Fashback story – Burning Rubber with South Africa’s Petite Daredevil

An acrid cloud of smoke engulfs an old BMW 350i as the 360-degree spin it has been in for several seconds, pressures the tires into burning their rubber.

It is no car accident. Dozens of spectators have gathered here at the Eldorado Car Park in Johannesburg to watch stunt drivers specifically manipulate and maneuver their vehicles like this. It is called performing a donut in many professional driving circles around the world. Here in South Africa, it is known as spinning.

Racing champion Alex Zanardi is credited with first performing the move to mark his victory at the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1997.

Spectators in Eldorado may not have heard of Zanardi, but they all know of Stacey-Lee May, the diminutive figure at the wheel of the bright pink “gusheshe” that is churning up plumes of smoke to their delight.

It is not long before you discover why she garners this level of adulation. Stacey is in supreme control despite the centrifugal forces she has invited to posses her car. The skeptics in the crowd are won over when she climbs out of the car while it is still spinning and saunters away, only to run back in a few seconds later to resume steering.

“I started spinning on the 24th of March, 2014. My dad’s friend came to our house with a black BMW 325 cabriolet. They asked me if I could drive it and I was like, ‘I don’t think so’. They took me to a parking lot in Eldorado and showed me what to do. I did it too and just fell in love with the sport,” she says.

Four years on, Stacey-Lee is known as the ‘Queen of Smoke’. She has won several national spinning competitions, has been the subject of a Vice UK documentary, featured on top-rated motoring show ‘The Grand Tour’ and the New York Times, and profiled on the premiere season of XOA, Africa’s very own extreme sports show.

Stacey-Lee provides nail-biting action and an adrenaline boost for XOA Presenter Benni Langa and Series Director Esah Panyako [backseat]

Stacey-Lee has become an ambassador for gender equality given her participation and top billing in a sport dominated by men.

“I’m spinning to make a difference and to change the way younger people see the world. People think this is only for men. Like, they think soccer is only for men, they think car spinning is only for men, drag racing is only for men. I wanna show you that I can also do it, a woman can also do what you do,” she adds.

Stacey-Lee is keen to stress however that it is her skill at the wheel and repertoire of stunts, that have earned her head-nods from her male contemporaries, and a growing number of fans around the world.

“I have this thing called the suicide slide, where the car is moving in a clockwise motion and then I hang out of the car and the top of my head touches the ground. When I am lying there, my hair touching the ground, I can smell the tires, and I feel amazing. Sometimes I also stand on the door frame. I would rather do the suicide slide than stand on the door though. I don’t have a lot of balance so I am scared I might fall, but I do it anyway because I believe in myself,” she continues.

The petite daredevil has also become one of the foremost voices urging for the sport to attract the kind of sponsorship and prize money that would allow spinning devotees to focus on it exclusively. Currently, most practitioners have day jobs that pay their bills and keep their cars running. An industry is maturing quickly though. The broadcast of So You Think You Can Spin is evidence of that, as is the growing number of heavily promoted events that are held in the country every weekend.

It is a far cry from the early days in the 1990s when gangsters in the Soweto township would boost cars and spin them at the funeral of a fallen comrade. Now there’s a film in circulation, an academy for drivers, and more women taking part, all encouraging signs that Stacey-Lee and her follow drivers, mechanics, and other affiliated people will soon have strong career options. In the meantime she’s hedging her bets and has completed a law degree, and is now lending her celebrity status to selected creative projects and advertising campaigns.

“I’m going to keep pushing forward and making sure that people recognise this sport. I will be posting on Youtube and Facebook just so people can see that South Africa has something that they are doing that is unique and that they want to take it and share it with everybody – worldwide,” she says.

Follow Stacey-Lee on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/stacalee/]

Michelle Morgan Benni Langa KWESÉ Sports TV Kwese TV #StaceyLeeMay #ExtremeSportsAfrica