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Wairarapa locals are outraged after hundreds joined a boy racer event over the weekend that turned violent.
The crowd threw fireworks, bottles and rocks at police during the car meet on a rural road near Masterton - smashing the back window of a police car.
Six people were arrested, two cars were impounded and others received infringement notices and licence suspensions.
Police said there were not available to speak to Morning Report.
But Masterton District Council mayor Gary Caffell said the "rather horrific scenes" were "really disappointing" for the community.
Caffell congratulated police on how it handled the incident and said officers did a "great job" bringing it to an end.
He told Morning Report the community was lucky to get away with nobody being seriously injured or killed as "that could've happened".
Caffell said a major concern with such events was the amount of spectators they drew that "egged on" the drivers.
He said those watching were complicit and should be fined, too.
"What needs to be done is that we need to get really tough.
"I've been encouraged by the words of the police minister that he's going to get tough on this sort of anti-social behaviour, so, you know, those are the sorts of things that need to be looked at.
"What we need is to completely remove these sorts of incidents away from our communities. Unless we get tough, unless we [bear] down, not only on those who are racing but those who are watching them, then it's not going to happen."
Waipā District Council and Christchurch City Council have introduced bylaws to restrict boy racing in its areas.
Caffell said he was interested in looking further into what the councils had done to see if it was something his area could implement.
"I know that councils have difficulties in getting bylaws or in making bylaws that handle these situations.
"Anything that can be done in that regard, I'm really in support of so we will certainly be looking at what other councils are doing."
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the government was looking at strengthening laws against boy racers.
"It's completely unacceptable when you've got harm on communities and also in this case being now directed at police," he said.
"Police have done a really good job, if I think about a couple of instances we've had even in our 11 months in government, managing it but they clearly need to have more powers."
Luxon said Police Minister Mark Mitchell become aware of the issue a couple of months ago and was looking into "everything and anything" that strengthened police powers.
Mitchell hoped to have something finalised by the end of the year, Luxon said.
Police Association president Chris Cahill. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Police officers 'shaken' by incident
Police Association president Chris Cahill said the officers deployed to the boy racer event at the weekend are "shaken" by what happened there.
The problem with such events taking place in rural areas was the lack of officers available.
Often, small numbers of police ended up having to deal with hundreds of "pretty violent" people.
Up to 30 police officers could not just be sitting around Masterton on the off chance something might happen, he said.
It was important that police were able to gather intel and intercept groups before such events took place.
Spectators egging drivers on played a big part and in some ways, he said.
Cahill said police would be looking at footage of the event this week and trying to identify offenders.
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