Spinners go head-to-head in showdown at Century City

Saturday’s Red Bull Shay' iMoto national spinning finals at Century City certainly lived up to expectations with Capetonians featuring prominently in the latter part of the competition. Part theatre, part driving art, part Circ du Soleil, Shay' iMoto brought with it all the action, adrenaline and controlled chaos fans of the sport have come to expect.

With the clock ticking, not a second was wasted as the drivers went through their paces trying to out-perform each other in one-on-one battles and complete a set of required moves in 2min30sec.

Yaseen Damon, Yusuf Fakir, Justin “Bemors” Williams and Chadwin “Boksie” Hadjie flew the flag for the Mother City in the top eight section of the competition with Hadjie going head-to-head with Mpumalanga’s Samkeliso “Sam Sam” Thubane in the final battle.

Hadjie, 23, from Eerste River, impressed the crowd and the judges to claim his first Red Bull Shay’iMoto title. It was a case of third time lucky for Hadjie as he had given it a go on two previous occasions.

However, luck had nothing to do with it on Saturday, as Hadjie executed a series of awe-inspiring high risk technical manoeuvres with pin-point precision.

Hadjie opened up his top eight battle against experienced home boy Damon, 30, who himself had entered every Shay’iMoto since 2019, taking third place on the podium on two occasions.

“This year’s competition was really tough because we struggled for about four weeks to get my car prepped,” he said.

“But you know what, the event overall was the one of most fun that I’ve driven because it was in my home town,” Damon said.

“The best thing about spinning is that it brings people together,” he said.

Following its hiatus in 2023, the event, recognised as the pinnacle of organised spinning events in the country, returned in 2024 and was hosted in Cape Town for the very first time.

The specially created venue in the car park of Canal Walk was sold out and saw a record-breaking 3 300 people fill the grandstands. The Mother City motorsport faithful were not disappointed and witnessed some amazing feats of car-handling and driving theatre through the specially designed course.

The country’s top 16 drivers gathered on Friday March 15 for qualifying rounds which saw the field whittled down to the top eight. These eight battled it out, all showing exceptional car control, technical skills, and flair.

In the end, Boksie left the four judges, Vernon “Veejaro” Hendricks, Jeff James, Magesh Ndaba and Shahiem Bell, and the audience – who as a collective acted as the fifth judge using specially-coloured LED wristbands to vote – on the edge of their seats as he outclassed the two-time defending champ, Samkeliso “Sam Sam” Thubane with some amazing feats in the final battle.

“This is the most amazing feeling,” said Hadjie, who finished runner-up in 2021. “I’ve been fighting hard over the past few years and finally the win has come,” he said.

“When we started the qualifying rounds on Friday, I more or less knew exactly what the people wanted,” he said..