The thunder of street racing

Come see legal sustained loss of traction on Taupo Quay tomorrow morning.

Taupo Quay could well be getting back to its best for some fast times and a little sustained loss of traction tomorrow for the 32nd annual Street Drags for the Wanganui Road Rodders.

Around 70 cars and five competition dragsters will be in attendance, with 800-1000hp on show blasting down the 1/8th mile thoroughfare.

This is close to maximum numbers for the field compared to around 60 cars last year, although once again, the Rodders cannot escape the shadow of a packed racing calender.

The Whanganui drags were moved back this year from the March 4 date of 2017, when they clashed with a nationals event in Motueka, but this weekend is also the IRC Race Series in Manfeild, which includes a muscle cars category.

Nonetheless, the local event still has plenty of support with 45 drivers coming from out of town, including ten from sister club Cam Country Inc, who run the Port Road Drags down in Wellington.

After it was resealed in 2015, it has taken a couple of seasons for the quay's pavement to settle back down and lessen the amount of wheel-spin, so that the more powerful cars don't have to exercise as much caution and can really open the throttle.

Last year, Ross Whelan in his Ford Y was able to make a 6.93s pass on his last run of the day - the first driver to break into the sixes in two years.

National champion Grant Rivers, who will be a commentator tomorrow, is confident that times could be getting back down to the 6.5s mark.

"Ross is coming back again and Tristan [Teki] has got his new entry.

"We've got a few other of competition cars lining up for everybody.

"Saturday is stinking hot and Sunday is good, a cloud cover.

"Earmuffs and sunscreen and you're away."

Gerald Smith will be bringing over one of his dragsters from Palmerston North, while Rivers and his son Adrian of the River Rat team have been getting their NZ1 Blu's Brothers car from last season ready for an exhibition of supercharged and fuel injected Pontiac power.

"We put the engine on the car last night, then set up to run it in," Rivers said.

"We got it ready for another [run] for the nationals."

The current Ivan Jones Memorial Trophy is Teki, for his 7.13s time in his 1966 Impala at last year's event.

The street drags are from 10am to 3pm.

Tickets are $15 adult, children $5, family $35 and under 5's free.