{"id":345682,"date":"2026-03-14T09:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T09:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/345682\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T09:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T09:34:09","slug":"the-e200000-dream-why-irelands-most-exciting-female-driver-cant-get-on-the-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/345682\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u20ac200,000 dream \u2013 why Ireland\u2019s most exciting female driver can\u2019t get on the grid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Financial roadblocks are currently holding Cork native Kayleigh Cole (22) back but she remains focused on her goals\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Kayleigh Cole is determined to carve out a career in professional motorsport. Photo: Martin Walsh\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ght_on_track_image.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Kayleigh Cole is determined to carve out a career in professional motorsport. Photo: Martin Walsh<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">When Kayleigh (Kayls) Cole came downstairs on Christmas morning 2016, she was wearing her dad\u2019s rigger boots. She shuffled out to the shed in the dark, and there it was, wrapped in paper, unmistakable. A go-kart. Nine years later, she is one grid spot away from making Irish motorsport history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Cole (22) from Dripsey, Co Cork, did not follow the traditional path into motorsport. Most drivers start karting at six or seven years old. She found her way to it at 13, after years of trying and failing to fall in love with other sports. School clubs, hurling, football. None of it stuck. She laughs about it now. \u201cI used to actually run away from the ball rather than trying to catch it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Financial roadblocks are currently holding Cork native Kayleigh Cole (22) back but she remains focused on her goals&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,898,128197,157733,112],"class_list":["post-345682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news-ticker","tag-shp","tag-signature-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}