Spinning becoming SA’s fastest growing motorsport

WORDS could never really describe the feeling you get when you see a BMW £30 in a roll back burnout which ends up clouding the area around it with smoke.

- JEHRAN NAIDOO

You can hear the car's engine limit-ing like it’s going to break, and then all of a sudden ... it disappears in a cloud of white smoke.

It’s not so much a sport but a stirrer of emotions, mainly adrenaline, which permeates throughout the drivers, stunt-men and the spectators alike.

There’s no real point structure like the Super Drift series, but rather, spin-ning is mainly judged by the crowd's applause - which makes it the most interactive motorsport to date.

South Africa can be looked at as a pioneer of the sport, which is now entertaining crowds in Austria (shout out to Samkeliso Thubane).

The amount of raw, young talent bubbling to the surface right now in the world of spinning is a breath of fresh air. In many aspects, spinning has also given the youth something to strive toward, given that is achievable to participate in financially.

Aspiring for greatness

Sam Sam has reached the pinnacle of the sport, according to McKeenan “Troubles” du Plessis, 33, a Johannes-burg spinner from team Japan Auto — who would one day follow in similar footsteps.

Troubles got into the sport at 13 years old as a stuntman and knew since then that he was destined to be a driver.

A decade later, the colourful spinner drives his own Nissan VQ25 swopped BMW £30. His “boxshape” has been fitted with a 5-speed BMW gearbox to go with the V6 Nissan power plant and runs on a Spitronics engine man-agement system. The diff's also been welded locked.

“I think immediately after getting into the sport as a youngster, I wanted to drive one day. But I was small and didn’t have the money so I became a stuntman just to stay close to the sport and grow as well.