Drag racing at Kooragang Island in its heyday was "thrilling, crazy and all about pride", the racers say.
The history of racing on the island is depicted in a new film, More Than Hoons: 100 Years of Newcastle Motorsport, which was released on YouTube on Friday.
Shane "Pugs" Durbin, who was the starter and organiser of drag races at Kooragang for 15 years, said "that was our life back then".
"We lived for drag racing," said Mr Durbin, now aged 45.
"Some nights there were hundreds of us. We'd be all pumped and excited. It was a big buzz, a big thrill.
"It was about cruising in town, meeting up, camaraderie and mateship."
He said the races were also "about pride". The drivers would return to town, discussing who had won and lost.
"Everyone would be cheering. The atmosphere was great," he said.
The races sometimes featured contests with Newcastle versus Sydney and Newcastle versus Central Coast.
"The battles were big," Mr Durbin said.
"I remember in 2001 when the Knights won the grand final. It was the same scenario with cars - we had a big Sydney versus Newcastle thing. All the boys were cheering 'Newcastle, Newcastle'."
Phillip Martinelli, who raced a Brock VH Commodore at Kooragang, said "you had a mission to get to that line before the other guy".
"Nothing else mattered. You didn't really care about the dangers," Mr Martinelli said.
"You'd be so pumped. If you won, you were on a high. Often you'd review whether the race went right or wrong. You couldn't sleep that night."
If he lost a race, he'd "live with that for weeks" and have to "live with the humiliation".
"You'd think about what you've got to do to the car to destroy them next time. At the time it was so important. You'd get obsessed with it."
Tony Webster, owner of Webby's Speed Shop in Carrington, said racing at the island began in the late '60s or early '70s.
"It was pretty insane. There were hundreds of people on each side of the road. There was nothing else to do in Newcastle," Mr Webster said.
Mr Durbin said "my mum and dad used to race there".
"I was 14, 15 when I started hanging out there," he said.
The racing was illegal and there were dangers. As the film showed, crashes did occur and a driver was killed at Kooragang Island in the early 1970s.
"The car hit a pole at the finish line. He died on the way to hospital," Mr Webster said.
"We were all there that night. It wasn't a road car, it was a proper drag car."
It was the only fatality to occur on the island's dragstrips.
"The young kids now seem to be a lot crazier than what we ever were. The cars they have now are a lot faster. We weren't into the big skids, it was more about racing," Mr Webster said.
Rod Baker, a former NSW Highway Patrol officer who appears in the film, told the Herald that police would send cars to the island when they received complaints.
"They had their spotters and knew we were coming well before we got anywhere near them," Mr Baker said.
"We did try to catch them with unmarked cars. But we were rarely able to get them actually doing the drag racing."
Police would, however, issue fines to drivers of vehicles that didn't meet road standards.
"It was for anything that was obvious, like big tyres and that sort of stuff. We'd give them a defect. We had to let the community know we were doing something about it," Mr Baker said.
He said the races were at least held in "an innocuous place" and "became part of the culture".
"There was one fatality there from memory, but apart from that it wasn't too much of an issue.
"They weren't on the main road, they were on the side road that was hardly ever used. And there were no [legal] dragstrips for them to use. You've got to take all that into account."
Mr Durbin said the racers and organisers did try to show respect.
"Everyone knew the risks. We tried to do it in a safe manner."
The film also details the long-time push for a legal motor park in the Hunter.
"The reason why a lot of us raced on the island was we had nowhere to go," Mr Durbin said.
"We've tried for 30 years to get a dragstrip here. They promised the world, but it never happened."
He hopes the film sparks action on that front.
"The guys still want something. We still love our motorsports. It's in our blood. Cars are our life."
The racing culture at Kooragang began to decline when the strip of road where races were held began to deteriorate, so the races were moved to the other side of the island.
As cars became faster, better road surfaces were needed. Races were moved to different spots around the Hunter.
More Than Hoons is the latest - and possibly last - instalment of documentaries about Newcastle made by filmmakers Glenn Dormand and Tony Whittaker through the Stories of Our Town label.
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