WESTERN STARS

PERTH’S MOTORVATION MAY NOT BE AS BIG AS IT USED TO BE, BUT THERE WAS STILL PLENTY OF TOUGH CARS AND COOL RIDES TO CHECK OUT

- BORIS VISKOVIC

AFTER the near-apocalyptic conditions in Canberra during Street Machine Summernats, it was nice to return to the clear blue skies and relatively mild temperatures of Perth for Motorvation 34 – the longest-running event of its type in Australia. Yep, it’s been going a full year longer than Summernats, but unfortunately has been in a holding pattern over the past few years.

For a long time, Motorvation was a three-day extravaganza that attracted rave reviews from interstate visitors and locals alike. Things changed in 2016, when the long-term management team of Perth Motorplex – led by the Miocevich family and Kevin Prendergast – called it a day. Since then, the Motorplex has been run by VenuesWest, a government statutory authority that reports to the State Minister for Sport & Recreation. VenuesWest pulled Motorvation back to a one-day event while the government sought a new operator or even buyer for the venue. Four years later, the search continues, and Motorvation has remained a one-day deal for now.

Nevertheless, I was impressed with the quality and quantity of cars in the staging lanes, and it was great to see the likes of Gareth Lougher’s HR and Kevin Mantach’s amazing ’50 Chev coupe back after their successes at Summernats. This year around 250 cars were entered, a far cry from the 900-plus entrants they had a few years ago, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I remember being at those events and there were a lot of complaints about the quality of cars, as well as the number of late-model, near-stock vehicles entered; some people even called it ‘Commo-vation’. The other downside of those earlier events was the traffic jams caused during the cruising sessions. I distinctly remember both lanes of the drag strip jammed full of cars, many of them overheating.