EXCLUSIVE: Una Healy talks rallying to Kerry Motorsport News

EXCLUSIVE: Una Healy talks rallying to Kerry Motorsport News

The importance of last Sunday’s Greenmount Motorsport Bonanza cannot be underestimated on many levels.

The Limerick Motor Club event put motorsport in front of a new and very different audience.

More importantly, the Limerick Racecourse event raised money for several worthy causes including the Motorsport Ireland Benevolent Fund, Limerick Suicide Watch, An Garda Siochana’s Little Blue Heroes and Limerick Animal Welfare Sanctuary.

Several celebrities were invited to compete in the event, and they acted as co-drivers for some of Ireland’s top drivers.

This was significant on many levels – their presence resulted in many column inches in local and national media that otherwise have little or no interest in motorsport.

The celebrities included politicians Limerick TD Richard O’Donoghue and Kerry TD Michael Healy Rae.

Musician and TV personality Una Healy was there too.

She made her co-driving debut alongside well-known Limerick-based rally driver Keith Lyons in his Ford Fiesta Rally2.

The Thurles native is a brand ambassador for Volvo Ireland, Lyons of Limerick is the regional dealer for Volvo, Ford, and Jaguar cars, and was one of the main sponsors of last weekend’s event. 

The marketing manager with Lyons of Limerick is Mark O’Dwyer and during his teenage years in County Tipperary played in a band alongside the singer who once represented Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest.

That is, ultimately, how last Sunday came about.

That band was called ‘Unreal’ and that is exactly how the Tipperary star described her first-ever run in a rally car.

Strapped into the Ford Fiesta Rally 2 for the first time, she had no idea what to expect.

“I jumped out of a plane once; this was more exciting,” she told Kerry Motorsport News.

“Not very many people get to experience something like this. It was amazing, and to be honest I was a bit scared, especially over the first run when I did not really know where the course was going.

“The first time, I think my eyes were closed the whole way around. There were so many other factors, a loose pebble, or rain and how that could change things, but I loved the experience.”

Healy has played in packed stadiums all over the world, but she admitted that the rush of facing thousands of screaming fans was nothing compared to the rush she felt in the passenger seat of the Ford Fiesta.

“I know I was in safe hands with Keith,” she added. “It was similar but better than a roller coaster, there was a risk factor, a roller coaster is on a track, and you have some idea where it might go, but I wasn’t ready for the slides and the handbrake turns.”

Prior to the event, she admitted she had no idea what she was letting herself info,

Rally driver Jenna McCann loaned Healy a race suit for the day.

“I was sent this suit, my fashion sense was telling me this looks nice but then I realised that this is fireproof, something could go wrong,” she said. “I knew it was serious when I filled out the entry form and they asked me for my blood group.”

She was also blown away by the level of volunteerism it took to get the event off the ground

“It was really well organised, and it was reassuring to see all these people on standby in case something could go wrong.”

The Thurles singer has a real sense of community and after years of living in London and Los Angeles, she has chosen to settle in her native Tipperary.

And despite performing in some of the world’s biggest stadiums she rates a concert at Thurles Greyhound Stadium as one of her favourite gigs.

It is something that she noticed within the motorsport community last Sunday.

“There was a real sense of community, a family day, a brilliant atmosphere, it felt really happy, and you could sense the community spirit – it was new for me but there was a nice togetherness in the community,” she added.

When asked if she would sit in a rally car again, she said: “Oh yeah,” in a way that you can expect to see her at a rally event in the very near future – only this time she needs to experience a full-blown closed road special stage.

Una Healy’s presence at the Greenmount Motorsport Bonanza resulted in media coverage that would not have been possible without her.

Stories about rallying were published in the fashion magazine Evoke, The Sun newspaper covered motorsport – in a positive fashion!

Her own Facebook page has over 314,000 followers – her Instagram page has over double that figure and it’s safe to say that the majority of these social media followers are not rally fans.

She put our sport in front of a very different audience.

Una’s new single “Walk Away” will be released on Thursday this week with the accompanying video set to go live on Friday.

She promises an up-tempo summer classic that will have us all dancing – dancing at the crossroads could take on a new meaning this year as rally fans tune into the superstar that gave us much-needed publicity.

We can return the favour.

Buy it, download it – we owe her that at least.

PHOTO CREDITS: Dermot Kelleher, Spin South West, Una Healy Instagram, Volvo Ireland and Lyons of Limerick.

Thanks to Lyons of Limerick for their help.

https://www.lyonsoflimerick.com/

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