I was wolf-whistled at several times while walking down Lonsdale Street in Canberra's inner-north on the night Australia's largest car festival returned to the capital.

It is one of the city's busiest and recently most-welcoming streets, featuring a rainbow roundabout and having hosted the city's same-sex marriage Yes celebration.

Thursday night was the first time I had ever been uncomfortable there, and I was still 7 kilometres away from the Summernats gates.

It made me wonder how young women felt walking alone inside.

Strip shows, wet T-shirt competitions and beauty contests were accepted — by some, even embraced — side dishes to the main meals of burnouts and fast cars throughout most of the festival's 31-year lifespan.

But in recent years the organisers have withdrawn these elements in a bid to stamp out sexual harassment.

Festival organisers say they're trying to clean up the "fringe behaviour" of some motoring enthusiasts. ( ABC News: Rohan Dadswell )

This year, ticket-buyers had to check a box acknowledging Summernats was a safe space for women, were told they would be kicked out if security found them harassing others, and were forced to leave lewd signs in a cloakroom before entering.

It was also the first event not to feature the Miss Summernats pageant, in a bid to make the event more inclusive.

"We're trying to clean up some of the fringe behaviours," Summernats organiser Andy Lopez said.

"What we really are is a festival about cars, a festival about the street-machine community and also something for the general community to come and enjoy.

"With any big gathering of people ... you're always going to get some misbehaviour. It's like being at the cricket, like being at the footy."

To see whether these efforts were enough to tackle Summernats' infamously sexist culture, I grabbed my sunscreen, braved the sizzling heat and entered the festival.

I was particularly keen to determine whether most long-time female attendees believed the behaviour could be eradicated, or if they accepted it as an inevitable by-product of these types of events.

Improvement on previous years

Imogen Bratto, Aliese Layden and Brooke Simpson thought the behaviour was much better than the same time last year. ( ABC News: Rohan Dadswell )

I went to Summernats mid-afternoon on Friday — definitely not the rowdiest day or time of the four-day event.

I went with a male colleague, who kept his distance as I ventured down "Tuff Street", the area known to have given Summernats its rambunctious reputation.

As I entered the strip, a group of men yelled profanities through a megaphone at three girls working at the event, adding the street "should be called vagina street".

I copped a few wolf-whistles and inappropriate comments from men sitting in camp chairs outside tents beside the road.

My worst experience was when one of three young men walking the opposite direction approached me, looked down towards my chest and said "damn".

That was the harassment I suffered for the two hours I spent there, and I saw many other young women subject to similar actions.

This behaviour is totally unacceptable, but I expected worse after stories I had heard from previous years. And this was the general consensus of several of women I spoke to.

Daniella Galeski (right) with her teenage daughter Tiffany and younger children at Summernats. ( ABC News: Rohan Dadswell )

Most thought men's attitudes had improved drastically in recent years, even since 2017, but acknowledged the crowds usually became their most wild on the Saturday night.

I was not prepared to test that theory.

Car fanatic Daniella Galeski had travelled from Wollongong to the Canberra festival with her daughter Tiffany and two younger children for the past four years.

"Last year men would say 'show us your boobs, mum' while I'd hold my little ones, but I've had none of that this year," Ms Galeski said.

'It's what you have to expect'

Canberran Brooke Simpson and her two friends, aged between 17 and 19, also said they had faced less pestering behaviour than on the same day last year.

"There seems to be a lot more talk from the guys about how they've said on the tickets that they'll get kicked out if they do that stuff," Ms Simpson said.

"There's a stronger focus on targeting that — it makes [the festival] a lot more enjoyable."

But a few groups of women disagreed.

Ally Cassidy, Rebecca Boggiano and Nadine Windy said they had been continuously harassed. ( ABC News: Rohan Dadswell )

Just as three young women from Adelaide told me they had been harassed all day by men asking to see their breasts, one passer-by ironically screamed: "50 bucks for tits."

After they laughed it off, one of the women, Nadine Windy, said "if you're going to come here, that's what you have to expect".

"I got my tits out last year, I don't care," she said.

"It's a bloke event — there's cars, motorbikes, beer, and this is the way Aussie men are and men in general."

When I asked if she felt the behaviour was degrading, she said: "I would if it was not at an event like this. You just have to have a bit of banter."

She wasn't the only woman at Summernats who tolerated or even enjoyed the attention that many other women would find uncomfortable.

Some car enthusiasts believed that objectification was innate to Australian car festivals, others thought it was far more overt at Summernats than at others, and a few said they had seen none at all.

But most believed it was worth enduring to satisfy their love of wheels and engines.

Men 'loitering' in McDonald's carpark to lure women

While organisers can try to control the behaviour of the motorist devotees at the festival, their power stops at the gates. ( ABC News: Rohan Dadswell )

As I was leaving the event, I thought back to the heckles I, and many other women, experienced while walking down Lonsdale Street the previous night.

I concluded that behaviour was almost as offensive as what I saw inside the event.

Female staff at the neighbouring McDonald's told me they had similar experiences.

"We get harassed all day, every day during Summernats," manager Taylor said.

"They'll say anything creepy about you and try to lure you back into the [Summer]nats."

She said some men even parked in the McDonald's carpark at night, waiting for the women — and teenagers — to finish work.

"Sometimes we have to go out and tell them to leave the young girls alone," Taylor said.

Organisers can try to control the actions of the 100,000 devotees who attend their festival each year, and most of the women I spoke to believed they had been largely successful in these attempts.

But it was clear to me that their best efforts had not shaken the sexist and preying attitude of some event-goers.

And as the experience of the McDonald's workers showed, the power and influence of Summernats' organisers stops at the gates.

I think I'll keep clear of Lonsdale Street this weekend.