After two years’ absence from Canberra, Summernats 34 roared into action today when the gates at Exhibition Park opened to the public at 11am.

The traditional Northbourne Avenue Street parade opened the festival today, with 500 cars rumbling down Canberra’s main drag.

A sense of anticipation, excitement, and relief was palpable amongst patrons both at EPIC and along Northbourne Avenue, and was shared by Summernats co-owner Andy Lopez.

“Exhibition Park, where I’ve just come from, it’s already heaving,” Mr Lopez told media this morning.

“Hospitality, tourism, the events industry has been absolutely poleaxed by the last couple of years, there’s no way to gild the lily, it’s been a tough couple of years.

“Our team has stuck together really solidly, so too has our community, and we’ve worked really hard to make sure we can bring this event back in all its glory.”

With the current Omicron outbreak looming large across Australia, numerous health precautions will be in place; straightforward measures like mask wearing indoors, staying home if you’re sick, and managing capacities around the site.

“It’s something we’re really well planned for, and I’ll be really honest, we’ve talked about it enough for the last six months,” Mr Lopez said.

“What we’re now here to say is we’ve got an exemption from the ACT Government to run this event, and we’re doing it.

“The only way we got that exemption was by doing all the right things.”

With all the COVID-19 safety boxes ticked, Mr Lopez stressed what’s important now is ensuring Summernats 34 is not just a safe festival, but a fun one, too.

“We’re in the party business, this is what we’re about,” he said.

“Every event that we put on has always got to be safe, but what we are about is creating really good parties.”

Roughly 80,000 people are anticipated to get along to Exhibition Park over the course of the four-day festival.

While that may be a smaller number than years past, Mr Lopez said regardless of that, it looks likely they will give their previous vehicles entries record of 2,500 a nudge.

Festivities include car unveilings and mullet competition

A centrepiece of the Summernats 34 festivities will see 25 prestige custom cars unveiled publicly for the first time tomorrow night.

One of the cars set to debut belongs to long-time festival enthusiast Michelle White, whose custom-built Holden HZ has undergone a complete rebuild over the last five years.

“I wanted it to be a representation of me,” she said. “I like to look pretty on the outside, but I have a tough heart.”

As the only woman in the showcase, her car is set to be first cab off the rank, something Ms White is proud of.

“You can be a woman and be into cars, and come to an event like Summernats,” she said.

Having attended her first Summernats in 1986, Ms White has almost come every year, but missed the last five festivals while her HZ was under construction.

After some time away, she’s excited as anything to be back for another lap around Exhibition Park.

“I absolutely love it,” she said. “It’s the place to be if you’re a car lover.”

On Saturday afternoon, the fan favourite mullet competition will take to the stage.

A long-time staple of Summernats, the competition has taken on a life of its own since Summernats 33 in 2020 when Mulletfest co-founder Laura Johnson got involved.

Ms Johnson has returned with her husband and four kids to both run ‘the mane event’ on Saturday and take in the festival more broadly, with two cars entered in the show.

“We’re looking forward to just having an awesome weekend and being able to get our message out there,” she said. “What we want to do is get around and see as many mullets as we possibly can!”

Coming from Kurri Kurri in the NSW Hunter region, Ms Johnson co-founded Mulletfest in 2018, which raises money for the Mark Hughes Foundation to support brain cancer research.

Prior to Ms Johnson running Summernats’ mullet competition, the event would typically have 10-20 entrants, a number that was easily usurped in 2020 and is predicted to grow even more this year.

“We ran around grabbing people and said ‘come on, come on, you’ve got a mullet, you’ve got to come’, and so we got the number up to 47 in the end, and I’ve said I’m going to double it again!”

Get all the latest Canberra news, sport, entertainment, lifestyle, competitions and more delivered straight to your inbox with the Canberra Daily Daily Newsletter. Sign up here.