Five years ago Kylie Perry was ready to pull the plug on Summernats because of its unruly culture, but she's come a long way with her 1961 FB Holden and she hoped to bring the grand champion's sword back to Canberra.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
"There's never been a female grand champion winner and I don't know whether there's even another one running this year, so I'm kind of out there trying to do it for the girls as well," Ms Perry said.
"I think this would be another sort of, milestone moment to really change that perception of the event, it has improved a lot."
Five years ago she'd been in her ute at Summernats when crowds blocked her in, climbed onto the back and chanted "boobs or burn outs" as security stood by.
"I was at the point where if it didn't get better I wasn't going to come back," she said.
She said confidence was one factor stopping more women entering Summernats, with only 12 part of the 300-strong city cruise on Thursday afternoon, but she'd received great feedback documenting the cars build.
She's now chasing the top prize from Summernats - being named grand champion with her '61 Holden.
"A lot of the feedback I'm getting from some of the girls out there is, 'You've inspired me to give it a go', because I don't have a trade background," Ms Perry said.
Ms Perry and her husband, Adam Perry, who both work office jobs as public servants, put in 14,000 hours over four years with parts from another FB Holden, a Nissan Skyline, and a Holden Commodore.
What made the FB special was it had been built back-to-front, with the rear panel on the front of the car and vice versa.
"I love that it's different, we wanted to do something unique," Ms Perry said.
The couple were looking to challenge themselves but had no idea what they wanted to build so went looking through magazines for inspiration.
"We saw a rendering of this back-to-front Holden and we thought, 'that's cool'," Ms Perry said.
"It kind of all just happened from there. We saw this picture, one little picture and the rest is history."
There was initial pushback from some men in the street machine community, questioning how much effort she'd put in compared to her husband.
"You do get a bit of that, but I find once people meet me and we talk about the car they understand how involved I've been and I can tell them anything about the car."
"I know every bit of detail inside out because I was heavily involved, so girls can do it too."
