{"id":758567,"date":"2026-06-25T04:09:04","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T04:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/758567\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T04:09:04","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T04:09:04","slug":"lorraine-nan-tuckett-learned-the-art-of-doing-burnouts-at-the-age-of-78","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/758567\/","title":{"rendered":"Lorraine ‘Nan’ Tuckett learned the art of doing burnouts at the age of 78"},"content":{"rendered":"

When most great-grandmothers talk about burnout they are not usually referring to flooring the accelerator and smoking up the back tyres of a ute.<\/p>\n

But Lorraine “Nan” Tuckett is not your usual 86-year-old.<\/p>\n

When her husband died eight years ago the Leeton local started looking for a new love and ended up on the burnout circuit.<\/p>\n

“I was hooked straight away,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I just love thrashing the ute until the tyres blow and that sounds really good with the rubber and the smoke.<\/p>\n

“Gives me a real buzz.”<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Nan took home a memento from this year’s Birthday Bash.\u00a0 (Contributed: Girt Moonbriah\u00a0)<\/p>\n

Supported by her grandson Guy, the rest of her family and the Leeton community, she has has been taking to the track in her cherished ute Nan’s Dream.<\/p>\n

She is now the star of a burnout competition held at Leeton’s Brobenah Speedway in June each year, known as Nan’s Birthday Bash.<\/p>\n

Friends and family from around the country travel down to celebrate her day with burnouts, fireworks and a bonfire.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Nan could easily go through several sets of tyres in one burnout session. (Contributed: Guy Tuckett)<\/p>\n

But Nan takes competition seriously.<\/p>\n

“When you start off in the competition, you’ve got to get the tyres heated up,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The more smoke, the more numbers you get to win.<\/p>\n

“I beat Guy [her grandson] twice anyway, so I’m very proud of that.”<\/p>\n

Her Holden VY S pack ute is not far off what the name implies.<\/p>\n

“I just love the smoke, the sound, the noise,” Ms Tuckett said.<\/p>\n

“That’s why I’m a bit deaf now, but it doesn’t matter \u2014 it was worth it.”<\/p>\n

Since her 80th birthday, Nan has been going to burnout competitions across the country and making plenty of new friends along the way.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Nan burns some rubber on the Brobenah speedway in Leeton at the weekend’s Birthday Bash.\u00a0 (Contributed: Twistd media\u00a0)<\/p>\n

‘I know I’m the very, very oldest,” she said.<\/p>\n

“[There are] some 60 or 70-year-olds, but the majority are younger blokes, but they’re all accepting me into their mob.<\/p>\n

“They’re just all love me being there, even me just being there to watch them too; they just love it.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Nan and her grandson, Guy Tuckett, often get pit-stop support from her great-grandson, Nash, when doing burnouts.\u00a0 (Contributed: Stephanie Coombes)<\/p>\n

Nan’s grandson, Guy Tuckett, is also part of the competitive burnout scene.<\/p>\n

He hit upon the idea of getting his grandmother involved after walking in on her knitting not long after her husband’s death.<\/p>\n

“I said, no, Nan, you can’t be doing that \u2014 we need to go do some burnouts,” Mr Tuckett said.<\/p>\n

“She needs to be out and about because she’s an ex-rice farmer, she’d drive an old Bedford truck for 35 years \u2014 the knitting just didn’t suit her character.”<\/p>\n

Looking at her progress since, he knows he made the right choice.<\/p>\n

“It’s incredible. I reckon she’s gained 10 years of her life,” Mr Tuckett said.<\/p>\n

“[At] the start, it was like she was a bit shy, but now it’s just been pedal to the floor and nothing but.<\/p>\n

“That’s how good she is now; she would be confident just to get in the car and go by herself \u2014 and her coordination is incredible as well.”<\/p>\n

Nan said she was not planning on slowing down anytime soon.<\/p>\n

“It’s just a passion,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know how long it will go for, I just hope a bit longer \u2014 I just love it.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Nan waves her flag as she rides alongside her grandson, Guy Tuckett.\u00a0 (Contributed: Twistd media\u00a0)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When most great-grandmothers talk about burnout they are not usually referring to flooring the accelerator and smoking up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,67768,263463,183836,806,805,824,803,804,362596,362597,85],"class_list":["post-758567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-burn-outs","tag-car-racing","tag-leeton","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-nan","tag-nan-tuckett","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}