Latest Laois Sport: Roscrea motorsport ace features in new book on Irish sportswomen
Roscrea’s Nicole Drought featured in book on Irish sportswomen
Nicole Drought features in Jackie Hurley’s New Children’s Book- Girls Play Too
Irish sportswomen continue to make headlines! Whether it is Katie Taylor’s continued dominance in the boxing ring, Katie Harrington’s incredible Olympic Gold Medal or Rachael Blackmore’s phenomenal success in 2021, as the leading jockey at Cheltenham and the first ever female Grand National winner, Irish women are leading the way through their sporting achievements .Included in this list is Tipperary’s Nicole Drought, who continues to enjoy success in motorsport and encourages other young girls to do the same.
Based on interviews with the featured athletes and fully illustrated in colour, the second volume of sports journalist Jackie Hurley’s Girls Play Too continues from where the first book left off. Spoilt for choice, Jacqui’s selection includes some of the most successful athletes to ever grace a GAA pitch, pioneering horse-racing jockeys, elite figures from the athletics circuit, stalwarts of the Irish football team, members of the hugely successful hockey team, and of course, Roscrea’s Nicole Drought.
📷 Stephen Jackman.
With her popular fairy-tale touch, RTÉ’s Jacqui Hurley tells the real-life stories of women who have proved that gender is not a barrier to success. Each new story in Girls Play Too: Book 2 is one of empowerment and overcoming adversity, and the role models celebrated here are sure to inspire the next generation of Irish sportswomen even more.
📷 Michael Chester
The book tells the story of how, as a child, Nicole accompanied her father to many Rally events round the country when he competed and saved up from an early age in order to buy her own race car. As an ambassador for Formula Female, she now hopes to inspire other young girls to have the same dream.
Nicole Drought: “I’m humbled and honoured to have been included in this book alongside some incredible sportswomen. Motorsport is a minority sport and women are in a minority within that sport. To be working to change that makes me very proud.”
About Nicole Drought:
Nicole Drought, from Roscrea in Tipperary, is Ireland’s top female racing driver. In 2016, she became the first woman to take a win in the Irish Touring Car Championship. She has subsequently raced in Global GT Lights, Stryker Sportscars and the Britcar Endurance Championship. Nicole is the only Irish Ambassador for the International Sean Edwards Foundation, with whom she tested a Porsche GT3 Supercup in Le Castellet in 2016. She is also the reigning Class 1A Endurance Trial Champion, having taken the title in 2018 and successfully defended it in 2019, with six wins from six starts. In May 2019, Nicole became the first woman to win in the UK C1 Endurance series, when she partnered Colin Lewis to victory in a 4 hour race at Anglesey in Wales. In 2020, she became a three time class winner in the Britcar Endurance Series, and scored another win on her return to the series in July 2021, when she took the flag at the Silverstone Grand Prix track for the Motus One team.
In August 2019, Nicole drove a Formula 1 car at the Mondello Park Historic Festival, demonstrating John Campion’s ex-Derek Daly March 811 for CJJ Motorsports (above) and in February 2020 she travelled to Palm Beach in Florida to drive the team’s Jordan 192 F1 car.