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.