As we drove the twisting mountain roads from Cairns to Springmount Raceway, just south of Mareeba, it became pretty clear how special it is to have a drag strip in such a bloody beautiful part of the country. You’d struggle to find anywhere else that boasts views like this as the backdrop for tyre-frying action and cars nudging 180mph!

First published in the July 2025 issue of Street Machine

But that’s exactly what’s on offer at the Northern Nats, the annual three-day hoedown of horsepower that brings further heat to these already steamy Far North Queensland environs. This year not only marked the ninth time ’round for the event, but also the second year running of the Summernats crew teaming up with the Springmount Raceway folks to help run it all.

As always, there was plenty on offer over the Friday-Sunday duration of this year’s ’Nats, including drag and roll racing, cruise sessions (complete with a Summernats-style Skid Row), powerskids, show ’n’ shine, and – back for its second year – the Pro Burnout Series lighting up the pad on all three days.

Yet despite all that action, Northern Nats remains a remarkably laidback, chilled-out event. With camping aplenty in the pits, locals mingled with interstate visitors as they embraced the opportunities on offer, whether it was blazing tyres or chasing times down the track without Mr Plod breathing down your neck, or simply enjoying a campsite beer and fire-grilled sausage.

Despite a week’s worth of rain in the lead-up, the event days brought dry campgrounds, coolish but sunny conditions, and not a spot of rain all weekend. As the locals kept saying, it was bloody perfect drinking weather!

Each day kicked off with action on the strip, including drags, roll racing and powerskid competitions, before the cruise and Skid Row sessions led into the burnouts to bring the days to a close.

Northern Nats doubled as the first round of the 2025 Springmount Track Championship, so all the local drag racing regulars were mixing it with the tourists, resulting in all sorts of machines in the lanes. Entrants were split into four main classes – Springmount Street, Street Eliminator, Real Street and Competition – along with bike and Junior Dragster classes. Even though the powerskids and roll racing events also took place on the Springmount track, most of the racers seemed to get power down and had barely a complaint about the surface.

The roll racing was a favourite for the capacity crowd on Saturday arvo, with entrants whittled down to the eight who would battle it out on Sunday, where Ron Howarth’s turbo Barra XP hardtop ended up with the overall win.

Summernats elite judge and curator Owen Webb was also in town to seek and crown this year’s Northern Nats Champion. Just like the Street Machine Summernats Grand Champion, this involves a selection of the event’s finest cars being judged on their show qualities, while also having to demonstrate they can do more than just look pretty by taking on the driving events.

Following Saturday’s roll racing session, Owen hand-picked eight cars – including last year’s champions Lee and Anna Povey’s VL Calais – to take part in the Champion driving events, which comprised two eighth-mile drag passes and a timed slalom go-to-whoa on the burnout pad. We’d have to wait until Sunday afternoon to find out the winner – Cairns local Dennis O’Brien and his home-built, HZ-fronted HQ One Tonner.

On both Friday and Saturday, the cruise and Skid Row sessions on the burnout pad led into the long-awaited evening burnouts. Combatants were divided among Development, Open and heavy-hitting Pro Burnout Series classes, and unlike many other events, Northern Nats uses a combined score system from each entrant’s run on all three days to determine the place-getters. That meant competitors had to hang it all out each time they hit the pad, which certainly gave the throngs of pad-side punters plenty of value for money.

Speaking of money, just shy of $30,000 in cash was up for grabs across the three classes, with $15K for first place in the Pro class. Two Pro Burnout tickets to Street Machine Summernats 38 and two Wildcard Shootout tickets were also on the line, so there was plenty to skid for.

Burnout veteran and Townsville local Jay Chun Tie of Tiny Towing explained what makes the Springmount pad different to most. “The pad itself is massive, but the run-up chute is a lot shorter, so if you want a fast tip-in, you have to launch it straight in,” he said. “The locals make it an awesome atmosphere; it always goes off on Saturday night.”

He wasn’t wrong. Crowds were 15-20 deep on the hill on Saturday night to watch their local heroes and interstate champions smash rubber, with Peter Grmusa in KINGXA, Ryan Pearson in HOLDON, Grahame Rowe’s GAMBLE and Mark Schwarz’s HANFUL making up just a fraction of the heavy-hitter list.

Sunday arvo’s finale skids landed Kyle Hardy in the MRLOOS HQ sedan with the Pro class win, with Ryan Pearson nabbing second and Peter Grmusa third.

After the burnout awards had concluded on Sunday arvo, the bite from the sun had eased and quiet had fallen on Springmount Raceway, it was time to pause to reflect on what we’d all just experienced: the opportunity to band together with your family and mates, come to this beautiful place and spend three days burning rubber and hanging out. That’s what makes Northern Nats so special – bring on number 10!

TONNER IS TOPS

Cairns local Dennis O’Brien took out Northern Nats Champion in his HZ-fronted HQ One Tonner, a car he’s owned for 27 years and built at home. “It was never built for anything like this; we built it to drive and just have fun!” he said.

Under the bonnet is a 520hp, 496ci fatty, fed by a carby, while the exterior is painted a heavily modified HQ Barbados Green, and the tray floor uses carpet! “I’m a fitter by trade, so we had some leftover material and it made sense!” Dennis laughed.

Like any true champion would, Dennis murdered his drag radials on the pad after the presentation!

IMPOSING BEARING

Jay Chun Tie’s ‘Tiny Towing’ burnout Kei truck had to undergo bush surgery when the wheel bearing let go during the powerskids. “It got loose in the top end of the strip; lucky I didn’t crash!” Jay said.

A replacement bearing made from three spares was bodged together. “But that sat out further, so we had to use a bottle top for a dust cap,” Jay said. “It was a great show of the community here; everyone offered parts and was willing to help.”

[Back to top]

HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Victorians may recognise Jayden Gray’s twin-turbo VK Commodore, as it ran sevens at Drag Challenge – with a roof rack – for previous owner Riccardo Pontonio, with a PB of 7.56@181mph! The VK is now living life at Gray’s Mechanical in Cairns, and Jayden took on the drags, roll racing and even the Skid Row burnouts at Northern Nats.

2. Cliff Hunter’s VS-fronted VP Commodore was one of the heavy hitters in the drags, going all the way to the finals and just missing out on the win in the Competition class. “We broke out – the boys were spewing!” said Cliff, who owns Cairns workshop Hunter Automotive. The full-chassis car runs a 570ci fatty with Haltech Nexus R5 EFI.

3. Ron Howarth’s turbo Barra-swapped XP coupe was one of the show-worthy machines copping a hiding on the strip, with Ron taking on the Champion driving events, the drags and the roll racing, winning the latter in the Sunday arvo finals.

4. Kyle Hardy’s MRLOOS HQ took the top chocolates in the burnouts, winning a Pro Burnout entry to Summernats 38 and $15K cash for his trio of ripper skids. The Warspeed Industries-built LS had the Quey thumping around the pad in Sunday’s final, with Kyle using every inch of space he could find.

5. Steve Wilson’s 1928 Ford roadster was an attention-grabbing machine in the show ’n’ shine, thanks in part to a twin-turbo 253! “People always ask why, and I say because I can and I wanted to!” he laughed. Steve did all the work himself, including the paint, to debut it at Northern Nats. “It’s a show and drag car,” he said. “I’m hoping for 400-450hp, so we’ll bring it back here and race it soon.”

6. An R33 Skyline GT-R isn’t a very common sight up this end of Queensland, but Cairns local Marty Atkinson was more than happy to fly the flag. The R33 runs a fully forged RB26 with a Precision turbo, good for 1000hp through the GT-R AWD. “It’s still the standard driveshaft and diffs; we’ve just teched it to go eights,” said Marty, who made the finals of both the drags and the roll racing.

7. Defending Northern Nats Champions Lee and Anna Povey had their JKLHYD VL Calais back for another crack this year, as well as taking on the drag and roll racing, with Lee finishing runner-up in the latter. They’ve got another spicy VL in the build for such events, too, so watch this space.

8. It was fantastic to see our old HQFORU giveaway Monaro after its recent resto with owners Rod and Judith Menso, and Rod even gave it a decent steer in the Northern Nats Champion driving events on the Saturday arvo.

9. Husband and wife duo Daniel and Kaylene DiBella not only went up against each other in the race for Northern Nats Champion, but Daniel’s XB also had to throw down against Kaylene’s VK in the roll racing finals! Daniel spun away his power for his wife to take the win, and she also pipped him by just one point in the Champion chase.

10. Townsville local Ryan ‘Bubba’ Lofts and his OR WHAT VX Holden have been making a big impression on the burnout scene of late, and Ryan thumped the Springmount pad to finish fourth in the Pro class. He also nabbed the top gong in the powerskids.

11. Chris Borzi and his big green XB coupe hail from Cairns, and Chris got his entry money’s worth at Northern Nats by having a crack at just about every driving event going, sending plenty of rubber into those big rear arches in the process. He also placed second in the Northern Nats Champion voting, exiting the pad with a burnout after the presentations!

12. David Giliberto’s VF Valiant is a show car turned burnout machine. Three weeks before Northern Nats, he converted the 360 small-block to run methanol, making 460hp. “I had no idea how it was going to do, but we ran three skids on all three days, and it just sung at 7500rpm flawlessly,” he said.

13. Darren Triffett’s blown INJECTED VH is known for keeping the firies busy, but this time he changed it up – instead of setting his own car alight, he carefully placed it to ignite a pocket of excess rubber in the corner of the pad at the end of his run on Sunday.

14. Kev Davis didn’t have much luck with axles over the weekend, snapping one during the powerskids on Saturday and then again on Sunday arvo in the burnout finals, taking the whole wheel and hub with it! Luckily for him, he’d completed his run for judging, so he still placed fifth in the Pro class.

15. It’s not often you see a tough, drag-spec E-Series Falcon, let alone a genuine XR8! Richard Snore’s ’96 EF runs a NASCAR-spec, Roush-block SBF, with the bottom end using Windsor architecture, topped with Yates C3 heads. Richard had to rein in the 560rwhp combo to run 11s for his dial-in at Northern Nats. “It was built by Jason Pyne and is capable of going a lot quicker,” he said.

[Back to top]

RESULTS:

DRAG RACING

SPRINGMOUNT STREET
1st: Dierdree Viero
2nd: Anthony Ginning

STREET ELIMINATOR
1st: Stephen Trovato
2nd: Ryan Brosnan

REAL STREET
1st: Jenny Cavallaro
2nd: Mick Dub

COMPETITION
1st: Anthony Mangano
2nd: Cliff Hunter

STREET BIKE/COMP BIKE
1st: Shane Sullivan
2nd: Luke Fletcher

JUNIOR BIKE
Winner: Jetayah Visser

JUNIOR DRAGSTER
1st: Heidi Allgood
2nd: Shmya Lelli

TEST & TUNE
1st: Andrew Kirton
2nd: Trent Vidler

ROLL RACING
1st: Ron Howarth
2nd: Lee Povey

BURNOUTS

PRO BURNOUT
1st: Kyle Hardy – MRLOOS
2nd: Ryan Pearson – HOLDON
3rd: Peter Grmusa – KINGXA
4th: Ryan ‘Bubba’ Lofts – OR WHAT
5th: Kev Davis – EPA WHO

OPEN CLASS
1st: Mitchell Muscat – SHRED EM
2nd: Terry Blanchard – JOYRIDE
3rd: Nathan Petts – R U FRYD

DEVELOPMENT CLASS
1st: Brenten Wilcock
2nd: Kristen Hakfoort
3rd: Kayla Norris

SHOW ’N’ SHINE TOP FIVE

Stephen Marino – 1961 Chev Apache
Don Gray – XY Falcon
Joe Torrisi – 1967 Chev Impala
Steve Wilson – 1928 Model A roadster
Joe Torrisi – XE Falcon ESP

[Back to top]