Just 65 days out from the ACT election, one of the best-known names in Canberra has thrown his metaphorical hat into the ring with former Summernats owner-promoter Chic Henry declaring he will run.
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Mr Henry has been wooed into the ranks of the Belco Party of former Liberal Bill Stefaniak, riding on the former Don Chipp pledge of "keeping the bastards honest".
His declaration to run for the Belconnen-based seat of Ginninderra will be a major concern for both parties, given his strong appeal to the working and middle class vote.
He linked up with the Belco Party first as an advisor, then was convinced to run after strong endorsement and encouragement from Mr Stefaniak at a party meeting this week.
Mr Henry, now retired from his Summernats role, is a proud Canberran who has lived and raised his family in Belconnen.
Made an "honorary ambassador for Canberra" by former Liberal chief mMinister Kate Carnell, he was convinced to run by the need to give back to a community which he says "has been so good to me".
Now 74 years old, Mr Henry transformed Canberra's staid, conservative image by creating the Summernats franchise in 1988, basing it out of Exhibition Park, and attracting hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue into the national capital during the ACT's usually quiet Christmas-New Year holiday period.
While the event raised its fair share of controversy over the years - and still does, under its new owners - Mr Henry applied his characteristic entrepreneurial, can-do approach and organisational skills to problem solving, placating the critics, growing the show and attracting bigger crowds every year.
But it's not his first crack at local politics.
Chic Henry was a late sign-on to the now-defunct Australian Motorists Party which fielded three candidates in the 2012 ACT election. Former drag racer Geoff Develin was the party president.
Collectively, the AMP gathered the fourth highest number of votes behind the three established parties but failed to win a seat.
"We left our run too late in that election," Mr Henry said. This time, he says, joining the race a little late might "not be such a bad thing".
"The coronavirus has changed the goalposts for this election," he said.
"People have been so preoccupied with what is happening here and elsewhere through the pandemic that the election has probably been the furthest thing from their minds."
He hopes his voters to come from a broad demographic but at the core, he expects there will be a strong blue-collar vote from people who are "a bit fed up with the sameness of ACT politics".
"There are a lot of people out there who are fed up with ideology and they want someone who can ... start asking questions of the government without any party affiliations, and be a genuine representative for the people of Ginninderra," he said.
Over a long and chequered career he has been a champion swimmer, water polo player, surf lifesaver, soldier, blacksmith, funeral director, security guard and finally an entrepreneur who turned his passion for modified cars into Australia's largest street machine show.
"I'm pretty much an open book, people know that, and my business credentials are out there for everyone to see and judge," he said.
"I started Summernats from nothing and it was a battle to keep it going financially in the early years but we stuck at it and made it a huge success."
What people may not know is that he's fighting back from a battle with prostate cancer and is in the final stages of his treatment, ready to take on another challenge.