After a couple of years riding shotgun in her grandson Guy Tuckett’s skid car, Nan recently hopped into the driver’s seat of their shared VY SS ute, ‘Nan’s Dream’, and now just can’t get enough of smashing tyres herself.

What got you into doing burnouts?

It all started a couple of years ago when my grandson Guy asked me to come with him out to the burnouts and be his passenger at the Brobenah Speedway pad here in Leeton. I’d never done anything like it before in my life, but I thought I’d give it a go, so I said yes. I’m really thankful to Guy for asking me to come along; it was so exciting, and I loved it. What an adrenaline rush!

Why did you decide to give it a go yourself?

I just wanted to have a go; I’d been Guy’s passenger for almost two-and-a-half years, but last year at our Christmas social party out at Brobenah I decided to have a drive and haven’t looked back.

What do you enjoy most about burnouts?

It’s the excitement and thrill of being in the ute with the engine roaring, the huge amount of tyre smoke and the bang from the tyres blowing. I can’t sleep the nights before events; I’m just too keen to go along and have fun. There’s also the social side of things. I love being involved with this amazing group of people at the Brobenah Burnouts at the Leeton Motorsports Club. They’re a great bunch and have accepted me as one of their own; they all call me Nan now, which is wonderful.

Are you going to compete regularly?

Yes, I will be competing in burnouts as a driver and passenger. I do still love being a passenger, but I will be getting behind the wheel to get my driving fix too from now on, that’s for sure.

So how did ‘Nan’s Dream’ come about?

Well, back when I first went along with Guy to the burnouts, he only had a six-cylinder VS Commodore sedan and then then we got a six-cylinder ute, but they weren’t powerful enough. So I said to Guy: ‘We need to get bigger and better; we need a V8!’ So he found this ute, and we went halves in it. It’s a 2004 VY SS. The LS1 motor is pretty standard; the only real modification to it is an OTR intake, and Guy is currently getting the valve springs upgraded. The gearbox has a shift-kit in it and the spooled diff is now getting 3.9 gears fitted. All the rev-limiter work was killing power-steer pumps, so we’ve had to replace the factory set-up with an electric one from an Astra.

Any events you want to go to further from home? Or are you just going to keep it local?

Yes, I would love to expand our tour. Locally we do travel to Wagga and Barmedman, and we would love to go even further to events like Springnats and Brashernats. My dream is to get along to Summernats and spend a couple of days there to check out the whole event.

Girls — wanna be famous? Send pics, car details and contact details to: Iron Maiden, Street Machine, Locked Bag 12, Oakleigh, Vic 3166. Or email: [email protected].