Upper Hutt, Lower Hutt, Inner Hutt: location for 2HOT2 HandleAccord­ing to a Cre­at­ive New Zea­l­and sur­vey (3.5MB PDF) that was released last night, Wel­ling­to­ni­ans are over 50% more likely than the aver­age New Zeal­ander to reg­u­larly attend arts events. Census data shows that Wel­ling­ton City has the highest pro­por­tion of house­holds that live without a car. So obvi­ously, Wel­ling­ton is the nat­ur­al place to host a week­end of drag racing, burnouts and mon­ster truck car crush­ing dis­plays.

From tomor­row night, streets around the Sta­di­um will close in pre­par­a­tion for the 2HOT2 Handle week­end as thou­sands of boy racers motor­s­ports enthu­si­asts watch their her­oes com­pete to see who is best at con­vert­ing irre­place­able fossil fuels into noise, skid­marks and tox­ic fumes. You don’t have to be called Sharyn or Dwayne to enjoy such a spec­tacle, but it cer­tainly helps: see today’s Wel­ling­to­ni­an art­icle (page 23) about cham­pi­on Mit­si-pimper Sharyn Reeve and her part­ner Dwayne. This Wel­ling­tonista’s pick for a quiet, relax­ing week­end: head to the Hutt Val­ley, which should be deser­ted for the dur­a­tion.