The salivating over the quality of the machinery on display at today's hot rod and classic cars festival between Napier and Hastings went into the evening as organisers marvelled over its success and the size of the crowd.
Parking and display areas across the near 6ha of the Meeanee speedway and surrounding domain were full from an early stage, with entry of display vehicles having to be stopped by 10.15am, 15 minutes ahead of deadline with the maximum available 602 already on-site.
There were estimates of crowds of more than 4000 people on-site at the peak times, dozens of spectators' vehicles had to be parked as much as 15 minutes' walk away, and traffic came to a standstill outside the Sandy Rd entrance.
Several thousand dollars was raised for the children's cancer charity, including $2000 from the Marineland Street Rod and Kustom Klub ,which was staging the event for a 26th year, and crowd donations which were last night still be counted.