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Just as Canberra was hitting the snooze button, the classic and muscle car fraternity are preparing to create some Summernats-style colour and noise with their own city cruise plans over the coming days. Their intention is to maintain a little of the momentum of one of Australia’s biggest street machine parties, usually held every January at Exhibition Park but cancelled this year due to complications arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, local Summernats supporters and enthusiasts are not prepared to just sit at home and let the days slide by. Instead, they are planning to wheel out their cars and roll down Northbourne Avenue just as they usually would during the Summernats’ traditional Friday city cruise. On Thursday at 10am, car owners will be gathering their many and varied machines at Southwell Park for what has been dubbed the “Claytons Nats cruise”, named after a well-known libation from the 1980s which looked and tasted like alcohol – but wasn’t. Andrew Dale, whose G-Spot eatery at Gungahlin became such a popular gathering place on a Friday night for Canberra’s enthusiast car owners that the car park became like a scene out of the movie Grease, first floated the idea of the informal cruise run on a social media forum. Unexpectedly, the concept quickly gathered momentum. “A lot of people around are usually committed to Summernats at this time of year but are now at a loose end,” Andrew Dale said. “So when I suggested the idea [of an informal cruise] to mark the occasion, they [the forum members] all fired up.” Police have been advised and the tentative plan is to roll the cars down Northbourne Avenue, across Commonwealth Avenue and back again, with the oldest on first and most recent models rumbling through last. Hundreds of cars from around the region are expected to take part. And when the older cars lead out, that means that Don Jackson is likely to be right up front in his 1928 Ford A Model hot rod pick-up. Known as God – an abbreviation of “Grumpy old Don” – among the hot rod fraternity, 69-year-old Don Jackson has been part of the Summernats street machine festival since 1989, a year after it was first created and promoted by Chic Henry and staged at Exhibition Park, then known as Natex. “I’ve been a mate of Chic [Henry] since way back when,” Mr Jackson said. “I was a scrutineer for years at Summernats and then moved across to helping out with the logistics. I’m retired now but still involved every year.” As Mr Jackson’s birthday falls on January 4, Summernats time is usually busy with friends visiting from Victoria and Queensland. But not this year, with police conducting random border checks on arrivals at the ACT and COVID outbreaks occurring in NSW. At a time when Summernats would usually be firing on all cylinders, the only notable feature inside the 70-hectare precinct in 2021 is a COVID testing clinic. The city cruise, too, has a chequered past. Part of the original Summernats schedule during the event’s early years, the cruise was dropped like a hot exhaust pipe after a particularly unsavoury series of incidents in which participants’ cars were squirted with corrosive brake fluid, road signs were pulled down and oil dropped on the roadway to facilitate easier burnouts. READ MORE: The cruise finally returned to the official schedule in recent years, but is usually tightly managed by police. “The last thing we need is for the idiots to screw things up again,” Mr Jackson said.
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Just as Canberra was hitting the snooze button, the classic and muscle car fraternity are preparing to create some Summernats-style colour and noise with their own city cruise plans over the coming days.
Their intention is to maintain a little of the momentum of one of Australia’s biggest street machine parties, usually held every January at Exhibition Park but cancelled this year due to complications arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, local Summernats supporters and enthusiasts are not prepared to just sit at home and let the days slide by.
Instead, they are planning to wheel out their cars and roll down Northbourne Avenue just as they usually would during the Summernats’ traditional Friday city cruise.
On Thursday at 10am, car owners will be gathering their many and varied machines at Southwell Park for what has been dubbed the “Claytons Nats cruise”, named after a well-known libation from the 1980s which looked and tasted like alcohol – but wasn’t.
Andrew Dale, whose G-Spot eatery at Gungahlin became such a popular gathering place on a Friday night for Canberra’s enthusiast car owners that the car park became like a scene out of the movie Grease, first floated the idea of the informal cruise run on a social media forum. Unexpectedly, the concept quickly gathered momentum.
“A lot of people around are usually committed to Summernats at this time of year but are now at a loose end,” Andrew Dale said.
“So when I suggested the idea [of an informal cruise] to mark the occasion, they [the forum members] all fired up.”
Police have been advised and the tentative plan is to roll the cars down Northbourne Avenue, across Commonwealth Avenue and back again, with the oldest on first and most recent models rumbling through last.
Hundreds of cars from around the region are expected to take part.
And when the older cars lead out, that means that Don Jackson is likely to be right up front in his 1928 Ford A Model hot rod pick-up.
Known as God – an abbreviation of “Grumpy old Don” – among the hot rod fraternity, 69-year-old Don Jackson has been part of the Summernats street machine festival since 1989, a year after it was first created and promoted by Chic Henry and staged at Exhibition Park, then known as Natex.
Don Jackson with his 1928 Ford Model A. Picture: Karleen Minney.
“I’ve been a mate of Chic [Henry] since way back when,” Mr Jackson said.
“I was a scrutineer for years at Summernats and then moved across to helping out with the logistics. I’m retired now but still involved every year.”
As Mr Jackson’s birthday falls on January 4, Summernats time is usually busy with friends visiting from Victoria and Queensland.
But not this year, with police conducting random border checks on arrivals at the ACT and COVID outbreaks occurring in NSW.
Flashback to January 2020, with the Summernats City Cruise entrants rolling through the bushfire smoke. Picture: Dion Georgopoulos
At a time when Summernats would usually be firing on all cylinders, the only notable feature inside the 70-hectare precinct in 2021 is a COVID testing clinic.
The city cruise, too, has a chequered past.
Part of the original Summernats schedule during the event’s early years, the cruise was dropped like a hot exhaust pipe after a particularly unsavoury series of incidents in which participants’ cars were squirted with corrosive brake fluid, road signs were pulled down and oil dropped on the roadway to facilitate easier burnouts.
The cruise finally returned to the official schedule in recent years, but is usually tightly managed by police.
“The last thing we need is for the idiots to screw things up again,” Mr Jackson said.
