Tamer - but Canberra's Summernats still pleases with burnouts and blowers ... - Sydney Morning Herald

Smoke on the bitumen: Fans show their appreciation as a driver does a burnout in Canberra. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Thongs and tattoos are de rigueur. Sunburn, too.

For four days, the nation's capital becomes a melting pot during the annual Summernats.

"We're coming as council workers in fluoro singlets - we like to mix up the bogan element a bit," says apprentice electrician Teran McCasker of Blackwater in Queensland.

While scantily clad women, alcohol and controversy are the headline grabbers, it is undoubtedly the car builders who are the real heart and soul of Summernats. They spend untold hours and, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars creating visions of perfection.

Among the 1700-plus car-builder entrants is the father-son team of Joe and Kevin Gosschalk, who modify hearses. "It's a lot of fun. You get a lot of enjoyment out of it and it's more of a lifestyle than anything else," says Joe, whose 1977 Ford P6 LTD hearse bears the number plate ''Undead''.

"We acquired the first one … about 10 years ago, thinking we'd never hot it up. Then one night Kevin saw a thing on the Guinness Book of Records website for the world's fastest hearse and we thought we'd give it a nudge. In 2005 we managed to do that and we held the record for six or seven years."

Despite its reputation among Canberrans as an annual inconvenience, the Summernats is seen as a springboard into each new year by hotels and tourism operators. Organisers predict at least 100,000 people will pass through the gates in 2014, a likely record.

Adam Rodwell, 31, a Sydney carpenter, has been attending the festival with friends for 12 years. "We used to be front and centre on the fence in our younger years. We'd walk away covered in rubber, we had cut skin from the flying belt and wire used in the tyres," he said. ''There really is nothing else like it.''

Though there are still strong remnants of the Summernats' core elements - boobs, blowers and burnouts - nearly all those asked agree the event is now tamer.

"We don't have the wet T-shirt competition or certain other elements any more, but that hasn't damaged the event," says Chic Henry, the founder and owner of Summernats until he sold the rights in 2009.