August 12, 2025 • 17 mins
Relebogile Mabotja speaks to Jarred Welby-Cooke the Founder of Race Day Events about driving the world's most iconic supercars at Race Day Events, they bring the adrenaline-pumping world of supercars within reach, offering high-performance driving experiences designed to excite, inspire, and create unforgettable memories.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seven two the car feature.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Time for our car feature today at twenty one minutes
to three o'clock and we are talking the experience of
driving a supercar. Now I have to give you guys
some bagstorey. So a few years ago I discovered that
there's this concept of driving a supercar, and at the
time the person I was dating, I decided to give
(00:25):
them this experience because that's what men like, right. And
then recently now I've never done it myself, which is
a conversation for another day. Then recently I saw it
again and I said, ah Aman, I said, Pashido, we
need to talk about this because I think not enough
people know that.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
You don't have to be some billionaire. It is accessible.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
You can sniff it, you can smell it, you can
sit and you can drive it. Please can we get
these people in studios? So Race Day Events have come through.
Jared well Be Cooke, founder of Race Day Events.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Show.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
How are you doing? Just hold on, let's try that again.
How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I'm good? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I am so excited for this conversation. The needful speed
player in me for when I was a kid still
just as like so I get very excited about these conversations.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
How did you get into the space?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
So I come from a motorsport background, little bit of
racing myself, a lot of driver training, driver development. My
previous business was actually an indoor go karting track at
the Mall of Africa. And when I moved on to yeah, yeah,
just down the road.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, I love how it went from go karting.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Then you're like, no, I want the real deal.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
So look, Race the Events in its inception was actually
a racing business. We were on track, we had racing
cars and we were teaching people how to race cars.
But we pivoted. You know, it was a small business.
It was quite tough to run. We weren't getting good numbers,
and then we we saw the opportunity to move into
the supercar experience world and yeah, we've done that and
(02:05):
we're not looking back.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Maybe talk to me about the racing part of the business.
I mean, the industry is not that big. It's not
like we don't have pro races in the country. But
what does it really take to be in that space
where we're not like we're Europe for example, is.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I would I would have already guessed that.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
That must be a very tough industry to get into,
especially if you don't have like massive sponsors and backers.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Yes, absolutely, you know, it's a lot of hard work,
a lot of dedication, and obviously a blank check doesn't
doesn't harm.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
We all want blank checks.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah, yeah, look, it's uh, it is unfortunately for for
the wealthy at the stage. You know, there is a
lot of use development that happens in South Africa, but
it's still a very small segment. It's not nearly as
big as it needs to be in my view. But
you know, the guys that are doing it a great job,
and we're as seeing some fantastic talent come through South Africa.
We've got multiple world champions, so you know, I think
(03:05):
we've got the heritage.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
In terms of the skill set required, especially for a
person who might not know what goes into it. Can
you maybe chat to us about it, because I'm pretty
sure majority of the listeners are like I could do that.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I feel like I could do that. What goes into it?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I mean, like cool, I'm gonna take that curve and
I'm going to take it nicely, Like what else I'm
going to put my foot down on the accelerator.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I got this.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Yeah, so look, you know, I don't I don't think
it takes an extraordinary person to start it and do it.
It's again just a lot of dedication, a lot of
effort that has to go into it. You know, everybody
has that perception of I'll get in and I'll go
flat out, and you.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Know it'll be easy.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
But look when you when you're there and there's walls
and turns coming towards you, you realize very quickly you're
not as brave as you thought you were.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
And it takes a lot of bravery.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
You know, You've you've got to be confidence in your
equipments and confidence in yourself that when you turn that
corner at that speed, it's actually gonna turn.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, I'm laughing because I'm thinking about the fact that
the reason those are the of us that have gone
go cutting, the reason you know you will probably suck,
is based on how you perform what the go cutting,
hence their tires everywhere exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
You know, it is the starting point. You know, there's
rental cutting that you can go and do. And I
think most people realize very quickly that their ambition.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Outweighs their talent.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yes, it's one of those things, right, yes, yes, Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
In terms then of you seeing this opportunity, what did
you get exposed to that you thought, hey, maybe let's
go into this experience space because I mean a lot
of people are into gifting experiences and you know, not
so much going the route of buying material things, but
buying themselves experiences no one can ever take away from them.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Well, you know, it's exactly that. The thing is how
many watchers and shoes and things can you have?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Right?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
These things get forgotten easily. Where's experiences? You'll remember this,
you know till.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
The day you die. And we were obviously doing the.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Racing training was the initial thing, and then we started
moving into like racing experiences, which you know, from an
experience perspective, was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
But it's also it's a difficult thing to.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Sell because you know, not everyone in South Africa is
that familiar with motorsports, and you know, I think the
idea of getting on track and going at harsh speed
is very daunting. So you know, for a lot of
people they were like, no, no, this isn't an experience
I might want to do, you know, And it was
a bit limiting for us.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
In that sense. And yeah, when we.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Saw the market open up for the supercars, we decided
to just try to handle it. You know, we were
great at executing our days and our events, so we
thought would move and change vehicles.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
And yeah, it's been fantastic. Our clients really love the product.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Before I ask you about the racing training, and I
love how you're like, well, this business is not working well,
so let's need millions of rands to buy super cars.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
When you change your or let me say.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Expand the business, because I don't think you fully pivoted,
right you expanded the business, how did you from a
business perspective, actually get whatever and whoever you need it
on board for the new direction. Because if somebody looks
at your business, and I know this applies to all industries.
If somebody looks at your business and they're like, you're
not doing so great. Now you're coming to them and say,
(06:33):
you know what, actually we're going to try this, but
we need even more money, how does how do you convince?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
How do you get them on board for that?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Look?
Speaker 4 (06:41):
You know, I think I was just lucky in terms
of my business partner and having him, having a lot
of faith in my ideas and the business I wanted
to to try and run.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
And you know, as we've gone.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Along, he's been more than accepting of our challenges.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And you know he wants this product. He wants the
business as much as I do it.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
So you know, by hookoback crooks, he's found cash for
us as we go along. And you know we've we've
managed to get to where we are now. But it's
not easy, right, It was a risky pivot that we made,
but we were comfortable with where we are now. And
we again, you know, I see the people's faces when
they get out the cars, and yes, you know the exhilaration.
You know, we get the knees. It's it's just something special.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
So do you just randomly pick one of the supercars
to drive around or the business requires that. Listen, Insurance
means the cars stay here and don't move, because these
are things I think people don't think about. I mean,
I know my dad would tell me listen, when you
own a certain level of car, you pay insurance per
day that you take it out. But it's not something
you're just willingly monthly paying insurance to drive every day.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Yeah, So we we have we have some supercars that
we use daily that aren't in our fleet, so we
were fortunate enough to have those to keep us excited
during during the week.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
But yeah, of course there are limitations with insurance.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
It was a very difficult business to get insured in
the first place, and we've been fortunate enough.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Because you guys are so low risk.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
We are a lot lower risk than you think. You know, Yeah,
we get up for it.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
You know, we always have a professional instructor in the
vehicle with you. We've even't got brake pedals on the
passenger side, so you know, if someone's getting out out
of hand, we keep them in check. You know, we've
never had any incidents in almost five years of trading,
and I don't foresee any of those incidents coming up?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Are there?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Because you know the qualities in the staff and the
vehicles and the equipment.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
How do you modify the cause to be friendly for
the business that you're doing so and we'll talk about
the fleet just now, but do you now have your
own team or you have a specific supplier that modifies
the cause the way you need them for this purpose.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
So we do use one supply for all the vehicles,
that modifies the vehicles in terms of the braking system.
It's actually an adapted system from a the driving schools,
you know, when they're teaching people to drive, they've got
all the pedals to to help them and this is
an adaptation of that, so it only has a single pedal.
But there's one supplier that AR know of in South
Africa that does all our vehicles. And yeah, they've they've
(09:13):
been fantastic.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Please can we talk about the fleet? Oh? What have
you got?
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I think we've got a little bit for everyone. We
have an r E r V ten which is very
popular with the ladies. Girls seem to love that car
the most, really, Yeah, yeah, ma, missus and just you
know ladies that come to the store in general, that's
the car they want to drive. So I thought i'd
start with that one being. Yes, we have the Portion
(09:40):
nine eleven Turbo, a black one you know from the
bad Boys kind of car.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yes, we have a Ferrari three to sixty.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
We have a Lamborghini Gilado, and then we've got a
little car called an aerial Atom, which most people won't
be familiar with, but it's it's an extremely fast, lightweight supercar.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
It's spectacular.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
You know, if you've watched any top gear, you'll see
it's one of the vehicles that was basically blowing juring
m Clarkson's face off when you're driving it.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
So it's basically, if you to describe it, it's not even.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
A closed vehicle.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
It's it's almost for the lay listeners, lay person listeners,
it almost looks like Formula one type of car, except
it's open on the sides.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yeah, absolutely, it's it's the closest thing to you know,
a single seater that you would have on the road.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yes, yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
In terms of how the experiences work, what does one
have access to you so somebody's like, I'm sold, I
want to go, do they get you know, how does
it all work? And what options are available when a
person comes through? And I'm assuming you obviously must have
a driver's license, and I would imagine you guys have
a minimum age that's not eighteen, So.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Funny enough, we don't have a minimum age.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Ah, it's real.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
Yeah, if you've got a license, we again, you know,
we have professionals in the vehicles, so you know we
we're able to handle any situation.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
And to be honest, the younger drivers are.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
More nervous than the older drivers, so you know, it's
not really a big issue for us. Yeah, that's the
you know, the insurance side of it covers us there,
so we be comfortable to let them drive.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Okay, So when a person arrives, what options are available
to them? Do you say to Okay, when you pay
for a session, this is what you're paying for.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
You have access to every car.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Or it around allows you to rounds on a like,
how does that all work?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
All right? So you would choose your individual vehicles.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Typically people would pre buy these before they come, so
they would say I want to drive this, this and this,
and they would pre order that. But on the day
when they're there, if they want to drive other cars,
we make sure that we have availability, you know, for
people to drive other cars on the day if they
if they want to. You know, the experience is all
from our shop. We we're not based on a on
(11:59):
a racetrack. We don't feel it was a good fit
for our vehicles and for our experience.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
It was very rush.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Yes, you know where we are now, there's a lot
more time in the vehicles. It's a lot more personal
with each person, you know, a lot of this is gifting.
So when a person's in and out of a coind
five minutes, you know, around a track, it's it's hardly
that much of an experience, whereas at least this way around,
it's a lot more personal.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
We take time with each clients.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
We do individual briefings in the car, so you know,
it's important to get people relaxed so that they actually
remember and enjoy the experience.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Are you I would imagine you know, the photo opportunities
and the videos are everything. How have you had to
approach the business in a way that allows people to
pretend like they own the Ferrari.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Well, look, we have videographers that are at all of
our events, so they do in car video. They do
interviews with the people before and after, and then we
put together a special little video for them. So you know,
we always give them something to go away with so
they can remember the day and they can, you know,
pretend it was there Ferrari for for a while.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
We like to get.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Photos of them out on the road with just them
and the car, so you know, if anyone wants to
tell that story, they more than welcome to.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I think that is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
How what is the business model or how do you
approach upgrading and rotating the fleet, because I would imagine
that some of these cars might appreciate and others might not.
Like how how do you decide, hey, let's get this
new one and mix it up.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Look, well, you know, we've we've we're still in the
phase of building up the fleet, so we're not actually
at the point of replacing the you know, existing cars
just yet.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
We do.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
You know, we buy cars very carefully. We make sure
that they are the absolute best of the vehicles that
we can find, and we're fortunate that all these vehicles
will appreciate over time.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
You know, they're all going up in value. They they
very rare scarce cause so you know.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Over time, I'm not saying they're going to double in value,
but they're always going up.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
So at no point are the assets devaluing.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
There's a question which says, where do I sign up
to get racing training to join a rally cross team.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Chad and Jannisburg, sure, rally training. I'm not too sure,
to be honest with you. You know, again, you've got
to start with kating, you know, and people don't realize
the importance of kating a cart is the most fundamental
in go crt.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yes, yeah, and it's not the go karting that you
see at the mall.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
In that I mean, that's a good place to start,
go and do a few laps, but then you want
to get into a more professional vehicle and you need
to learn to master that vehicle.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And once you can master that.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
You know, you can move into you know, bigger vehicle classes,
or you can go to rally or off road racing.
But I really you know, as a trainer myself, I
always recommend start with kating, cut your teeth there and
then move on.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
It being Women's month, how many women are you sort
of seeing getting more interested in vehicles at the level
that men are, you know, in love with vehicles.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
So my business is quite interesting in the person who
buys the the voucher most of the time is a woman,
all right, and typically gifted to a man. But then
on the flip side, a lot of men also buy
their wives experiences to come and drive. And I promise
you women enjoy the experience more than men, you know,
the looks on their faces and how they enjoy it.
(15:26):
I think men a lot of the time have done
a lot of things, and you know, like in terms
of motorsports and driving cars and things. So when it
comes to ladies getting in there, I think they're so
blown away by what it is, and you know, it's
not something they would necessarily go out and do, but
when they go and do it with us, they rave
about it and they have a great time. So yeah,
that's I think ladies do love it, but it's just
(15:47):
a bit of a tough sell.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
To get them in. You know, they're not always sure
they want to do it.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
I'm having a chuckle to myself because I'm like, if
your husband takes you for a test for me, you're communicating.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
That you're buying me the car.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Because I'm like, come on, is this not me saying
I like the car, get it for I'll take it.
How much does it cost for you to go in
this experience?
Speaker 4 (16:15):
So process are from one thousand, two hundred and fifty
rand up per experience. The route is about ten kilometers long.
Each experience takes about twenty minutes to complete. The proces
is very on the vehicles, so depending what you want
to drive and how many you want to drive, letul
obviously change the costing. But yeah, from one thousand, two
hundred and fifty rand, so really not that expensive.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
The website, you can get.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Us at race dash Day, dash Events, dot co, dot za.
You can get us on Instagram and TikTok race Day
Events one word underscore z A and on Facebook we
are Race Day Events.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
And I hear that you guys are looking to go
into Cape Town.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yes we are.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Well, look, before we get to Cape the year were
obviously coming into you know, the corporate season now gear
in functions and team builders and that, so that gets
extremely popular before the end of the year. But from
December until the end of February, we will be in Capetan.
We're doing a pilot project down there for three months.
Some of the most beautiful roads in the world and
some of the most beautiful cars in the world.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I mean, the cause, the ocean view. I am so
down for Thank you so much for coming through. Thank
you so much for chatting to us and in our
car future.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
For today, Thank you so much.
Seven two the car feature.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Time for our car feature today at twenty one minutes
to three o'clock and we are talking the experience of
driving a supercar. Now I have to give you guys
some bagstorey. So a few years ago I discovered that
there's this concept of driving a supercar, and at the
time the person I was dating, I decided to give
(00:25):
them this experience because that's what men like, right. And
then recently now I've never done it myself, which is
a conversation for another day. Then recently I saw it
again and I said, ah Aman, I said, Pashido, we
need to talk about this because I think not enough
people know that.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
You don't have to be some billionaire. It is accessible.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
You can sniff it, you can smell it, you can
sit and you can drive it. Please can we get
these people in studios? So Race Day Events have come through.
Jared well Be Cooke, founder of Race Day Events.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Show.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
How are you doing? Just hold on, let's try that again.
How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I'm good? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I am so excited for this conversation. The needful speed
player in me for when I was a kid still
just as like so I get very excited about these conversations.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
How did you get into the space?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
So I come from a motorsport background, little bit of
racing myself, a lot of driver training, driver development. My
previous business was actually an indoor go karting track at
the Mall of Africa. And when I moved on to yeah, yeah,
just down the road.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, I love how it went from go karting.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Then you're like, no, I want the real deal.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
So look, Race the Events in its inception was actually
a racing business. We were on track, we had racing
cars and we were teaching people how to race cars.
But we pivoted. You know, it was a small business.
It was quite tough to run. We weren't getting good numbers,
and then we we saw the opportunity to move into
the supercar experience world and yeah, we've done that and
(02:05):
we're not looking back.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Maybe talk to me about the racing part of the business.
I mean, the industry is not that big. It's not
like we don't have pro races in the country. But
what does it really take to be in that space
where we're not like we're Europe for example, is.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I would I would have already guessed that.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
That must be a very tough industry to get into,
especially if you don't have like massive sponsors and backers.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Yes, absolutely, you know, it's a lot of hard work,
a lot of dedication, and obviously a blank check doesn't
doesn't harm.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
We all want blank checks.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah, yeah, look, it's uh, it is unfortunately for for
the wealthy at the stage. You know, there is a
lot of use development that happens in South Africa, but
it's still a very small segment. It's not nearly as
big as it needs to be in my view. But
you know, the guys that are doing it a great job,
and we're as seeing some fantastic talent come through South Africa.
We've got multiple world champions, so you know, I think
(03:05):
we've got the heritage.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
In terms of the skill set required, especially for a
person who might not know what goes into it. Can
you maybe chat to us about it, because I'm pretty
sure majority of the listeners are like I could do that.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I feel like I could do that. What goes into it?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I mean, like cool, I'm gonna take that curve and
I'm going to take it nicely, Like what else I'm
going to put my foot down on the accelerator.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I got this.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Yeah, so look, you know, I don't I don't think
it takes an extraordinary person to start it and do it.
It's again just a lot of dedication, a lot of
effort that has to go into it. You know, everybody
has that perception of I'll get in and I'll go
flat out, and you.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Know it'll be easy.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
But look when you when you're there and there's walls
and turns coming towards you, you realize very quickly you're
not as brave as you thought you were.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
And it takes a lot of bravery.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
You know, You've you've got to be confidence in your
equipments and confidence in yourself that when you turn that
corner at that speed, it's actually gonna turn.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, I'm laughing because I'm thinking about the fact that
the reason those are the of us that have gone
go cutting, the reason you know you will probably suck,
is based on how you perform what the go cutting,
hence their tires everywhere exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
You know, it is the starting point. You know, there's
rental cutting that you can go and do. And I
think most people realize very quickly that their ambition.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Outweighs their talent.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yes, it's one of those things, right, yes, yes, Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
In terms then of you seeing this opportunity, what did
you get exposed to that you thought, hey, maybe let's
go into this experience space because I mean a lot
of people are into gifting experiences and you know, not
so much going the route of buying material things, but
buying themselves experiences no one can ever take away from them.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Well, you know, it's exactly that. The thing is how
many watchers and shoes and things can you have?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Right?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
These things get forgotten easily. Where's experiences? You'll remember this,
you know till.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
The day you die. And we were obviously doing the.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Racing training was the initial thing, and then we started
moving into like racing experiences, which you know, from an
experience perspective, was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
But it's also it's a difficult thing to.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Sell because you know, not everyone in South Africa is
that familiar with motorsports, and you know, I think the
idea of getting on track and going at harsh speed
is very daunting. So you know, for a lot of
people they were like, no, no, this isn't an experience
I might want to do, you know, And it was
a bit limiting for us.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
In that sense. And yeah, when we.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Saw the market open up for the supercars, we decided
to just try to handle it. You know, we were
great at executing our days and our events, so we
thought would move and change vehicles.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
And yeah, it's been fantastic. Our clients really love the product.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Before I ask you about the racing training, and I
love how you're like, well, this business is not working well,
so let's need millions of rands to buy super cars.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
When you change your or let me say.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Expand the business, because I don't think you fully pivoted,
right you expanded the business, how did you from a
business perspective, actually get whatever and whoever you need it
on board for the new direction. Because if somebody looks
at your business, and I know this applies to all industries.
If somebody looks at your business and they're like, you're
not doing so great. Now you're coming to them and say,
(06:33):
you know what, actually we're going to try this, but
we need even more money, how does how do you convince?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
How do you get them on board for that?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Look?
Speaker 4 (06:41):
You know, I think I was just lucky in terms
of my business partner and having him, having a lot
of faith in my ideas and the business I wanted
to to try and run.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
And you know, as we've gone.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Along, he's been more than accepting of our challenges.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And you know he wants this product. He wants the
business as much as I do it.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
So you know, by hookoback crooks, he's found cash for
us as we go along. And you know we've we've
managed to get to where we are now. But it's
not easy, right, It was a risky pivot that we made,
but we were comfortable with where we are now. And
we again, you know, I see the people's faces when
they get out the cars, and yes, you know the exhilaration.
You know, we get the knees. It's it's just something special.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
So do you just randomly pick one of the supercars
to drive around or the business requires that. Listen, Insurance
means the cars stay here and don't move, because these
are things I think people don't think about. I mean,
I know my dad would tell me listen, when you
own a certain level of car, you pay insurance per
day that you take it out. But it's not something
you're just willingly monthly paying insurance to drive every day.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Yeah, So we we have we have some supercars that
we use daily that aren't in our fleet, so we
were fortunate enough to have those to keep us excited
during during the week.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
But yeah, of course there are limitations with insurance.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
It was a very difficult business to get insured in
the first place, and we've been fortunate enough.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Because you guys are so low risk.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
We are a lot lower risk than you think. You know, Yeah,
we get up for it.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
You know, we always have a professional instructor in the
vehicle with you. We've even't got brake pedals on the
passenger side, so you know, if someone's getting out out
of hand, we keep them in check. You know, we've
never had any incidents in almost five years of trading,
and I don't foresee any of those incidents coming up?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Are there?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Because you know the qualities in the staff and the
vehicles and the equipment.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
How do you modify the cause to be friendly for
the business that you're doing so and we'll talk about
the fleet just now, but do you now have your
own team or you have a specific supplier that modifies
the cause the way you need them for this purpose.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
So we do use one supply for all the vehicles,
that modifies the vehicles in terms of the braking system.
It's actually an adapted system from a the driving schools,
you know, when they're teaching people to drive, they've got
all the pedals to to help them and this is
an adaptation of that, so it only has a single pedal.
But there's one supplier that AR know of in South
Africa that does all our vehicles. And yeah, they've they've
(09:13):
been fantastic.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Please can we talk about the fleet? Oh? What have
you got?
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I think we've got a little bit for everyone. We
have an r E r V ten which is very
popular with the ladies. Girls seem to love that car
the most, really, Yeah, yeah, ma, missus and just you
know ladies that come to the store in general, that's
the car they want to drive. So I thought i'd
start with that one being. Yes, we have the Portion
(09:40):
nine eleven Turbo, a black one you know from the
bad Boys kind of car.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yes, we have a Ferrari three to sixty.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
We have a Lamborghini Gilado, and then we've got a
little car called an aerial Atom, which most people won't
be familiar with, but it's it's an extremely fast, lightweight supercar.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
It's spectacular.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
You know, if you've watched any top gear, you'll see
it's one of the vehicles that was basically blowing juring
m Clarkson's face off when you're driving it.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
So it's basically, if you to describe it, it's not even.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
A closed vehicle.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
It's it's almost for the lay listeners, lay person listeners,
it almost looks like Formula one type of car, except
it's open on the sides.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yeah, absolutely, it's it's the closest thing to you know,
a single seater that you would have on the road.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yes, yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
In terms of how the experiences work, what does one
have access to you so somebody's like, I'm sold, I
want to go, do they get you know, how does
it all work? And what options are available when a
person comes through? And I'm assuming you obviously must have
a driver's license, and I would imagine you guys have
a minimum age that's not eighteen, So.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Funny enough, we don't have a minimum age.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Ah, it's real.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
Yeah, if you've got a license, we again, you know,
we have professionals in the vehicles, so you know we
we're able to handle any situation.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
And to be honest, the younger drivers are.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
More nervous than the older drivers, so you know, it's
not really a big issue for us. Yeah, that's the
you know, the insurance side of it covers us there,
so we be comfortable to let them drive.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Okay, So when a person arrives, what options are available
to them? Do you say to Okay, when you pay
for a session, this is what you're paying for.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
You have access to every car.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Or it around allows you to rounds on a like,
how does that all work?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
All right? So you would choose your individual vehicles.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Typically people would pre buy these before they come, so
they would say I want to drive this, this and this,
and they would pre order that. But on the day
when they're there, if they want to drive other cars,
we make sure that we have availability, you know, for
people to drive other cars on the day if they
if they want to. You know, the experience is all
from our shop. We we're not based on a on
(11:59):
a racetrack. We don't feel it was a good fit
for our vehicles and for our experience.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
It was very rush.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Yes, you know where we are now, there's a lot
more time in the vehicles. It's a lot more personal
with each person, you know, a lot of this is gifting.
So when a person's in and out of a coind
five minutes, you know, around a track, it's it's hardly
that much of an experience, whereas at least this way around,
it's a lot more personal.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
We take time with each clients.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
We do individual briefings in the car, so you know,
it's important to get people relaxed so that they actually
remember and enjoy the experience.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Are you I would imagine you know, the photo opportunities
and the videos are everything. How have you had to
approach the business in a way that allows people to
pretend like they own the Ferrari.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Well, look, we have videographers that are at all of
our events, so they do in car video. They do
interviews with the people before and after, and then we
put together a special little video for them. So you know,
we always give them something to go away with so
they can remember the day and they can, you know,
pretend it was there Ferrari for for a while.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
We like to get.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Photos of them out on the road with just them
and the car, so you know, if anyone wants to
tell that story, they more than welcome to.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I think that is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
How what is the business model or how do you
approach upgrading and rotating the fleet, because I would imagine
that some of these cars might appreciate and others might not.
Like how how do you decide, hey, let's get this
new one and mix it up.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Look, well, you know, we've we've we're still in the
phase of building up the fleet, so we're not actually
at the point of replacing the you know, existing cars
just yet.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
We do.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
You know, we buy cars very carefully. We make sure
that they are the absolute best of the vehicles that
we can find, and we're fortunate that all these vehicles
will appreciate over time.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
You know, they're all going up in value. They they
very rare scarce cause so you know.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Over time, I'm not saying they're going to double in value,
but they're always going up.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
So at no point are the assets devaluing.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
There's a question which says, where do I sign up
to get racing training to join a rally cross team.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Chad and Jannisburg, sure, rally training. I'm not too sure,
to be honest with you. You know, again, you've got
to start with kating, you know, and people don't realize
the importance of kating a cart is the most fundamental
in go crt.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yes, yeah, and it's not the go karting that you
see at the mall.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
In that I mean, that's a good place to start,
go and do a few laps, but then you want
to get into a more professional vehicle and you need
to learn to master that vehicle.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And once you can master that.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
You know, you can move into you know, bigger vehicle classes,
or you can go to rally or off road racing.
But I really you know, as a trainer myself, I
always recommend start with kating, cut your teeth there and
then move on.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
It being Women's month, how many women are you sort
of seeing getting more interested in vehicles at the level
that men are, you know, in love with vehicles.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
So my business is quite interesting in the person who
buys the the voucher most of the time is a woman,
all right, and typically gifted to a man. But then
on the flip side, a lot of men also buy
their wives experiences to come and drive. And I promise
you women enjoy the experience more than men, you know,
the looks on their faces and how they enjoy it.
(15:26):
I think men a lot of the time have done
a lot of things, and you know, like in terms
of motorsports and driving cars and things. So when it
comes to ladies getting in there, I think they're so
blown away by what it is, and you know, it's
not something they would necessarily go out and do, but
when they go and do it with us, they rave
about it and they have a great time. So yeah,
that's I think ladies do love it, but it's just
(15:47):
a bit of a tough sell.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
To get them in. You know, they're not always sure
they want to do it.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
I'm having a chuckle to myself because I'm like, if
your husband takes you for a test for me, you're communicating.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
That you're buying me the car.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Because I'm like, come on, is this not me saying
I like the car, get it for I'll take it.
How much does it cost for you to go in
this experience?
Speaker 4 (16:15):
So process are from one thousand, two hundred and fifty
rand up per experience. The route is about ten kilometers long.
Each experience takes about twenty minutes to complete. The proces
is very on the vehicles, so depending what you want
to drive and how many you want to drive, letul
obviously change the costing. But yeah, from one thousand, two
hundred and fifty rand, so really not that expensive.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
The website, you can get.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Us at race dash Day, dash Events, dot co, dot za.
You can get us on Instagram and TikTok race Day
Events one word underscore z A and on Facebook we
are Race Day Events.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
And I hear that you guys are looking to go
into Cape Town.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yes we are.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Well, look, before we get to Cape the year were
obviously coming into you know, the corporate season now gear
in functions and team builders and that, so that gets
extremely popular before the end of the year. But from
December until the end of February, we will be in Capetan.
We're doing a pilot project down there for three months.
Some of the most beautiful roads in the world and
some of the most beautiful cars in the world.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I mean, the cause, the ocean view. I am so
down for Thank you so much for coming through. Thank
you so much for chatting to us and in our
car future.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
For today, Thank you so much.
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