Ah, Nationals. The one weekend a year when all car people subject themselves to a crazy 72-hour period of energy drinks and rubbish food–fuelled madness to revel in all things fast, low, loud, and mind-meltingly creative. That feeling of rocking through the doors early on Friday morning, getting a hearty whiff of the fuel and exhaust filling the halls, taking in enough raucous noise to send you deaf a few times over, and experiencing a visual overload from all the next-level shit that has gone on throughout the previous year — it’s truly next to none.
We congratulate both the organizers and competitors on another rad year of the 4&Rotary Nationals — held at ASB Showgrounds, January 28, and Meremere Dragway, January 29 — and would like to acknowledge the step up in quality overall from this year’s show line-up. The variety was immense, with the likes of Rocket Bunny Silvias, low-slung R-chassis, the biggest rotary presence bar REunion, Kaido Racers, hill-climb cars, Mini Trucks, drift cars, low-riders, and even a twin-turbo V6-powered Gemini — you name it, it was there.
It was cool to see a big collection of cars making their way to the event from the far reaches of the country. The show was all the better for it, and it showed a shift towards the golden era of build-hype builds being unveiled at Nats again, not just for the ’gram.
Thank you to all the people we yarned with on the day at our stand and throughout the halls. This is a firmly etched event on our calendars and helps new and old get amongst the little world we’ve all built around combustion-powered vehicles.
Keep an eye out for a few spotlights on our favourite cars from the show, and a gallery of the drags will soon follow, but for now, here’s all the cool shit from within the halls.
Happy viewing!
