While the St Mary's School pupil, who lives on a dairy farm at Balfour with her parents, Leo and Maricel, and sister Iara (7), was born in New Zealand, her parents came from Argentina 12 years ago.
Ailin's passion for country music came from attending two Taylor Swift concerts in Auckland. ''It's [country music] got nice lyrics and it's really good to listen to every now and then,'' Ailin said.
The second influence came from taking guitar and singing lessons from one of the southern duo The Heartleys, Kayla Martin.
She was also friends with Nicola and Maegan Mitchell, from Gore, who are the younger twin sisters of country singer Jenny Mitchell.
Swift and Kasey Chambers were Ailin's main musical influences, she said, although she confessed to a love of the Beatles' music.
The other influences in her life came from her family, who enjoyed Latin music. Mrs Martin encouraged Ailin to enter the Gore awards.
''When I started taking singing lessons, she [Mrs Martin] said I had a good voice,'' she said.
She is entering two sections: vocal solo, singing Cry Like a Baby, by Kasey Chambers, and the traditional section with an instrumental rendition of Take Me Home, Country Roads, by John Denver.
The whole family, plus Ailin's aunty and cousins, would be cheering her on at the awards during the weekend, she said.
This will not be the first time Ailin has attended the Gold Guitar Awards - she has been with her school.
As well as performing, Ailin had also written a song and was keen to keep writing her own material, she said.
Mrs Pekar said her daughter was 2 when she started singing.
''When she was 2 years old she asked for a violin,'' she said.
Her grandmother sent a violin from Argentina, but the passion was short-lived.
She moved on to the ukulele and had more success. Now she was learning guitar.
