Nicci Daly is hardly a stranger to making difficult choices in her sporting life. Back in 2009 that she was playing for the Dublin women's senior football team when she was called up to the Irish hockey squad. Her attempt to combine the two proved too much.

“I was wrecked,” she says.

And this year she had another tricky decision, should she return to Ireland to resume her international hockey career, or remain in America where she was pursuing her third sporting passion: motor racing.

So a rather varied and busy sporting life.

“The problem is I want to do everything,” she laughs.

Not enough hours in the day?

“Definitely not.”

Daly set off for America last April to take up a six-month stint as a data engineer with the Indianapolis-based Juncos Racing Team that competes in the Indy Lights series – a “development” series on the ladder to IndyCar.

The 28-year-old came by her love of motor racing honestly; her late father, Vivion, was a major figure on the Irish scene, her uncle Derek a Formula One driver between 1978- 1982, and his son Conor is just completing his first full-time season in IndyCar as a driver.

She spent much of her childhood with her father at Mondello and kart racing with her brother, Barry.

But it wasn’t until years later when she completed her degree in mechanical engineering that she actually found a route in to working in the motor racing industry.

Sport engineering

“I saw that

Cranfield University

in

England

did a Masters in motor sport engineering and I just thought ‘oh my God, this is exactly what I want’. It was perfect. So I applied for it, got in, it was really tough, but I loved it and knew that was the path for me.”

After she earned her Masters she worked for a time with Ford as a test engineer, but by then her sporting focus was on a hockey career that has so far seen her amass 128 caps. It was a sport she only took up when she was 14.

“I loved Gaelic football, I played under-14 for Dublin, then took a bit of time out to play hockey, but when I finished school I quit hockey for four years and went back to Gaelic. I made the Dublin senior team in 2009, but in the same year I was called in to the Irish set-up. In the end I really had to focus on one, so I switched over to hockey, the international aspect especially the big attraction.”

So, hockey took over, but when the team missed out on qualification for the Rio Olympics, Daly decided to use the free time she would have to put that Masters to practical use.

"It was an experience of a lifetime," she says. "I was based in Indianapolis and lived with my uncle [Derek], but every weekend we raced in a different State, so we were pretty much always on the road. And I loved that, travelling around and getting to see so many different places. Toronto, Alabama, Ohio, New York, and more. It was just an amazing experience."

“At race time the days were long, you arrive at the track before six in the morning and you’re not done ’til late, but they never felt long –, it never felt like you were there for 14 or 15 hours because it was just so enjoyable.”

Daly makes an heroic attempt to explain what a data engineer does.

“The car is equipped with a whole load of different sensors that track all its movements, which in technical terms is called vehicle dynamics.

“So you’re trying to understand exactly what the car is doing through these sensors and through the data so you can get the best out of it. The tiniest changes can have a huge effect, like having the car a millimetre lower to the ground. You work then with the race engineer and the driver on what can be changed and improved.”

A far cry from those days at Mondello?

“Definitely. I remember when my Dad raced there was nothing like that, and even when data started being used it was just a case of recording speeds, braking, things like that. It was more to see how you were doing on the track so you could make decisions for yourself, what changes you should make.”

What has changed, too, she says, is the number of women involved in motor racing. They might still be in a small minority, but she met enough female engineers to know she didn’t have to travel a path not yet taken.

Women involved

“It’s still a male-dominated sport, but it’s changing, you see more women involved than ever before, even if there’s still a long way to go.

“In those first couple of weeks, when I first met the team, a couple of the lads were probably looking at me thinking ‘ah, let’s see how long this one lasts’, ‘how’s she going to fit in here?’. But I just got on with them and very quickly felt comfortable around them, I just fitted in. We just had such good fun. Maybe it’s just the way I am, but it was easy for me to fit in.

“So long as you’re confident in what you’re doing and you work hard you don’t really stand out, you’re just one of the team. If they can get to know you as a person it makes working with them a lot easier, and I got to know them quite well. A few beers together helped. As an Irish person they were always interested in seeing how much you could drink.”

“But male or female, it’s about gaining the respect of the drivers and them understanding what I could do for them through my work, and that happened as I got to know them better.

“Same with working with the race engineers. As soon as I had their trust it started to flow a lot better. Everyone’s trying to reach a goal, you want to do your job just as much as everyone else does.”

By the end of her spell working with the team, Daly was offered a full-time job. And once again she had a decision to make. For now, she opted to turn it down, she has unfinished business with her hockey career, her ambition to make it to a major tournament with Ireland before she moves on.

“It was really tough because there’s no level of motor sport like that in Ireland, so I can’t work in that area here. It’s hard. Hockey is the main thing that keeps me here, I couldn’t walk away that easily from it, I just have a love for the sport. I’m not going to lie, it’s gone back and forth in my mind, whether I’d made the right choice, but I just really want to play in a major tournament before I retire. The World Cup is in two years and that’s kind of my aim, and then we’ll take it from there.”

“I just think that this team can do it and that Irish hockey is in a good place. The men reaching the Olympics just goes to show what we can do on very little funding, it’s just pure commitment and passion for the sport.

“Much as I love motor racing, so much of it is about money, and you need a lot of it to get in to the sport.

“There’s no money in hockey. You play for the love of the game and nothing else. You don’t expect or get anything in return, except the thrill of playing for your country and everything that goes with it.”

Daly, then, is back playing with Muckross in the Leinster League, while preparing for an intensely busy 2017 with Ireland. There's the second round of the World League in Kuala Lumpur in January, August's European Championships in Amsterdam, and, if they qualify, the World League semi-finals in Belgium or South Africa. And in between a bunch of friendly matches and too many training sessions and gym visits to count. And on those rare days when she's free, she will coach hockey to pay the bills.

“Longer term I think I will go back to America. If it was at all possible that I could spend time over there and still commit to hockey that would be ideal, but it’s whether I can make that happen. We’ll see. More than anything I just want to do something that I enjoy, rather than something that would make me not want to get out of bed in the morning. Motor racing and hockey give me that. They’re not jobs, they’re my hobbies, my passions.”