SUMMERNATS 33 kicked off with a bang yesterday at Exhibition Park in Canberra.

The event opened with the now-signature City Cruise, with 482 killer rides rolling down Northbourne Avenue. Mark Schwarz took part in the HANFUL Monaro and later qualified for the Burnout Masters in the Last Chance Wildcard burnouts.

Cletus McFarland took his TOAST Camaro out in the Wildcard event, but hit the wall and burst into flames. A post-mortem revealed that he’d killed an engine, but Cletus soon located a new donk and screwed it in at the Canberra Institute of Technology. Staunch!

Marc Waddington in the WARBIRD XP Falcon also made it through to the masters, as well as Lynchy, Stephen Marsh in IH8FDS and Craig Meston in PINKY.

The day finished up with the Valvoline Street Machine of the Year VIP party. The sixth Laurie Starling Award was presented to multi-talented mini trucker, Jasmine Green. You can check Jasmine’s amazing work on her Instagram page. Jazzy not only did the chassis work, engine swap and bodywork to her LS-powered Hilux, she wired it as well! And, she’s going to put her scholarship win towards learning to trim!

The formal proceedings were completed with Tony McDermott from Valvoline presenting SMOTY-winner Matt Morgillo with his cheque for $20,000. That done, the creme of Australia’s car-building community and some of Street Machine‘s biggest supporters partied late into the night.