31 FLAVOURS
> PLENTY OF SPECIAL GUESTS AND NEW FEATURES IN STORE FOR SUMMERNATS 31
IT’S the most wonderful time of the year, and we’re not talking about Christmas. Street
Machine Summernats 31 will be upon us before we know it, and as entrants scramble to get their cars together and ready for Australia’s biggest horsepower party, we thought we’d touch base with the man in charge, Andy Lopez, to find out what’s new and different about Summernats 31.
Street Outlaws superstars Farmtruck and AZN will be returning to Summernats, and they’re bringing a Chevy C10 pick-up with them! It’s not the truck they race on the show, but it’s arguably even cooler – a purpose-built burnout car being pieced together by the team at the Canberra Institute of Technology, with hands-on help from Farmtruck and AZN themselves! “We chatted to the guys soon after Summernats 30 and they wanted to come back, but they didn’t want to just do the same thing; they always want to go to the next level and blow the crowd’s mind,” Andy said.
“Farmtruck said: ‘I want to send a truck over, and I want to do skids!’ We wanted to get the truck built here because we build burnout cars better than anyone in the world, but Farmtruck and AZN also wanted to be actively involved. So they’re coming out to Australia in December so they can be part of the last-minute thrash to finish the car for Summernats with the great apprentices at CIT – it couldn’t be more genuine. What’s really cool is that they’re bringing a film crew with them to film a Street Outlaws special on the car and the event.”
We’ve also heard whispers that Kyle and Cleetus from 1320Video have a skid car of their own in the making for the event, and that there’s a callout in the works to set up a burnout showdown between them and the Street Outlaws lads, which should make for quite a spectacle!
In other news, the Miss Summernats competition won’t feature on the program at ’Nats 31. “We came to a decision after Summernats 30 that while Miss Summernats had been a great part of the event for many years, we wanted our focus on women at the Summernats to be totally centred on their achievements in building and driving, just as it is with the blokes,” Andy explained. “There have been a lot of good times with Miss Summernats over the years, but all of us at the ’Nats felt the competition had run its course.”
There’s been record international interest in the event, including a bunch of Kiwi burnout cars and hundreds of fans travelling from New Zealand. There will also be a stellar entertainment line-up including Wolfmother, Thundamentals and 28 Days, as well as the Summernats Body Art Nationals, which is a re-branded and widely rejuvenated version of the Summernats tattoo competition. There are serious prizes, trophies and onsite tattoo artists, and there’s even a special Summernats tattoo you can get done.
Summernats 31 takes place at Exhibition Park in Canberra from 4-7 January 2018. Tickets at summernats.com.au.