Come Summernats time, an invite to our annual Street Machine of the Year VIP Party is the hottest ticket in town. The opportunity to gather at Canberra’s George Harcourt Inn with so many friends and supporters of Street Machine, along with some of our country’s most talented car crafters and industry figures, is something we look forward to every year, and it always makes for an incredible atmosphere.

For the 2026 shindig, we were stoked to have so many past SMOTY winners in attendance on the night – legends like Nathan Booth, Peter Fitzpatrick, Howard Astill, Jazzy Green, Rob Godfrey, Heath van der Waerden, Chad Ribbons, Ben Judd and Aaron Gregory.

Readers of the mag will already know that the 2025 Enthusiast Motor Insurance Street Machine of the Year winner is Martin Pecotich’s truly epic ProFlo-built HTKO Monaro, but the chance to officially hand over the most sought-after trophy in our sport – not to mention a cheque for $20,000 – to Martin in such esteemed company was an absolute pleasure.

And if ever there has been a greater act of automotive bad-arsery than driving an elite-level, blown and injected billet Noonan Hemi-powered Monaro to the pub, parking it in the dirt carpark and casually strolling in to collect the SMOTY trophy, then we don’t yet know about it.

While the SMOTY preso was the headline act of the evening, we were rapt to also have the top three from our Hare & Forbes Machineryhouse Young Street Machine of the Year competition in the house, so it was a great opportunity to publicly acknowledge Jack ‘Swifty’ Mill, Riley Matekovic and Jack Archer, too.

Swifty joined Telfo on stage and explained to those assembled that he’d promptly funnelled his prize money back into his winning Suzuki hatch, using the dosh to bankroll the freshly fitted Dart 427ci LS, which he intended to park firmly on the limiter at Summernats the following day. Sounds as good a use of his winnings as any to us!

We’re always proud to integrate the presentation of the annual Laurie Starling Memorial Scholarship into the evening’s proceedings, too. Honouring the legacy of the late, great Laurie Starling, ‘The Laurie Award’ is aimed at fostering young talent, and we continue to see past winners go on to achieve great things within the scene.

We’re sure that the 2026 winner Ethan Guymer (below), a young gun on the Pat’s Pro Restos team who has already a hand in creating some of Australia’s best custom cars, will follow suit.

As the formalities drew to a close, the adult beverages continued to flow as we enjoyed the company of some of our sport’s coolest humans. We can’t wait to do it all again next year.