Tyres screech across an empty parking lot in Soweto as Nalo Jivhuho sends her BMW skidding and spinning in a cloud of white smoke and fumes.
A young woman hangs out their car while drifting during a round of spinning at Wheelz n Smoke Arena in the south of Johannesburg on August 10, 2024. - Recognized as a motor sport since 2014 in South Africa, spinning is seeking to become official and develop sponsors. In July, the new Minister of Sports, Gayton Mckenzie, announced that he wanted to make it"one of the most important sports".
“If you are able to make a tyre pop, then you are pretty special,” says Jivhuho, mother of an admiring teenaged son.This adrenaline-pumping sport was born in Johannesburg’s sprawling Soweto township in the 1980s, when South Africa was still under the race-based apartheid system. At its most extreme levels, the passenger or even driver will climb out of the spinning car, hanging from the window or roof in stunts that thrill the crowds.A few hours before Jivhuho’s training session, her four cars are checked over at her home by an all-male group of mechanics.Jivhuho says: “Maintaining these spin cars is a lot but I have a great support system from my family and my team. Without them, ‘Dankie Darlie’ would not exist.
The atmosphere is festive as hundreds of spectators, some with coolers and shisha pipes, cheer on spinning crews who have come from across the country to show off their skills.The noise and smell of burning rubber and exhaust fumes is intoxicating. Of the more than two dozen cars taking part, some have no hoods or windscreens; one is souped up to look like a New York taxi.
As the sport became recognised, the arena moved spinning off the streets and into a space that better protects spectators. “It is more of a danger to them if a car happens to lose control,” says the owner, Monde Hashe.“When this place opened, we had more opportunities and more play time,” he says, as he heads out to perform.
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