Meet Eddie Rasta — mechanic, driver, and local legend keeping the peace through mad drifts and clouds of tire smoke. Eddie's skill behind the wheel, and lots of burning rubber, bring excitement and inspiration to Cape Town's Elsies River community.
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00:00I've been a Ford cop all my life. I put a 350 Nissan engine in it. It's also a V6.
00:13Auntie U, it's a nickname of my mother. She was always with me everywhere I went.
00:20The sport of spinning made famous by this very vehicle here and its driver, the very
00:25well-known Mr. Eddie Rasta. How are you doing brother man?
00:32Good, good. Nice to have you here in my ghetto.
00:55We wanted raw. It must look out of control, but we're actually in control.
01:25Let's talk about that a little bit, right? Because one of the people was telling me that
01:38every time that your car engine switches on, the entire community comes together.
01:42You must see when this car starts and the kids are out of school. It is like, you know
01:50on their faces, if I burst a tire and the cars are standing there and light is from
01:54maybe like a kilometer away from here, it's coming and running here and the tire is already
02:00flat. It makes my heart so broken. I have to tell my guys, put on other tires so we
02:04can go spin again. Because the community in my area, they love spinning. I never had a
02:09complaint from anyone, from the oldest to the youngest, even here.
02:18Is it possible for someone like me to learn how to spin?
02:20Let's do it.
02:22The more acceleration you give on it, it makes so it can slip. Both wheels can slip.
02:28But if you slow, the one is pushing and the other one is like pulling. So it does that.
02:34So the car won't be able to move unless you give acceleration on it.
02:44Full lock, full lock.
02:50Go, go, go, go.
03:00Yes, man. Yes, man.
03:02That's the new Tesla.
03:04That's the new Tesla.
03:08You did it.
03:10You did it.
03:12Yes.
03:14No, that's quiet.
03:16That's quiet.
03:18Yeah.
03:20That is amazing.
03:26Yes, you've unlocked a level in me, man.
03:28That is amazing.
03:30One of your brothers was telling me that kids learn how to become mechanics because they see you building the cars.
03:37As you can see, in the area, in the community we live in, you know, gangsterism is high.
03:43Crime rate is high here.
03:45And, you know, sometimes the police captain, he comes to me, he told me one day that I'm the peacekeeper here.
03:52So I asked him, why?
03:54Because he said, yeah, when you spin your car, everybody's watching you.
03:58And there's no gang fight, nothing going on as long as you spin this car.
04:03Our kids around here, they have nothing to do, you know.
04:06There's no facility for our young kids, especially a role model to look up to, to progress in life.
04:12So they do it to me because I am a mechanic around here.
04:16Everybody knows me as Eddie Rasta, you know.
04:18And my mother teaches me one thing about small ladies.
04:21They have a bigger future as we, as adults.
04:25The ladies, they love spinning.