Politicians love a flattering setting for their media events and on Monday Andrew Barr basked in the company, the reflected glory of 14 magnificent, Summernats-splendid vehicles.
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The Chief Minister was launching the next Summernats. January's festival will be the 30th of these annual godsends of revenue, entertainment and employment to a grateful Canberra that might otherwise be in summer's doldrums.
For Monday's launch at Federation Mall in front of Parliament House the Summernats organisers arranged a grand row of juggernauts as the Chief Minister's polished, gleaming backdrop. One of them, a vintage Holden panel van (the 70s and 80s nickname for these panel wagons cannot be reported in a family newspaper) boasted the legend G SPOT as its number plate.
This was a reminder that Summernats has always been refreshingly vulgar. And this blush-making number plate seemed to illustrate the point Summernats co-owner Andy Lopez made at Monday's launch when he promised of Summernats that: "We're growing, but we're not growing up."
No, Summernats remains a kind of eternal, liberally-tattooed adolescent. But an adolescent dear to the hearts of ACT governments and businesses. On Monday the personable and dynamic Lopez said that January's event seemed likely to attract 110,000 visitors, give employment to 700 and generate $20 million in revenue, and all this at what was otherwise "a slack time of the year".
Chief Minister Barr, his very presence (for he could have sent a mere minister instead) endorsing the pivotal importance of Summernats to the city, praised the way in which the event had kept adapting itself and so "is attracting a broader audience as it grows older".
"That can't be said," the Chief Minister added, no doubt thinking of the drooping and dated Floriade, "of every event held here in Canberra."
Earlier the splendid vehicles had arrived and taken their places, every engine uttering its own unique roars and growls. You'd have sworn that the lustrous green-gold "combo" vehicle lovingly built by Kylie Perry and Adam Perry of Kambah (based on a 1961 FB Holden but magically modified) had not an engine but eight growling grizzly bears under its bonnet.
The revved engine of the blancmange-pink Street Rod belonging to a proud Darren Barnes of Dunlop ("It's a 1934 Chevrolet ... with a 350 Chev engine, and it's 100 per cent street legal," Mr Barnes rejoiced) sounded like the giant Goliath clearing his throat before taking on the impudent David.
The open-topped Chevrolet proved irresistible to the Chief Minister, to newly-elected Labor MLA Bec Cody and to Lopez. They joined owner Barnes in the stationary car and pretended playfully to be a family bowling along on an outing.
"Are we there yet?" they chortled like children. Like Summernats itself they showed no signs of being ready, just yet, to grow up.
Summernats 2017 is at EPIC from January 5-8.
