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The DIY drifter
BBC TopGear India
|June 2024
A self-taught drifter and mechanic now stunt doubling opposite Tom Cruise. Just another day at the office for Tessa Whittock
“Yeah, there’s been some hostility and some comments, but as long as you can take the banter but also give it back, I kind of stop it in its tracks.” Tessa Whittock revels in being a female in what’s seen as a man’s world. Drifting. Tuning. Wrenching. Stunt driving for billion dollar Hollywood blockbusters. “Sure, there’s that element of, ‘oh, because you’re a girl, you’re getting special treatment’,” she laughs, “or ‘you’ve qualified better than I have because you’re a woman’. No. It’s just how I drive. I’m better at it than you are.”
Tessa has crammed a heck of a lot into her 33 years. She’s an ex-investment banker who taught herself to drift on dirt using an old Suzuki Vitara with the four-wheel drive disengaged. “I’ve always been mad for cars and tractors because of my farm upbringing. I love a tractor! When I was 14, my dad had a friend who had an RX-7 which we took to Santa Pod. And there was this drift taxi. I got in – an R32 Skyline – and literally from that day forward I was like, ‘oh my God, how can I do this?’”

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der June 2024-Ausgabe von BBC TopGear India.
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