With his father a harness racing trainer, Donnelly grew up driving race horses but soon realised it was a different kind of horsepower that was calling his name.

The former St Stanislaus' College student started spending his school holidays with his grandfather, who was a mechanic, and always enjoyed tinkering with engines.

And it was there in a humble workshop that pulling things apart turned into a love for Supercars and Donnelly decided his future would entail the screeching sound of spinning tyres and the smell of burning rubber that accompanied it.

And as the Bathurst 1000 returned to Mount Panorama this week, Donnelly has been back in his home town living out his dream.

"It was always a dream to get into Supercars, that's always been my goal going to the races when I was a kid at Bathurst," Donnelly said. "I was always around cars in my school holidays."

Five years of studying mechanical engineering at the University of Sydney while also working part-time with different race teams paid off for Donnelly, who secured a job with the high-profile Brad Jones Racing team in his first year out of uni.

Donnelly began his career at BRJ working with the Super2 and Super3 cars before moving onto Supercar star Nick Percat's car, where he has remained ever since.

He works as a data engineer and a design engineer, ensuring the Supercars are performing at their peak on race days.

"I was just happy to get a job interview with a Supercars team let alone actually get a job with them, so I was pretty happy with that," Donnelly said.

"As a data engineer my role is to check over all the data we get from the car between sessions and during sessions, mainly checking how the car is performing electrically and mechanically.

"For the races I do the fuel strategy, so for Bathurst [1000] I work out when we have to do pit stops for the fuel and how much fuel we have to put in for the stops.

"Then I work closely with the race engineer for the car to also work out how we can make the car faster and perform the best that we can."

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Having travelled to various destinations around Australia to compete, Donnelly still rates the Bathurst 1000 at the home of Australian motorsport, Mount Panorama, as his favourite race.

He loves returning to his home track to compete and enjoy the "great atmosphere" the race brings.

Leading into the Bathurst 1000, Donnelly has been busy preparing for one of the sport's most prestigious events and making sure the cars are ready to rumble.

"There's a lot of maintenance that has to be done to the cars to make sure that they're ready to do the 1000km race because you do pretty much 1000km before the race even starts just in practice," he said.

"You need to make sure the car's 100 per cent right to go and you try to make sure you're over the different strategy possibilities throughout the race and pretty much making sure you're fully prepared before you get there."

While Nick Percat is no stranger to a Bathurst 1000 victory, Donnelly is yet to experience the thrill of taking out the event.

The biggest race he has won during his short time in the supercar industry was the first win he was involved in at Sydney Motorsport Park which was also Percat's first win with BJR.

Donnelly said he really enjoys working for the team.

There's always something to learn and improve on, and the atmosphere in the garage is great - especially when that garage brings him back to Bathurst.

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