Derek Daly had retired before Conor was born and so he never saw his dad racing – but Derek worked in racing TV and his mother worked at the racetrack so he was surrounded by cars nevertheless.
Daly began karting at the age of 10, which he says is old really. His father had never pushed him into following in his footsteps, but successes came quickly and Daly began his own career in racing. Interestingly, some of his rivals on the karting circuit would also become motorsport luminaries, such as Indy 500 champion Joseph Newgarden.
“Racing is like other sports – it takes a long time before you hit the big leagues and you have to earn your stripes along the way. You start with karting but then move to bigger cars, faster cars and basically it took until I was college age before I made it to professional levels of racing.”
By the time Daly graduated high school, he was racing full time and had already earned several major championships. So, armed with his Irish passport, he moved to London to become a Formula One driver. This was his college education, he says.
He got to travel all around Europe and the Middle East but was very focused on his job. As an elite athlete he was focused on being the most professional and went from race to race without hardly seeing the cities and not living the high life.
While in Europe, he moved from Formula Three to Formula Two, and became a Formula One reserve driver, but it takes a lot of money. When his funding dried up, he had to reroute his career, and coming from Indianapolis the obvious route was into IndyCar.
“Formula One and IndyCar are quite similar. Formula One is only road and street circuits and it’s a world championship. IndyCar races on an oval track so it’s faster than Formula One. It is also very North American focused.”
The Triple Crown of racing is the Indianapolis 500, the 24 hours of the Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix.
Daly has won races at almost every level of the ladder system up to IndyCar, and has won three championships. He’s been on the podium a lot. He is also only one of 29 drivers who have done both the Indy500 and the Daytona 500 in the same year.
Asked about the danger of the sport and crashes, Daly is both thankful and sanguine.
“Still, everyone crashes, every driver crashes and I’m lucky not to have crashed in the past six years, and even then, I did not suffer injuries. In my father’s day they were all lunatics and it was much more dangerous.”
Daly is also following in his father’s footsteps into broadcasting and hosts his own very popular podcast called Speed Street. He has dedicated his life to IndyCar racing and motorsport in general.
Daly is very proud of his Irish heritage. He has a lot of family still in Dundrum, Dublin, including his Nana, while his cousin Nicci Daly played for the Irish Olympic field hockey team. He visits often and has an Irish flag on one half of his helmet with an American flag on the other side.
Technical Innovation
“I’m not a tech leader but I love to understand what is going on. When I first heard about Bitcoin, I was fascinated. Web3 is a huge interest to me and I love following the really smart people in this space. This is the future of the internet.
“I got a long message one day from someone within the Polkadot community – It was a very long message. He said that it would be cool for Polkadot to be part of the largest attended sporting event in the world. He used a lot of words that I had to look up, but I knew that to win the Indianapolis 500 we needed sponsorship, so I paid attention.”
Sponsorship is vital in motor racing. Money is required to ensure the car is running at peak performance.
“I’m not an arrogant person but I love Indy500. I also believe that the exposure Polkadot can achieve is huge and opens the door to a whole new audience. At the same time, I discovered my dad holds dot – and I never know. How mad is that?”
Daly earned 290,000 dot or about $2.1 million. As it was a grant, he had to win the approval of the dot holders. This is an honour that he does not take lightly.
“It was a proud day when I received this grant and I will do everything in my power, including winning, to repay this vote of confidence. At the track we are handing out 1000s of leaflets on our hero cards with the QR codes for people to download a wallet and start their crypto experience.”
“My job is to make sure that our partnership benefits everyone – bringing Polkadot people to racing, and racing people to Polkadot. And to win.”
