It’s great that the playmakers are putting solid action into the talk of creating a safe space for mense in motorsport.
Last weekend a collaboration between spinners, drifters and dragsters, Killarney Race track plus the City of Cape Town represented by JP Smith, brought back the vital gedagte of “take the racing off the streets and bring it to the track”.
Illegal street racing has plagued the Cape for decades as speedsters descend on the R300, Maitland, Voortrekker Road to name a few, late at night to test their cars and nerves in dangerous street battles that every now and again, kill innocent people.
With Covid and there being so few events, this street racing has reared its ugly head once more.
That’s why, says Raziek Rajah, he had a chat with Nazeer Loonat late last year to try and come up with a regular event that would curb street racing.
The partnership was a perfect one as Nazeer, who heads up RaceSA, has inroads to all the drag racers and Raziek, who heads up Drift Outlaws and Spin Outlaws, is solidly connected with the world of Drift and Spin.
Raziek felt the most appropriate name to call this initiative was Street Mania as they were bringing the mayhem that usually goes down at uncontrolled parking lots, to the track.
JP Smith said in an eNCA interview: “Ultimately it’s illegal to race on the streets… for me the first prize is a purpose-built facility, with everything already in place.
“From the City’s side, we’re happy that events are happening.”
Bring it all together and last weekend saw drifters, spinners and quarter-milers roll into Killarney for an evening of motoring mayhem in safe and controlled conditions, with proper scrutineers and marshalls.
As you can imagine, the motoring fraternity jumped at the opportunity and slots were booked out in two hours, so organisers had to shift entries to the next event on 25 June.
Chris Hadjie, Western Cape Spin Outlaws chairman, says: “We want to get all drivers involved, not just the top 16 in the Spin Outlaws competition, and will have space for about 25 extra drivers at the next event.
“At the Street Mania pre-meeting, we had about 90 guys at the briefing, we want to create a safe inclusive environment and certainly don’t want to dictate Spinning.”
Raziek says: “If this initiative takes only one illegal racer off the street, we would have achieved something. We can’t allow the current status quo to continue without providing a functional alternative. Doing nothing is not a solution.”
JP Smith concludes with something of an invitation, saying: “I’m very glad that Street Mania has done this...
“My only frustration is that we are not entertaining more applications, so to the rest of the racing community, come on, bring it on.”