As the dust from a smoking set of tyres settles, a 14-year-old girl steps out of the haze.<\/p>\n
Clutching a nitrous bottle plush toy and a black and yellow number plate marked SKIDZZZ, Briella Scantlebury hopes to show young women they can claim their place on the pad.<\/p>\n
From the town of Harvey, south of Perth, Briella had been begging her parents for a skid car for months, after being exposed to the sport at the Collie Motorplex.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Briella Scantlebury’s birthday skid car was completed with a personalised licence plate for the sport. (ABC South West WA: Pip Waller)<\/p>\n
“It was the morning of my 14th birthday and I was opening my presents when my parents told me to walk outside,” Briella said.<\/p>\n
“And there it was, sitting out there on a trailer.<\/p>\n
“It was probably one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had \u2014 getting a bloody skid car.”<\/p>\n
Briella’s stepdad Damien Shaw modified a Holden Commodore V6 ute to ensure it was appropriate for burnout competitions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those competing in the sport are judged based on their ability to perform controlled manoeuvres, with points awarded for smoke volume and driving skill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Shaw said Briella was a “leadfoot” the moment she got behind the wheel.<\/p>\n
“She’s not one of these kids where you have to turn around and say you need to push the accelerator harder,” Mr Shaw said.<\/p>\n
“She pretty much bashed it to the limiter straight away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Instead of her sitting on her phone and scrolling through videos of other people doing it, now she can do it herself.”<\/p>\n
Briella Scantlebury took part in an Open Pad Skids event at the Collie Motorplex in August. (ABC South West WA: Pip Waller)<\/p>\n
Behind the wheel at 14?<\/p>\n
In order to compete, Briella needs a special licence issued by the Australian Auto-Sport Alliance.<\/p>\n
She can drive only with parental permission and needs to have someone over 18 years old in the car with her.<\/p>\n
Mr Shaw said both the cars and venues were fully prepared to cope in the event of an incident.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Damien Shaw says his stepdaughter’s reaction was “gold” when she first got behind the wheel of her new skid car. (ABC South West WA: Pip Waller)<\/p>\n
“The car has a fire extinguisher inside it and the skid pad itself has fire marshals and ambulance crew,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Helmets are mandatory and we’ve gone a little bit above with Briella and bought her a fire suit even though she doesn’t need one.”<\/p>\n
Briella said it was “pretty out of sorts” to be a 14-year-old girl competing in the motorsport, and she hoped to show other girls there was a place for them too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Briella Scantlebury and Damien Shaw work on modifying their Commodore together. (ABC South West WA: Pip Waller)<\/p>\n
“There’s some people out there that hate on the sport and they think it’s just not good enough,” Briella said.<\/p>\n
“But I find it really interesting how people just like tip in really fast and swing the car and create lots of smoke.<\/p>\n
“Girls can do the same amount of things boys can do. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it, but if you do, you may as well get into it.”Challenging the ‘hoon’ stereotype<\/p>\n
Briella is aiming to take part in a burnout competition by the end of 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A number of events are held in regional WA, including in Bunbury, Collie, Waroona and Albany.<\/p>\n
Chloe Wojtowicz, who helps organise the Bunbury Burnout Challenge, said she had seen a “huge climb” in drivers of all genders over the past decade.<\/p>\n
“At some comps there’s usually a ladies class, prizes for the best lady driver and they often out-drive the boys,” Ms Wojtowicz said.<\/p>\n
“Not only are you having a bit of fun and getting comfortable testing the limits, but you’re also learning defensive driving as well.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Chloe Wojtowicz says interest in the burnout scene has skyrocketed in the past decade. (ABC South West WA: Pip Waller)<\/p>\n
Ms Wojtowicz said those involved in the sport were working hard to challenge negative stereotypes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“When people hear a loud car they obviously think bogans, ferals, that kind of thing,” she said.<\/p>\n
“But at the end of the day we’re all people that love that horsepower, the loud sounds, the loud music and the fun nights.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the dust from a smoking set of tyres settles, a 14-year-old girl steps out of the haze.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,67760,67769,67770,67764,67766,67768,67767,67762,67763,67765,67761,134,67759,67771,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-91323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-briella-scantlebury","11":"tag-bunbury-burnout-challenge","12":"tag-bunbury-news","13":"tag-bunbury-speedway","14":"tag-burn-out-competitions","15":"tag-burn-outs","16":"tag-car-competitions","17":"tag-chloe-wojtowicz","18":"tag-collie-motorplex","19":"tag-commodore-v6","20":"tag-damien-shaw","21":"tag-entertainment","22":"tag-harvey","23":"tag-skidding","24":"tag-wa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91323","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=91323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}