A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Gayton McKenzie has always loved cars. He's an ex-con whose criminal career began when he was a teenager driving the getaway car for a gang. Now he's South Africa's new sports minister and he's ready to use his post to promote car spinning, a high-risk motor sport that grew out of South Africa's ganglands. Kate Bartlett has the story from Johannesburg.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR REVVING)
KATE BARTLETT, BYLINE: Tires screech and smoke rises from the tarmac as a souped-up BMW careens wildly around a makeshift course. While it loops at breakneck speed, the passenger climbs precariously out of the vehicle's window and onto the roof. The crowd goes wild.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR REVVING)
KAYLA OLIPHANT: I think I'm a car fanatic, a speed fanatic, so I chose spinning for the adrenaline. I enjoy the fast cars, the sound of the cars as well. It just gives me so much joy.
BARTLETT: Twenty-three-year-old Kayla Oliphant is sometimes called the Queen of Spin. She started spinning at just 14, before she could legally drive. The concept is simple. A car races around in circles at high speed while the passenger, or even driver, perform stunts outside the car.
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, we are here at Wheelz N Smoke...
BARTLETT: Car spinning began in South Africa's townships under apartheid as a funeral rite for gangsters, a way to honor the fallen. Usually, the cars were stolen. Now the sports minister, Gayton McKenzie, aims to bring spinning into the mainstream.
GAYTON MCKENZIE: I robbed my first bank before I reached 16 years old. It's not as glamorous as the movies make it.
BARTLETT: McKenzie was in and out of jail through his youth and was sentenced to 17 years for armed robbery. Paroled after 10 years, he decided to remake himself. He became a motivational speaker at high schools, a millionaire businessman and the author of a book he called "A Hustler's Bible." Then he got into politics.
MCKENZIE: I could see how politics is not serving the community which I'm from, which is the colored community. They were not white enough during apartheid, and now they're not Black enough.
BARTLETT: In South Africa, colored is an official term that refers to people of mixed-race heritage. McKenzie set up a populist party called the Patriotic Alliance in 2013. It has been criticized for being xenophobic, with McKenzie advocating for the mass deportation of illegal immigrants and a return of the death penalty.
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MCKENZIE: I, Gayton McKenzie, swear, solemnly affirm, that I will be faithful to the Republic of South Africa.
BARTLETT: His party performed well in recent elections and was invited to join the governing coalition after the long-dominant African National Congress found itself without a majority for the first time. And, suddenly, McKenzie the ex-convict became McKenzie the cabinet minister, a moment he made light of at his swearing-in ceremony.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MCKENZIE: The last time a judge asked me to serve, he made me serve for 10 years.
(LAUGHTER)
BARTLETT: McKenzie has many detractors, who say the former gangster is not qualified for the role and has no experience in sports or arts. He says he's starting with what he knows best.
MCKENZIE: I've done spinning all my life. That's why I know, when they say petrol heads, you're not going to get those kids away from spinning.
BARTLETT: Car spinning can have a positive influence, he argues.
MCKENZIE: Ask the police - every time there's a spinning event, the shooting stops. The crime goes down. You can check with the police.
BARTLETT: But the sport can be deadly. Vehicles that veer out of control have killed and injured spectators in the past.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR REVVING)
BARTLETT: But McKenzie wants to take it off street corners and into stadiums like this one in Johannesburg, where it's regulated and money can be made.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR REVVING)
BARTLETT: For NPR News, I'm Kate Bartlett in Johannesburg.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARDIAN BUJUPI'S "WIE IM TRAUM (INSTRUMENTAL)")
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