Their father, Kevin Boler, is a stalwart of the Oamaru Drag Racing Club and one of the meeting organisers.
He had planned to run his two vehicles - a 1957 Ford Country sedan and a 1939 ''barrel nose'' Ford pick-up - then step aside and let Melissa (23) and Donna (21) use them as well.
''Wicked,'' Melissa said about drag racing.
''Bloody nervous'', Donna said.
The event on Saturday was the first drag racing at the airport for 12 years. Mr Boler raced in the last one with the Ford pick-up, setting a time of 15.1sec, which he hoped to better on Saturday.
But, he never got the chance. Donna got two runs in, but Melissa's first run ended in disaster when the transmission blew as she left the start line.
Mr Boler never got his chance to compete.
''But there will be another one,'' he said about a second event.
Ford V8s are also in the blood, Donna excitedly waiting at the drag racing for the arrival of a Ford F100 pick-up with a 351 Cleveland V8 from Timaru on Saturday which she had just bought.
The Oamaru Drag Racing Club hoped to run two events a year, in which two cars race over 400m, one in March and the second in April, during daylight saving.
Saturday's inaugural event for the club attracted 90 cars, four motorcycles and about 1600 people. The fastest car was Neil Robertson in a Camaro with a 400m time of 11.4sec.
The event had two sections: import (Japanese and others ranging from an early Escort to a 2003 Porsche Carerra 4) and V8s (including hot rods, early and late model American muscle cars and even a Jaguar XJ6 V8).
The event ended with ''grudge races''.
