Glam and grime for pageant winner

ON Saturdays you will find her at pageant practice; on Sundays she’s getting grimy at the race track.

Emma Gribble, 22, was crowned Miss Auckland in

2018 and is a finalist in Miss World NZ – but being a beauty queen is not her only passion.

Gribble is a ‘‘motorsportobsessed’’ race car driver and has been competing on dirt tracks since she was 15.

Gribble said she started going to Meremere Dirt Track, just south of Auckland, at the age of 10 when her dad and uncle got into racing. She knew ‘‘immediately’’ that it was what she wanted to do.

‘‘When you’re on the race track, you don’t think about anything else,’’ the Helensville resident said.

‘‘The adrenalin is crazy, and in that moment, you forget all about the life dramas and the life stresses.’’

However, her obsession with racing is now competing with her newly found love for pageants, inspired by the charity work they did.

‘‘I never even thought I would get through to the interview stage, I didn’t tell anyone, but then I became a finalist which is crazy in itself. Then I ended up winning it.

‘‘This time last year I never would have imagined I would have entered a pageant, let alone win one.’’

Juggling the commitments is difficult but ‘‘it’s nice to live a bit of both worlds’’.

On March 24, Gribble is hosting a charity race at Meremere Dirt Track to raise money for Brave, a charity that provides education and support to young Kiwis on sexual violence.