(Not a) Quiet Riot

This may be about 6 weeks late, but it's definitely worth it. I guess a little back story is in order, though. And you can check out news stories here and here.

So every year for the last five years (at least) the University of Canterbury Engineering Society has been organizing this event called the Undie 500 (Wiki link). That university is in Christchurch, about a 5 hour drive north of Dunedin. So what is it? A race, of sorts (hence the similarity to Indy 500), although it would probably be better characterized as a rally. Here are the rules:

1. Your car must be purchased for under $500 - think about that; in US terms, that's around $380...
2. It must be registered and have a warrant of fitness - like a US inspection, but you get them every six months
3. You have to have a sober driver - sensible, no?

After they've met these rules, they decorate their cars in any number of manners - and there were definitely some creative ones. Then they make (or attempt to, considering how cheap their cars are) the drive from Christchurch, with a long pub crawl along the way. You might wonder, how many people are going to spend $500 on a car, hundreds on repairs and fuel, and even more on lots of alcohol - and that's just on the way to Dunedin? Well, the number of cars has been limited to 150, so several hundred, at the very least.

Okay, let's get more specific here. This year, the Undie 500 was the last weekend of August, the same weekend we were leaving for mid semester break, so I wasn't around to witness this firsthand, but there were plenty of news cameras. Here's why.

First of all, last year after the Undie 500 was completed, a lot of the participants, and their comrades-in-arms here in Dunedin, started burning various cars (presumably the Undie 500 entries) and couches, with some general rioting, too. Arrests were made and North Dunedin (where the student flats are) was a mess, so this year an alcohol ban was placed on the area, so no one could walk around with open containers. Didn't make any difference though.

I don't really know the sequence of events here, but it doesn't particularly matter. Despite limiting the number of cars to 150, imposing a liquor ban and city's riot police being out in full force, some crazy stuff went down. Emergency crews had to respond to more than 70(!) fires, many to piles of trash, but a sizable portion of couch and vehicle fires too. Bottles and other trash was thrown around, particularly at the police, so what happens? 69 people were arrested - 54 of them students.

And I'll be honest, I kind of wish I'd been there to see it. At the time, I was having a blast caving in Greymouth and seeing the pancake rocks in Punakaiki, and I wouldn't have missed that for anything. But what a thing to see - hundreds, maybe thousands, of students acting recklessly and irresponsibly - actually rioting; this is something I'll never see in Claremont. I'm not saying I like that or would have taken part, but it would have been pretty sweet to sit on the roof of my flat and watch the chaos go on below me.