In an amazing result for the Canberra region, a locally-built Porsche won the coveted grand champion trophy and an ACT driver was named overall driving champion after a record-setting four days at the Summernats car festival.
Collecting numerous trophies for the superb quality of his 1978 Porsche 911 show car in the elite judging section of the competition, building certifier Livi Krevatin then had to risk it all in the driving events to take home the most coveted prize.
Exposing the pristine, hand-built sports car, worth more than $750,000, to the rigours of the race track for the first time was a genuine heart-in-the-mouth moment for the owner.
"Once the car got in the top 10 [in judging], I had to give it a crack for grand champion," he said.
"I decided that after this show, I just want to drive it and enjoy it."
Under the strict criteria set down by the late Chic Henry, a vehicle is only eligible for Summernats grand champion if judged as an elite top 10 show car, is popular in the people's choice awards, and performs strongly in the driving events.
Completed in April last year, the Porsche took 7000 hours of painstaking re-engineering and meticulous painting in the Real Steel Group body shop in Queanbeyan. It was the first air-cooled car and the first German car to have won grand champion.
Chief judge Owen Webb described the car as "an engineering masterpiece and totally deserving" of the top prize.
"The plan was always to just keep it classic, keep it clean and get the details right," Mr Krevatin said.
"But now this show's over, bugger the road grime and stone chips, we're taking it on a driving holiday to Victoria."
In another success story for the Canberra region, Keith Miller from Melba racked up the highest points across four disciplines to win the show's driving champion.
And to prove vehicle performance was unnecessary, he did it in a 1-litre Mini Moke.
"We were up against cars with hundreds of horsepower; we're lucky if this [Moke] makes 45 on a good day," he said.
His secret weapon was fitting mud tyres for extra grip on the competition's grass surface. With his 10-year-old son Reece, Mr Miller streeted the motorkhana and barrel run then only had to win one more section to claim the overall driving trophy.
After a weekend in which ticket sales were suspended when organisers decided they wanted to limit the impact of the event externally, the attendance at Summernats 35 easily topped the previous high mark of 119,184 mark set back in 2017.
But it was not without controversy as organisers shut the internal cruise route to all traffic and drew concrete barriers across the roadway around 6pm on Saturday after a couple of dangerous incidents.
In one of the most serious incidents, an entrant in a NSW registered Falcon looped his car around on the cruise strip while doing a burnout as people crowded onto the roadway. The entrant was later evicted.
"We know who these people are and they won't be part of Summernats again," event co-owner Andy Lopez said.
Summernats 35 was the first held without the event's inspirational founder Chic Henry, who died in Canberra in April last year. The event's trademark black T-shirt, which featured his portrait, was a complete sell-out.
After Mr Henry sold the rights to the event to event management company Out There Productions, he remained closely connected to Summernats.
On Saturday night, some of his ashes were placed in one of the fireworks which lit up the sky over Exhibition Park and "a little bit of Chic rained down on us", Mr Webb said.
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