His name has been synonymous with Summernats for decades as the human engine room for the biggest, brassiest and most colourful car show in the Southern Hemisphere.
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But that big engine has now fallen silent, with car enthusiasts around the country mourning the loss of raconteur, super-promoter, modified car enthusiast and honorary ACT ambassador Anthony Robert "Chic" Henry.
Mr Henry, 75, died on Thursday in his adopted home of Canberra after a prolonged battle with cancer.
He was an affable, passionate, clever promoter whose unashamedly bold, loud and occasionally controversial modified car festival poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the ACT, the region and its businesses over more than three decades.
Mr Henry was the founder and "father" of Summernats, an event which began as a modest ACT car show and under his management became a national street machine blockbuster. It has since spawned multiple other "Nats" car festivals around the country.
Andy Lopez, who took over the running of Summernats after 2009 and this weekend is running a spin-off event, the RockyNats in Rockhampton, said Chic Henry's contribution was "immeasurable".
"Chic was a great mate, a genuine one of a kind; the Australian street machine fraternity, every revhead in the country, owes him a huge debt of thanks," he said.
"Summernats was his baby, his vision. He said he just wanted every event was to be like a giant party, and one that he could bring all his mates along to. And that's how he shaped it.
"Even after we took it over, he was always fully involved and was delighted to see the concept and the brand grow with the RedCentre Nats [in Alice Springs] and the RockyNats [in Rockhampton]."
Chic Henry will be remembered for his unbridled enthusiasm, charm and energy, his frank and fearless approach to major challenges in life and business, his love for his family and many, many friends, his willingness to engage with people from all walks of life and, as anyone who met him would attest, his love of a good story - and his ability to tell a good one in return.
Mr Henry ran unsuccessfully for office twice in the ACT, once in 2012 with the now-defunct Australian Motorist Party, and again with Bill Stefaniak's "Keep the Bastards Honest" Belco Party in 2021 - that most recent effort coming after a previous battle with cancer. The illness sadly returned to claim his life.
Given his love of cars - particularly fast ones with V8 engines - one of his key policy platforms on both occasions was to build a motorsports complex in the ACT.
The backroom party-political deals which led to the closure of the privately funded Canberra International Dragway in 1998, and the established parties' ambivalent attitude toward building a motorsports facility for enthusiasts in the territory, were always sore points, with Mr Henry adamant that the huge car-loving cohort in the ACT and surrounding region deserved far better treatment.
Summernats started almost by accident, largely as a result of Canberra's central and convenient location for the staging of what was then known as the Australian Street Machine Federation Nationals. Mr Henry was the federation's national director and promoter.
The event was looking for a more suitable venue after being staged in Shepparton, Victoria, and Narrandera, NSW.
When Mr Henry saw what Exhibition Park - or Natex, as it was known in the late 1980s - had to offer, he was convinced this was the future for his event.
And so it proved.
"I saw Natex as a place where we could stage every part of our event program plus camp onsite, and [it] had buildings where we could have trade exhibits. Fantastic!" he recalled in his autobiography, I Remember One Time.
The Canberra event Mr Henry launched in 1988 built massively over time, a specialised burnout pad and mini-stadium was built inside the complex, and the management team moved onsite to handle the show.
He also had to nurse the event through its share of controversy, such as in 1993, when the annual competitor cruise down Northbourne Avenue turned into a debacle, with Molotov cocktails thrown and 152 people arrested.
However these were just speedbumps to the fearless Chic Henry, and by 2005 Summernats was attracting 120,000 people a year, generating $16 million in turnover and about $1 million a day in net profits. It also brought casual employment for about 2000 people, and filled Canberra's accommodation at a time when half the territory's population was down at the South Coast on summer holidays.
Mr Henry kept his good humour and positivity right through the event's ups and downs, liaising with government, constantly on the phone talking to people all around the country, lining up new promotions and even coming up with a crafty plan when a bikie gang refused to pay for their prime camping spot: he booked the same spot out the following year to the army.
Mr Henry is survived by his wife Deb, son Kody, daughters Georgia and Angela, and granddaughter Lauren. A memorial service is planned for a future date.
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