Racing through apartheid roadblocks

Published Feb 27, 2015

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Athlone, Cape Town - "There’s nothing like driving down the back straight behind the wheel of a V8 car. The noise and the power. There’s nothing better.”

Armien Levy’s home is dotted with some 150 trophies from a successful motor racing career spanning five decades. But they don’t tell the story of the adversity he faced.

It is not often one is in the company of a pioneer. Levy, 67, is an iconic name in South African motorsport. He still has the passion he had when he first dreamt about racing fast cars as a 12-year-old.

Levy was among the first non-white drivers to race the gravel tracks of Goodwood Showgrounds, and he had a habit of winning. But time after time, political hurdles would limit his opportunies to realise his full potential. His love for motorsport began when it was rare for coloured people to own cars.

“We had no television then and the only motorsport we saw was at the movies when they had a two-minute slot before the show at the drive-in, the Luxurama or the Gem bioscope.”

Levy’s father discouraged him from becoming a motor mechanic - it would scare off the father of a potential bride - because it was not yet considered a career. Instead he completed a qualification in bricklaying.

“When I was young, my dad bought me this toy car that you wind up and it goes forward,” he said. “I opened this car to see how it does that. Then I started modifying the wheel, the small gears inside, and I fitted small lights in the front, with a torch battery. That’s how I came to love motorsport.”

SINGLE-MINDED

It was the tumultuous 1960s and Levy was single-minded about racing competitively and working full-time as a motor mechanic.

“I went to Goodwood Showgrounds to watch stock car racing - that started my passion. A few of us came together and started our own club. We had cars, but we couldn’t race.

“Nobody wanted to accept us because the laws of the time said coloureds, Indians and blacks were not allowed to compete in motorsport. But I wanted to do it. The leaders of our club, the Cape Daredevils, were political guys, so they didn’t want to race. I applied so I could race under a permit, but they didn’t want to.”

The authorities gave the Cape Daredevils a piece of land where Mitchells Plain is now. While it was free, it was deemed unsuitable by Levy and fellow club members. But Levy refused to give up.

“I was never a political person. I just wanted to live my life, and I wanted to race - that’s all I wanted to do.”

Levy approached Jack Holloway of the Goodwood Showgrounds.

“He said to me: ‘Armien, I can help you guys. I can give you a date.’ He gave us the worst date of the year - December, 28 (1969). Who’s going to come to motorsport on the 28th of December?

“But I accepted it because it was better than nothing. Then he said to me, you have to come up with R2000 for this, and R2000 for that… the total bill was R6000. In today’s money it was about R600 000. I went back to our committee and they rejected the proposal.

“Eventually, I spoke to the drivers outside of the meeting, in a caucus, and they said: ‘Armien, let’s go for it’.”

Levy went back to Holloway, who agreed to bankroll the raceday - but it was going to be his show.

FULL HOUSE

“For the first time in history, the authorities had to close the road at the robots at Voortrekker Road and at the fire station - no one could come in after 4.30pm - the place was already packed! My racing car was first at the gate, about four or five of us towing our cars - we couldn’t afford trailers back then.

“As we came to the gate, one of the officials asked where we were going, in Afrikaans. He said: ‘No, this isn’t for hotnots. You must turn around.’ But Holloway had given me two sheets of A4 paper - one was the proof of the permit and the other was the proof from them and the council that we could race here.

“So he said: ‘You better donner out of here now before I call the police.’ The police came, took our papers, scrunched them up, threw them in the bin and said ‘F-off’.

“Luckily, Holloway arrived on his motorbike and waved us through. Even with the permits and everything, we were chased away.”

Levy’s face beams as he recounts the moment he drove his V8 stock car on to the gravel track of the circuit.

“When we got inside, I’m telling you… my very first race… oh! There is not one moment that can overtake that feeling. Look at these goosebumps on my arm! Here I am on Goodwood Showgrounds.

“My admiration for the Sarel van der Merwes and the Deon de Waals and guys like that gave me that urge. If they can do it, I can also do it.

“I could just hear the clapping, but no names. There was no hero yet among our people. These cars are very loud: exhausts by your ears, helmet on and you can hear nothing but the cheer of the crowd.

“The first race was a draw out of the hat, and I drew No.1 - my luck - and I won that race. Then the crowd started roaring, ‘Armien Levy, Armien Levy’. The people were standing.

“For the second race, I drew third position. The officials told our officials that I must stand at the back - ‘He’s too quick.’ They made me go right around and, as I was going through the back straight, they let the other cars go.

“I could hear - through the noise, concentration and adrenalin pumping - the crowd chanting my name. I won that race as well. I never came second the whole night.

“It’s there where I made my name, at Goodwood Showgrounds, and I became known as the ‘Hell Driver’ Armien Levy.”

MEMBERSHIP DENIED

But, instead of his successful debut being a launching pad, what followed was more humiliation. Levy applied for membership of the Western Province Motor Club. A response letter thanked him but reminded him, too, that coloured people could not participate in motorsport. He was offered two tickets to the races at Killarney as consolation.

“I took the offer and went to Killarney,” he said. “We couldn’t go into the main entrance, but between two trees was a rope, and this was the entrance for coloured people. I was the first one there to come to Killarney. For me it was great, no matter where I stood, to see the racing.”

Levy joined the Cape Motorcycling Club and learnt through a club newsletter about a rally he knew he wanted to be involved in.

“It was an international rally that started in Pretoria. I entered well in time. Then it appeared in the newspaper that a Western Province driver had entered an international rally. I happened to be car 79.

“We started on the square in Pretoria. There was a ramp and at the time the SABC had just started doing television, in 1975. I stood there and asked myself: ‘Is this for real?’

“I looked at the cars going up the ramp, the press taking photos where they counted you down to your start. When my turn came, I couldn’t go up the ramp. I had to stand next to the ramp. And no South African flag… they counted me down with their fingers. Five, four, three, two, one. It didn’t worry me. I was there! It was a five-day rally that ended in Swaziland.”

TIMED OUT

When the rally reached Barberton, the Muslim community had already read in the local newspaper of the Muslim driver from Cape Town taking part in the rally.

“So the entire community of Barberton and Tzaneen came to that stage - almost like a parade - to see the cars pull in there. And all the people mobbed me and said I must come to Jumu’ah (Friday prayers) and have a lunch with them. I declined, but later I thought to myself I had to take up these people’s offer. My entire crew went to mosque and we had lunch.”

But when Levy returned, he was told he had been timed out and was out of the rally.

“I was disappointed, but at least I had Jumu’ah and I met the people and had lunch with them. I asked the people at the control if I could go through on my way to Swaziland. I wouldn’t be part of the rally. As I came to the following stage, I was told that the stage I had missed was scrapped. With the help of Allah - because I had done my Jumu’ah - I was still in the running. That was stage number 30. So I started stage 31.

“When we came to Swaziland, on the border, I was car number 11. And I finished in that position. I was the first Capetonian - the only South African driver - to finish the rally.”

When Levy arrived home, there was a media scrum outside. The following edition of the Argus Motoring section proclaimed: “Western Cape driver finishes international rally.”

His father was livid, given the fact that Levy was denied membership, and he threatened to sue.

SCRAPPING THE RESTRICTIONS

“So they came back and said to my father and his lawyer that they would allow me to race at Killarney. They would scrap the restrictions. I couldn’t use their bathrooms and toilets or the cafeteria, and it was accompanied by a long letter to say ‘you’re driving a dangerous weapon’ and I mustn’t bump the white man’s car.

“Eventually they bumped me. So they gave me a R2000 fine or three months or six months suspension from racing. My wages were R2000 a month, so I took the suspension… it was done to kill me, that’s the way it went.”

Levy knows that, despite all the “roadblocks” put in his way, he had what it took to be world class.

“I have a lot of talent - I’m not praising myself - but I was quite amazed to see what I could do behind the steering wheel. To come in for the first time on to a gravel track with a V8… and winning races, starting from the back. Then I went to Killarney, and I was champion six times.”

These days you’ll find Levy, still a mechanic, hunched over the engine of a stock car or rally car in his garage, run under the Armien Levy Motorsport banner.

The racing bug bit three of his five children. Sons Anwar and Ebrahim still race, and daughter Fuzlin took up the sport when she was growing up.

His team, comprising Anwar and Ebrahim and mechanics, are sponsored by Sharief Parker and Sean Burton of Jive cooldrinks. Without this support, he says, it would be difficult to run Armien Levy Motorsport.

He has deep roots in the community; he has been a trustee of the Masjidus Salaam mosque in Aden Road for the past 40 years.

Levy, who never gets speeding fines, laments the street racers of today who put lives at risk.

“You know, what makes me so sad is what I went through to come to Killarney. I opened the doors for them in the ’60s and ’70s - and a tough time to open them. I was physically beaten even.

“Now the youngsters race expensive cars on public roads with million-rand modifications; they can be a star at Killarney, they can’t be a star on the road. How can Hashim Amla become a star if he plays cricket in the street?”

Cape Argus

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