Here in Canberra the massive convoy called Summernats has just rolled into town for another year. As usual it has incited the locals in a loud mix of love and hate – almost as loud as the car races themselves. Yet, like it or loathe it, cars are at the heart of everyday Australian life. Even if they don’t interest you all that much, or even if you mainly use public transport, you probably also use a car regularly. The Sunday drive, the regional road tour, the daily commute are all as Australian as burnt toast and peeling sunburn. The annual Summernats road extravaganza in Australia’s national capital celebrates this mobile culture. With some imagination, it could be even more – celebrating a central, while challenging, part of contemporary Australian popular culture.
This year the Summernats crowd were even outrageously blamed by a Canberra Times reader for defacing a string of memorials on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin over the new year – in the usual fashion of random comments that no-one cares about, normally only the Greens would get the blame.
Summernats brings a mixed bag to the national capital – a large increase in atmospheric polution, a huge jump in stylish haircuts and sleek vehicles and, since last year, a parallel festival of popular culture in hipster heaven Braddon, which this year has been expanded to the whole three days of the main event. There has always been a dark side to Summernats, more so the further back you go, but even last year, but organisers seem to have been actively trying to make the event broader and more inclusive.
