Red Bull spinning: The history of the Shay’ iMoto competition

In 2019, Red Bull shocked the spinning community when it revealed that it was hosting a spinning competition called Red Bull Shay’ iMoto at the Wheelz N Smoke arena in Alberton, South of Johannesburg.

At the time, the spinning community was not sure how the selection nor judging process worked, but nonetheless fans were excited and bought their tickets and the stands were packed at the world class event.

Red Bull had completely updated the venue by setting up a stage, they added lights worthy of being at a concert along with a multitude of stands to cater for the crowds.

They also gave the pitch a new layout, added some new tar and paint and voila, they turned what is seen as a ghetto motorsport into a world class motoring event.

ALSO WATCH: Red Bull spinning: Introducing the top 12 spinners heading to Shay’ iMoto 2022

The inaugural Shay’ iMoto event

At the inaugural event, Vernon Hendricks, more affectionately known as Veejaro, took the crown by edging out his Southside crew team mate and female spinner, Kaylin Oliphant.

Lots of fans weren’t happy after the event though because they said the selection process and judging criteria wasn’t transparent and that Southside crew had 3 spinners involved in the competition which gave them an unfair disadvantage over other spinners.

Another problem on that night was that fans were given a card at the entrance that they had to use to vote.

The one side of the card was red and the other side was blue and after two spinners battled it out the crowd was asked to be the fourth judge and put up their card.

What Red Bull didn’t realise was that at night the blue was less visible than the red, so we found that the spinner that was red would win.

Nonetheless, Veejaro put up an excellent fight to make it to the final and he deservedly beat Kayla in the final to be crowned the inaugural Shay’ iMoto champion.

The COVID-19 edition

In 2020, the world came to a standstill when the Covid-19 pandemic changed the way we lived.

At the time, there were limits on the amount of people there could be at events and we were not sure how sports would navigate this challenging time.

Spinning particularly took a very hard knock because spinners thrive on having their fans there to cheer them on and without fans the whole vibe of the event just changes.

Red Bull surprised us when they announced that they would be hosting the event behind closed doors from a secret location and the event would be live streamed to anyone who wants to watch the event live.

This time, Red Bull took the competition to a warehouse in the east of Johannesburg, where they had the winner and runners up from the previous year automatically qualify.

Some of the spinners were replaced with new faces like Cape Town spinning legend Eddie Rasta and fan favourites Bareng Mpane and Katra Mokgoshi.

Spinners found it more challenging spinning on this indoor arena because of the heavy duty epoxy surface that the warehouse had and this caused mechanical issues on many spinners cars.

Some may even remember Bareng’s E30 catching alight and the live stream had to be paused so the fire could be dealt with.

Once the competition went on Eddie Rasta and Katra battled it out in the final where Katra edged Rasta out to win the competition on his first try.

As with the first year, there were more complaints from the live crowd and the spinners. Particularly with the fact that certain spinners were allowed to come to the competition with more then one car.

This meant that when their primary car gave problems they could just switch vehicles. This was a rule Red Bull immediately reviewed for the 2021 event. Competitors were only allowed one car for the duration of the event.

ALSO WATCH: Sparks fly, adrenaline surges in SA’s car ‘spinning’ circles

The third instalment – Still behind closed doors

Although lockdown restrictions were eased in 2021, Red Bull chose to the host the event behind closed doors at Wheelz N Smoke but the difference was that they let spinners enter themselves into the competition by posting a video of themselves on the Red Bull website and their fans could vote them into the competition.

This shows that Red Bull had been listening to the previous complaints and they were trying to improve the competition for the fans and for the spinners.

The shock news of the 2021 competition was that Katra, the previous years champions had declined the invitation to defend his title, citing politics amongst the fans, and even harassment from certain fans as his main reason for not competing.

This meant that the third place runner up of 2020 got an automatic entry into the competition.

Once again, 2021 saw a host of new spinners such as Boksie, Mr Wheelz and Shakir competing for the title, as well as some old faces such as Kayla and Sunesh. Which meant that even though the fans had voted, they definitely had their favourites.

Many spinners had problems with their cars but thanks to the one car rule from Red Bull they had to fix their cars between rounds or forfeit their spot to one of the two the reserve spinners.

Samkeliso Thubane almost didn’t make the cut off for the competition because their team had to replace a clutch and dyno the vehicle before he arrived at the event. This meant that Sam Sam had much less time to practice then the other spinners but he managed to qualify and it’s was no surprise when he took on Boksie in the final to win the 2021 Shay’ iMoto final.

This year, Sam Sam returns to the competition with the hopes of being the first driver to retain his title but the competition will be tough with the Kruger Brothers, Vaaijie, Boksie, Sunesh and Kayla eager to taste victory after coming so close in previous years.

The judges; Magesh Ndaba, Jeff James, Shahiem Bel, and a fourth guest judge, together with the live audience will definitely have their hands full with deciding who drives off with this year’s title.  

Tickets to Red Bull Shay’ iMoto are available at www.redbullshayimoto.com and at the door. For those who will not be able to join in on the action at Wheelz N Smokes, can catch all the action on SABC 1 in September. 

This content has been created in partnership with Skid Marks, one of South Africa’s top spinning and motorsport platforms. You can follow Skid Marks on YouTube.