By Jacob Mawela.
Caption: A participant limned gliding down Sandton Drive during the 2018 Red Bull Box Cart Race. (Image by Red Bull ContentPool).
This Sunday will witness the popular Red Bull Box Cart Race return for spins and spills along Sandton Drive – eight years on after it was last staged on Africa’s richest square mile in 2018, as well as being the eighth edition to be hosted by South Africa since 2004.
A spectacle which began in Brussels, Belgium back in 2000 formulated on an idea of sending a driver and co-driver hurtling down a course dotted with varying obstacles in a hand-built non-motorized cart with just functional steering and brakes – it has drawn over five million spectators across 53 countries pending more than 160 editions.
South Africa is still the only African nation to have staged the event – having initially hosted it in Durban in 2004, Johannesburg (along Jan Smuts Avenue) in 2006, Soweto (along Immink Drive in Diepkloof) in 2010 and Cape Town (down the cobbled streets of the Bo-Kaap) in 2022.
This year’s Sandton race – in which 80 teams lined up in front of thousands of spectators back in 2018 – shares a calendar with international cities such as Belfast, London, Denver and Los Angeles.
According to a pre-event media release, every participating cart will be decorated according to whatever its workshop conjures at 2am on the day of the race – with crews showing up in fancy costumes and performing skits at the starting point before plunging down the incline.
This time around, the crews can expect a course loaded with jumps and obstacles built to separate the brave from the sensible, with a few proudly South African surprises thrown in. The media release promises spectators spectacular wipeouts pending a spectacle in which there’ll be no second chances once a cart tips over.
Punts the media release: some carts fly. Some fall apart on the first jump. Nobody, the teams included, knows which until they go. The fastest cart does not always win. The odd cart takes itself apart in slow motion while the driver hangs on for dear life. Zero guarantees anyone reaches the bottom in one piece.
Among the participating teams spectators can look out for will be Potjie Boytjies, the reigning champions from Stellenbosch who won the Cape Town edition on a potjie pot on wheels in 2022.
Others are Noma Yini – named after township car guards – who claim to be always “on the move, planning and finding a way to make things work”, and Kwik Kwik Nawu Nawu, a crew of final-year UCT Mechanical Engineering students on one last crazy project before graduation.
A panel of judges scores every run on speed, creativity and showmanship. Past judges and hosts have included rally driver Giniel de Villiers, rapper Nasty C, Proteas bowler Kagiso Rabada, Courtnaé Paul and comedian Dalin Oliver.
A free family event, spectators are urged to arrive early to take their front row spots (specifically where the carts hit the bumps at full velocity) along the course and lose their voices so as for the teams to feed off the noise.
The Red Bull Box Cart Race is a spectator sport in the truest sense – with Red Bull’s YouTube compilation of the most outrageous runs cracking 21 million views within months of release. See you on the hill – appetized the media release ahead of the spectacle.
The publicity agency for the event also notifies road users to be mindful of full or partial road closures between 29 September – 7 October; Sandton Dr, Grayston Dr, Alice Ln, and 5th St.
For more details on full road closures, head to redbull.com/za-en/events/red-bull-box-cart-race-south-Africa. 11 Sandton Drive, Johannesburg. Sunday, 4 October 2026. For the latest event information, head to redbull.com/za-en/events/red-bull-box-cart-race-south-africa.