During the annual Summernats street machine festival, Lonsdale Street in Braddon has long been a friction point for local businesses as cars cruise the busy precinct, away from the burnout controls imposed on the internal Exhibition Park cruise strip.

Impromptu burnouts on the pedestrian-thronged streets became such an ongoing issue that sections of Lonsdale Street were recoated with a coarsest chip gravel that contractors could find, and the road was regularly shut at night by police.

Lonsdale Street and parts of Mort and Elouera streets will be closed again in Braddon during the peak activity evenings of Friday, January 7 and Saturday, January 8, but this time voluntarily as the Summernats fringe combines a street festival with an open air car show.

Shay McGarn, from the Braddon Collective, said the Summernats fringe was "something we have been talking about for a long time".

"Braddon has seen the spillover from Summernats for many years and some of it hasn't exactly been a positive experience," she said.

"But when we engaged with the government and the organisers about how we can better manage the issue, this idea emerged.

"The view of our group is that we are far better off engaging in a positive way that is properly managed and is an official, family-friendly type of event with a police presence."

Aside from the annual, one-off city cruise on Northbourne Ave, the fringe festival will be the first-ever Summernats side event held outside the chain-link fence at Exhibition Park. The event is sponsored by the City Renewal Authority.

It will not be a ticketed. Pre-selected Summernats entrant cars will be parked along the street, while cruising the Lonsdale "strip" will be limited to registered participants.

A temporary traffic management plan will be in place with signposted alternate routes and traffic wardens at key intersections.

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Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the first year of the fringe would be an interesting test, with the government seeking to "de-risk it a little to see how it goes".

"One of the reasons for having the fringe event is to try to spread the business around the city," he said, admitting that measuring the success of the festival may prove difficult "in terms of dollars and cents".

"It's a first-off, we're going to give it a go, we're supporting it," he said.

"There is a long and storied history of these streets and this area during the [Summernats] festival.

"I think having a more organised approach and doing it in partnership with Summernats will strike the right balance."

Prior to the arrival of the Summernats entrants just after the new year, the long-running COVID-testing facility inside Exhibition Park would be closed.

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