A MONARO sits in the garage at Max Duncan’s Albury property, adorned with number plates honouring his daughter Yasmin.
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The tribute is no token gesture.
The 1976 GTS sedan was to be a 19th birthday present for the university student, who urged her father to restore it after it was damaged in a smash.
“I was hit by a semi-trailer in 2008 and I was going to get rid of the car, but my daughter told me ‘you’ve got to get it fixed’,” Mr Duncan said.
“But she didn’t want to see it until it was finished, even when it was 95 per cent fixed she said ‘I’m not coming down until it’s fully fixed up’.
“She wouldn’t have been able to drive it until she was 25, because it was a V8.”
Tragically, Yasmin never got the opportunity to see the Monaro finished with its YAS 491 number plates reflecting her name and her birth date — April 1991.
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It would have been given to her on April 12, 2010, when she turned 19.
Sadly, she died five weeks before in a collision on the Hume Highway near Tarcutta, leaving behind her father, mother Donna and sisters Blair and Jade.
Mr Duncan spoke of the impact of Yasmin’s loss yesterday after Coroner Tony Murray handed down his findings into her death.
“Now I’ve got a car that sits in the shed, getting driven a few times a year, and the girls don’t want it to be sold; they want it kept in the family,” he said.
The car, along with countless photographs of an ever-smiling Yasmin, are reminders of a daughter who had spent 16 years following her father around football clubs as he undertook coach-ing jobs that ranged from Brocklesby to the Upper Murray.
“At the time (of the crash) I never got around to thanking those people for what they did for my daughter,” Mr Duncan said.
“My daughter meant a lot to me and it’s knocked me over — without the support of the Tumbarumba Football Club and the community of all the Upper Murray league clubs I basically don’t think I’d be here today.
“But I’ve got to face reality and realise Yasmin is not coming back and I have two other fabulous daughters and a wife to think of.”
Memories of Yasmin’s passion to be become a marine biologist and her excitement at winning the best and fairest at Thurgoona Netball Club help buoy Mr Duncan.
“There’s not a photo in our house that we haven’t got her smiling in,” Mr Duncan said.
“I walk around and see her friends who are 22 now and it reminds you what Yasmin would have done, she would have finished her university degree last year.”