The automotive festival of Rockynats in the sunny city of Rockhampton, Queensland has been a highlight on the Easter long weekend since it began over four years ago.

A big part of that is the Garrett Advancing Motion Street Drags. It’s one of just two places left in Australia where a public street is shut down for drag racing. It’s a proper no prep, eighth-mile throwback to the glory days of grassroots racing. 

There’s three classes to choose from: 6.50, 8.00 and 9.00+. Even though it’s no prep with no warm up burnouts, that doesn’t stop some seriously fast metal showing up to run some blistering numbers.

One of those is Paul Butler’s SR20-powered Gemini. The no prep specialist is a back-to-back winner on the streets of Rocky, as well as a fan favourite with its cheeky NANA plates. You can read the full story on that car here.

Other familiar faces included Chris Kaarsberg’s seven-second LX Torana, a car that’s finished in the top 10 of Drag Challenge several times.

But it’s not racing designed just for the hardcore and experienced. Plenty of racers were Rockynats entrants just keen to have a crack, the street drags offering a rare opportunity for people to see how capable their high horsepower machines are on a street surface without getting thrown in the drunk tank.

Enjoy the video below, and get ready for more weekly episodes from J-Bens and the wider Street Machine team dropping on the Street Machine YouTube channel every Tuesday morning. He’ll be hitting events, workshops, car features and loads more to go along with our weekly episodes of Carnage every Friday morning.