This time last year the angry bellow of a supercharged V8 would regularly whipcrack the ACT air like a smite from Thor's hammer, echoing across the inner north from Mitchell to Downer and beyond.
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Now, from behind the chain-link fence at Exhibition Park, the only notable sound heard this week is yet another muffled groan as a long surgical swab is inserted in yet another nasal passage at the drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic .
Andy Lopez, the co-owner of Summernats, is feeling the empty vibe from well north of the ACT, and much further away than he'd like to be.
"To be honest, we know where we'd all rather be this week; it feels devastating," he said.
"That's in no way a reflection of our Summer Slam event this weekend because it's going to be great, but Summernats is a massive, multi-faceted style of event that has been around a long time and is really special.
"And I know there's thousands of people around the country who feel the same way I do.
"So yes, 2021 certainly has a different feel to it already."
The fall-out from the coronavirus pandemic forced this year's Summernats street machine festival to be cancelled for the first time in 33 years, ending a horsepower-worshipping $30 million-injecting early New Year tradition in the ACT which at times has sent sections of conservative Canberra into a tailspin.
Mullets, ear-popping exhaust noise, burnouts, clouds of tyre smoke, Mexican hats, beer drinking and the most amazing four-wheeled machinery from around the country have been regular summer features at Canberra's sprawling 70-hectare exhibition space over the decades.
At various times during the event's gestation and then during its fast-rising success under the guiding hand of Chic Henry, it was thought that perhaps some isolated unsavoury incidents and Canberra-enshrined political correctness would cause a Summernats cancellation.
But unexpectedly, it was the contagion of a nasty virus which, at an event as large and as diverse as Summernats attracting visitors from all over the country, presented a risk too great for the promoters.
Through a late twist of more pandemic-related disruption, his decision to stage a scaled-down event using parts of the Summernats attraction formula at Sydney's Eastern Creek on January 8-10 has proved far thornier than expected.
The pre-Christmas COVID-19 outbreak and resulting restrictions imposed on residents in the Greater Sydney, Wollongong and Central Coast have depleted crowd expectations for the weekend's Summer Slam from 20,000 down to 5000 per day.
"We're working on restricting the event to about 25 per cent venue capacity [this weekend] and we're strongly encouraging people to wear masks," Mr Lopez said.
"There will be thousands of free masks being handed out and sanitising stations all around the venue.
"We're doing all we can to deliver as COVID-safe an event as possible."
He said that with the interstate entries pulling out - under the current restrictions, if someone was to travel from the ACT into Greater Sydney for the event and then return home, they would have to quarantine for 14 days - entries were down by about 10 to 15 per cent.
"In this environment, we need to work really hard at staying connected to our audience, our supporters and the businesses that support us," he said.
"I don't need to tell anyone in this business that doing events at the moment is really tough."
A decision is expected soon on whether his March event in Canberra, the Rev Rock'n'Roll, would go ahead.
