The grass roots social media campaign that persuaded the ACT government to reverse a ban on cars in Braddon over the main nights of Summernats had come as a pleasant surprise, event co-owner Andy Lopez says.
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Mr Lopez, who was in Civic for Thursday's City Cruise, said the surge of community and business support for street legal cars to circulate in the centre of Canberra indicated people had taken the event to their hearts.
While not as big as last year's 30th anniversary Summernats, 2018's celebration of burning rubber, V8 engines and high octane fuel is expected to be the second largest ever.
Mr Lopez, who described the City Cruise as Summernat's opening ceremony, said between 25,000 and 30,000 people had been expected to watch the 300 cars taking part on Thursday.
"The city cruise represents what Summernats does for Canberra," he said. "It brings life, colour and movement. Summernats will bring about $25 million into the city in January. It also keeps young people in jobs over the summer which is fantastic."
Mr Lopez said in the wake of the death of Luke Newsome, the Queensland man who fell from the back of a ute at last year's event, and a burnout fire that left spectators injured at the Red Centre Nats in Alice Springs in September, safety would be the watchword.
"An obvious one for us [in 2018] is reinforcing the rule that there is no riding in the back of utes; apart from that the event [Mr Newsome's death] is still under investigation; that will play out over time."
The Alice Springs incident was also still being investigated.
"[One of the things we are doing at Summernats] is to make some adjustments to our perimeter fencing in order to provide greater separation between the crowd and the competition," Mr Lopez said.
"We want people to come and have a great time and we want everybody to get home safely."
Check the gallery above to see some of the cars - and also if we caught you in the crowd - and relive the cruise in the video below. And if you didn't make it out, now's your chance to check it out.
