for him didn't get many words back
from him but of course like you're going to be like upset about the year and
the kind of all his efforts like just for a second so i understood that.
(22:53):
And luckily, we kind of rebuilt that friendship. So that was great. That was good.
But I think that main moment where you're feeling that I've done this,
I've finally achieved it, it was just unbelievable and it was unmatched.
That moment, I could relive always.
And the feeling when I got back to the pits of where I was staying,
(23:13):
where all the younger kids who have been looking up to me for the year and who
have been supporting, who I've been playing rugby with, who I've been playing soccer with.
It i was always involved with the younger ones they came
rushing over all hugging me my girlfriend came running
down hugging me everyone just that whole feeling
of a kind of unity where it wasn't just
(23:33):
me who was feeling this joy it was everyone around me it was just kind of you
think this is what sport should be and this is what like competitiveness should
be put to the side at times and this is like the main reason but yeah no that
that like togetherness is unmatched and And I'd love to just have that feeling once again.
And hopefully again, it's this year. Hopefully less tears.
(23:59):
I think you might have a few more moments like that in your sporting journey,
but also it does transfer over, which I really, really like because my next question is,
what is the benefits that sports provided you that's transferred over to other parts of your life?
I'd really like to know how that's influenced you as a person. i'd
(24:20):
definitely say the main one was like the
socializing side like the building up
the friendships learning how to socialize from eight years
old it's very important to like know how to talk to people especially like people
are going to be spending weeks on weeks in that year with like you have to be
able to speak with them be able to like not fight to understand each other to
(24:44):
not like get mad and fall out for the whole time.
I think the main thing I would take from racing itself is.
How much you can build bonds from just like
small things you can build like personal bonds you can build financial bonds
with like different people that you can meet on the way and i think these little
(25:04):
things like just talking to people at the track playing sports with these people
they can all lead to like greater things like you can earn sponsorships from
these people you can earn.
Lifelong friendships and it's just very important that you
can take that and bring it into the outside world and
just have like the ability for as we're
speaking now me being able to speak to you being able to put myself
(25:26):
out there put myself in an uncomfortable position and be
able to just build on that and just be able to express myself fully
I think you've answered that very well and I was actually
going to say you are expressing yourself absolutely fantastic
especially you're 17 yeah 17 for
a 17 year old as a 17 year old I definitely couldn't do
this yeah I think I have
(25:49):
a I had a bit of experience with like I do
a lot of the speaking when it comes to the racing I like to help
out a lot of the younger kids because I know when I
was younger it's very clicky in racing that's one thing with the racing that
you can be very clicky and you can't get into these other groups and I want
to be in that group because they have the cooler boys bicycles they have the
(26:10):
nicer cars they have this stuff when you're younger so I always try if I see
a kid that's at the race And I'm like, Oh,
pass it past the ball or something like that.
We just getting them slowly involved with like other kids around them.
And I think that really builds into like a greater community along the line
because they want to come back because they made new friends.
(26:31):
They made three new friends and then they come back and now they have five, they have six.
And you see now we've kind of built a whole foundation of like a community rather than clicks.
And it's amazing. Amazing. And I'll talk about that later, about the projects
and stuff like that, that my parents have set up and stuff like that.
But within our race, it's becoming so much more of a family-orientated than
(26:55):
it is kind of cliques and groups and stuff like that.
Which is, like you said earlier, that is what sport should be. Yeah.
It should be that community and support network and family orientation.
I love that. That's what your focus is. yeah I think I think it's just so important
(27:16):
for especially for motorsport where it's like seen as this like kind of dangerous
but like exciting and like.
Only for people that have money and you think where money
comes it's like arrogance which a lot of
the time it doesn't they're the nicest people you can meet and it's
just down to how they're brought up rather than how
(27:37):
much money they have in the bank and I think that's mainly very
important especially not like understanding where they come
from stuff like that is there a lesson that you've
learned along the way that you'd like to share yeah so
the main lesson was was learning about how
different people react to different situations and also how you
can't let one like factor affect another
(27:59):
which would be the competitive side and kind of
the friendships and stuff like that you can't really let them
affect one another I think once I'm in
the car seat nothing else matters they're still
my friend but I'm only thinking about that race at
hand whereas a lot of other kids and
stuff like that especially even the older ones they see
(28:21):
it as a win is a win you need to do
these toxic things to win or.
You need to sabotage and you see these all you
see them quite like frequently nowadays and it's
kind of like where is this coming from why
are you being so like anti-social and
being so I need to win just because I want to impress my parents my grandparents
(28:46):
my such and such and I don't really care about the friendship side of it whereas
for me it's very much so I'd love to win I'm not saying who doesn't like winning but.
The thing is you need to understand that there's two sides to everything you
need to understand that you're affecting other people if you're messing with
other people's parts that's where it comes into the part where you're like oh
(29:08):
this is a bit dodgy my dad for example is we counted last event,
14 people came to him over a two day period of just for parts.
So they came for the car and come for carburetor parts.
Someone had my end, my spare engine last year in his car for the last event.
The second place in the championship lost his brakes in the third round,
(29:33):
and he didn't have the power to get sent from America. He would have been out.
My dad, knowing he was in second place, said, we're the better people, give him the power down.
So I brought down the power, put it in their hand, and the rest was,
we didn't mind after that.
We were like, you can't let this competitiveness
get in the way of like your deeper morals and say like this is the better thing
(29:58):
to do i need to be the better person and even if they're not the nicest person
to you it doesn't matter you need to have these deeper morals and say like your
reputation comes first and then competitive comes second did that come from
your parents it sounds like it's come from your parents.
Yeah very much so my parents are very like especially with my my mom especially
she has little projects gone but we'll speak about that later so so good you can speak now about it,
(30:27):
what what projects is your mom doing oh yeah perfect so so
basically my mom has these little events
every year she has main ones
are easter which just went by we had the easter
event it was called the easter nationals and my mom had an
easter icon for all the kids to get involved vault so she
set out she spent i think 300 or 400 euro
(30:50):
on different things for the kids to do we ended
up not even using half of them she had a bunny suit you had
a carrot suit she had little easter eggs
that me and the other ones hid around for
the younger ones to go looking for she had an egg and
spoon race and for her this
was what she loved to do but also what
(31:11):
we see it as is a time in
which everyone can come together and forget about
the racing and not stress about the competitiveness of it and the high heart
rates and it's kind of like a cool down just before the eliminations and you
see with the younger ones it really helps they open up so much more they're
(31:31):
playing together everyone's involved and you just see so many different.
Maybe different types of people like they have different
upraises but they all come together and this one time
and they're all enjoying themselves and then
again as we said the community vibe it's so much stronger
and it's so much like heavier built
(31:52):
during this time than it is throughout the rest of the season and then another
time we have which my mom is calling the junior dragster like awards she calls
it she made separate awards at the end of the year for every single kid to get
an award because she sees it as,
some people say it's the participation awards but it's not really she basically
(32:17):
buys a cup for every single person that raced that year.
And she goes through with a group of people and lists out who deserves what
trophy, who's been the best reaction time, who's been the most enthusiastic,
who's been the best sports person, the best sports woman, sports man.
Because there's all different types of people and all different incredible talents they have.
(32:41):
Some people are crazy at the reaction times, and we have trophies for the best reaction time in the JS,
which is the youngest, youngest and you have the JM which is the medium and
then JMA which is the oldest but the thing with my type of racing is we all
race together so I could race an eight-year-old tomorrow morning and,
(33:02):
people be like oh that's unfair but then you also think I'm sat
on the line for about seven eight seconds waiting for that car
to slowly ticker down the tracks and then I can chase after it
so my reaction times does take a
bit of a bang from that but the thing
with that is is every person lives there
with a smile on their face saying look i won
(33:22):
this look i won that i i'm coming home with
a trophy they may never win a trophy from the
actual races they may only win from these and we also have perpetual rewards
that she introduced for two people that passed away and two people that are
currently like still important people in the racing like scene for us And as
(33:44):
you know, as I mentioned earlier,
there's a little girl and she's actually from Australia and she was,
I think one of the first ever accorded debts from an accident in the junior classes.
And she was only an eight-year-old girl who only just started in Australia.
And her whole family was in the racing.
And it was all down to a bad decision from the top end workers who told her
(34:10):
to turn off when she was going too quick.
It was a very sad time. But we decided, because my mom was close to the family, she said,
we'll make a nice gesture on our tops and we'll also introduce a trophy that
a young driver who is in the ages of eight to 10,
who shows real like talent and
like potential that they would win this trophy and you
(34:31):
should see the size of these trophies one of them is i'm six
foot two and one of these trophies is hip height
is above hip height and i'm like ma'am
you're so overkill and she's just like she wants
the best trophies for them uh kids but i'm like how
are you meant to bring it home i ended up winning the group
one which all the kids voted for like it's like
(34:53):
the overall winner of the year I won it
last year and me bringing
it home on a Ryanair flight it had to have its own seat
belt that's how big it was it was bigger
than the seat it had to be put on the floor and strapped in it was crazy but
she does little things like that that she tries to make a nice image for the
(35:15):
kids to move on to and like look back on and say oh i won this i won that bring
it to school bring it to show and tell for the younger ones and say this is
what i done this week this is what i won.
Just stuff like that just to like show that they're not just
doing it for no reason like they have like a purpose and
that it's like encouraging them to stay in the
(35:35):
sport and like find what class may
best suit them next what they want to go on to next if
they're good at reaction times what they might do with that if they're
good at dial-ins or being accurate on
their times maybe they'll go into a class that's more
based on that maybe it's just reaction times they'll go into one that's first
to the finish line and the fastest car wins you never know but these kids always
(35:58):
like have this feeling that they accomplished something and now they can push
on to get something better in the future so I think that's really important
for the younger kids especially.
Especially definitely and that I guess transitions
into our next question which is where do you see the future of sport I know
your mum and you know your team is working towards creating a nice community
(36:20):
feel to that but where do you see where the future of your sport is for me personally
I definitely see like with the drag racing side I definitely see that we need to push more towards.
Getting more modern it's very old-fashioned it's shops to races races This is...
Very limited broadcast it's put on youtube promoted a tiny bit stuff like that
(36:44):
but i think they need to get someone behind it that's very media focused which
they are starting to do in america and just blow it up a lot more maybe get
as they did in the 80s where they had it on tv,
if they get it back on tv just to get like more viewers more
people that wouldn't have access to being able to go
onto youtube searching for this specific thing maybe it's
(37:05):
just on a random channel that they end up flicking onto
and they're like oh i'm interested in this it's kind of branching
into the media and maybe like obviously down
the line getting onto tv i think that's very important
for all sports everything having that like basis of really good promotion is
really important but where i know myself it is very hard like trying to promote
(37:28):
yourself i went from from sending out 300 plus emails, getting maybe two replies back,
maybe even four replies back and three of them being no's.
You kind of have to just keep pushing at these things until they flourish.
And I think that's what they need to focus on. If it goes wrong,
maybe if they don't get the views they want, if they don't get the promo that
(37:52):
they want, I think they need to just keep on going.
And I see where even with sport in general, with
one another topic that I want to touch
on quickly is the fitness side of it
as a lot of people know nowadays there's a
huge boom in fitness and getting
young people who are starting the gym if you look on things like tiktok and
(38:15):
youtube shorts everyone's starting gym related videos and gym related everything
which is amazing and for me personally I've started started training more specific
towards my sport, which is very limited.
It's very mental and it's a lot of,
training your reaction times your mental capabilities of keeping cool under pressure.
(38:37):
Having there's not much physical to it or then breaks throttle
stuff like that but the mental side is the real killer
and i know if you have a strong
mental and you have a strong body it's really
important to kind of go two and two together
it's really important to kind of like build both of them up at
the same time and not just focus on building up
(38:58):
a really strong physique zeke and forgetting about
your mental health so i know with
a lot of young racers it is really really like
dampering on them when they feel all
that pressure then toppling on top of them and they don't
realize then have school on top of on top of that and
they have like the older things but definitely i
(39:19):
think building up a strong like fitness within
yourself and also like a strong mental health is
really important for like sport just going forward and
like maybe capitalizing on the kids that
are starting these gym tiktoks and stuff like that maybe pushing
them towards training specifically towards what they
want to do if they want to do football maybe it's
(39:41):
plyometrics for explosiveness if it's racing
they can focus on meditation or they
can focus on like little things to help their mental
cool down and relax and stuff like that but i think a
lot of kids definitely need to understand that.
It's amazing to have this new fitness like boom but
they also have to realize what they're doing it for and how they can use it
(40:04):
to benefit themselves and not just do it because everyone else is doing it if
that makes sense yes yeah definitely makes sense it's using that mental and
physical fitness and directing it towards towards your specific sport. Yeah.
Now, I have a few quickfire questions. Perfect. No worries.
Are you ready? See if you can answer them in one or two words. Yes.
(40:29):
No worries what is your etpb etpb
my best time was definitely
it's a bit naughty because you're not really allowed to go fast in 790 but i
went 770 or 7 no 765 when i was in america which it was a test day it was allowed
you go as fast as you like i had no weight in the car and i just went as fast
(40:53):
as i could but yeah it was definitely 7.65 seconds and that's,
my car goes 0 to 60 mile an
hour in 2.4 seconds so you can imagine that was
quite fast a lot of people kind of laugh
because they're like oh you're only limited to 90 mile an hour but
then then again i'm telling them that my car accelerates faster
(41:13):
than a tesla lamborghini a lot of these other cars like
i would i've smoked i've smoked a lot
of bigger like kind of fancy cars
on test days where they're like oh yeah i'll race you i'll go against
you yeah come on on race to the eighth mile which we
normally race to and i would beat them there by two seconds and
they're like kind of looking at you like how have you just done that but
(41:35):
it's it's really important just fathom that
the et for our ets you're gonna have to have a quick get going speed to like
kind of reach them we've just had the f1 two weeks ago in melbourne so how does
that compare to to the speed of an F1 car.
(41:55):
I know Daniel Ricciardo is a big deal down here.
Okay. Yeah, no worries. So I'll explain.
For my cars, we are nowhere near. We're like three times slower.
But my sister went on to do a thing called Top Fuel.
So Top Fuel is the fastest of fast in drag racing. It's like the top of the top car.
(42:18):
So they go up to 300 mile an hour in America.
My sister went 266 mile an hour, which you would see some F1 cars going.
But she was 0 to 100 mile an hour in 0.8 of a second.
So I think with drag racing, you are going to these speeds that the F1 cars do get to.
(42:42):
But you're getting to them in seconds. You're getting there like one, two seconds.
You're going to 200 mile an hour whereas these top fuel now these f1 cars need aerodynamics.
That's why they have so much downforce that's why getting up to these speeds
is slower but they can keep at that speed and use it during turns deceleration and they're,
(43:05):
unbelievable as we're touching on fitness they have
this best fitness no one kind of thinks about
it their fitness is the top of the top they have
the best neck strengths body tensions everything
so it's for speed wise
we do kind of beat them on that but when it comes to fitness we have nowhere
touching them on their fitness side they have unbelievable fitness thank you
(43:28):
for for comparing them it's really it's it's an interesting thing to compare
different elements of motorsports and what the different strengths are for different
sports yeah now you're You're 17.
Do you have your general driver's license yet?
I'm allowed my driver's license, but I'm actually very lazy and I have not got it yet.
(43:50):
So my dad is very on my tail and he is saying.
Why don't you get your license and i'm like oh yeah i will i will but
then i'm like oh race season now i can't get it and
he's like you're just being you're just
being lazy like i'm just i don't want to study all the the
extra bits you have like the theory and then the
driving side of it will be fine like i i've known how
(44:12):
to drive since i was probably about 10 my dad's
had me in his car driving just saying he kind of
threw me in the car and just said go ahead and kind
of like most most dads like the most to kind of just give
it a go see how bad you can make it and then i'll kind of guide you
from there and then yeah it was kind of i think
i he had me up in like a car park doing
(44:34):
it a few times and so i have a rough idea
i know how to use a clutch everything everything's fine i
know all that stuff but it's just more the teary side of whether
or not to go on a pedestrian crossing i have no
clue i just wouldn't be able to tell you so that's where i'm
kind of need to to do my bit of research and stuff like that
there's no crossing that my drag strip so
(44:55):
I don't really know too well exactly I just found that so interesting that you're
able to drive such a high speed high power vehicle and then like yeah you're
not you're not driving on the road like it's old enough to but yeah it's just
I'm just not doing at the moment the Irish.
(45:15):
Association with the driving license they don't actually allow me to drive because
of of they didn't give me a racing license because they didn't recognize drag
racing because I'm literally the only one that does at the moment in Ireland,
whereas in England and the rest of Europe, it's huge.
But they didn't want to recognize it. So I actually had to go to FIA and get a full license from FIA.
And they actually sent me out too high of a license.
(45:38):
I could be sat in an F2, F3 car if I want right now with the type of license I have.
Don't tell the FIA because they will take that away from me.
But if I wanted to, I could step into an F3 car right now. So that's really cool.
I can't drive a road car, but I can drive two steps down from an F1 car.
So I'm not complaining. your version's a
(46:01):
lot more fun i can tell you that yeah exactly yeah
have you had any accidents no
i've never had like an accident where i've crashed or
anything but i've definitely seen kids roll their
car i've seen people crash into one another i've seen kind
of like the maddest stuff i've seen like cars actually
(46:21):
take flight thank god not our cars because they're
not fast enough but the top fuels have literally left the
floor and done barrel rolls in the air they're that fast because
you have to think about it they're built like beads of planes and at a certain
point a wing is going to want to take flight and since this car is built like
(46:43):
a wing in a reverse of a wing instead of taking flight it wants to reorientate it to a wing.
Because it's grabbed I don't know the wind I don't know the exact thing but
my dad definitely talked about a lot of times that it's kind of in my head where
I wants to go 180 and turn itself into a wing and that's why it ends up flying
(47:07):
up getting caught by the air flying up doing flips and landing wherever and
and you it's crazy when you do see it but yeah thank
god it hasn't happened in a good few years to kind of learn how to weigh
it down stuff like that yeah that would be scary so what
is next for you you mentioned that you want to have another
crack at the english championship what's next for
(47:28):
your journey in sport so definitely the
next step for me would be go on to the you know
top fuel which is the one i was talking about or the more like door car side
of it so like a kind of like a road car but like really really tuned and like
done up and it's like a real the proper drag car as you would say i like the
(47:49):
more that side of the more door car side of it that's like more of a.
Realistic feel to it because number one it's a bit slower and number two it's
like i don't know the like exact reason why it's just a feeling since i was
a kid i always wanted to do the kind of more door car maybe it's because i don't
want to follow my sister that much and i want to follow exact route and go the
(48:09):
exact same way but yeah I definitely want to give it a go at that but,
you'd need a lot of sponsorship for that so that's
what I'm aiming for I have to get a big name over here
so hopefully one day so where can the
audience find you I know there's a lot of listeners in
America as well as Australia where where can
they find you and follow your journey oh my.
(48:33):
Main places places that i'm on is instagram so
i have an instagram and i'm also starting up a facebook properly
it would be for facebook lean mcdonald's
and it's with my car has everything on it but it's
a bit easier on instagram it's mcdonald.motorsport i'm
the first option that comes up most of the time it's just of
(48:53):
my car so it's a long skinny car
that looks a bit like a canoe from first sight so
that's what you'd be looking for but yeah it's
definitely like something i really need to work on
is my social like promotion and i've have
grown it recently quite a lot i've grown 600 followers
in like the space of i think four weeks of just promoting
(49:16):
and promoting and promoting so it's been quite good that's amazing
and i'll be sure to link it in our socials as well
so people can easily find it thank you very much thank you very much and thanks
so much for having me on as well it's been amazing so thank you for coming on
and i know it's a little bit of a later night for you so thank you so much for
staying alert and awake i know if it was that time for me i'd be asleep no worries.
(49:48):
Thank you for listening to this episode of
beyond sport with fiona stewart this is a completely independent podcast that
has been created to share the journey and lessons of top level sporting professionals
but also your everyday lover of sport if you liked this podcast i'd really appreciate
if you could leave a review and share it with someone who you think would also enjoy it.
(50:11):
Music.
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