Hot Rodding and a love of speed spans our borders and has gone international. Here in the USA we seem to take our access to speed and places to test our vehicles almost for granted. In recent years, top speed events and record setting have taken on new popularity. With proliferation of supercars making incredible horsepower from the factory, and the bump in domestic performance engine output and capability as well. 

Events like the fabled speed week at Bonneville, The Texas Mile, and East Coast Timing Association meets, as well as many others have served to increase the interest in running your car flat out. Let’s not forget either that here in the USA we also have numerous drag strips, most highly populated areas of the country have at least one quarter mile or eighth mile track within a couple hours driving distance from them. In other countries though they aren’t as fortunate. While wide open spaces are easily found, that’s not always the case everywhere. 

In South Africa however they did find a place to hold a speed week event. The Kalahari desert  pan is 600 square kilometers (nearly 373 square miles) of flat and arid plain. The images of the area remind you of much of what you might think of when someone says Africa. Flat, as though the Earth itself had lost it’s curvature, not much vegetation, save for some scrub brush and the occasional tree, sand and dust as far as you can see in nearly every direction, looming mountains in the distance. This just happens to be an ideal place to hold a top speed meet. 

We recently came across this video from the Kalahari desert Speedweek 2012, the first ever speed week in South Africa, perhaps the first ever event of it’s kind on the continent. While the event did not have the monstrous turnout like Bonneville might, it still gave those living, willing and able  in the southern portion of this massive continent a chance to take out their vehicles and see what they can do. The course was laid out as a seven kilometer track with an area for a 5km run (3.1 mile) and a 2km shut down. There was also a quarter-mile track and a Gymkhana area.

Results for the event were posted online. This year the 200MPH mark was just missed, with the Suzuki Hayabusa of Andrew Van Zyl making close at 321km/h (199MPH). The fastest car in attendance was a Lamborghini Aventador owned by Greg Parton, tripping the 5km timer at 308 km/h (191mph). Fastest musclcar appears to have been the ’72 Ford Mustang of Gary Mulder with a speed of 204km/h (126mph). Fastest street rod would go to the ’41 Ford pickup of Barry Ashmole with a speed of 178km/h (110MPH). Given that this was the first time the event was held, all of these numbers seem fairly solid for an inaugural event. 

The Kalahari Desert Speedweek Club setup a small village area complete with food and press tents, as well as an on–site camping area. Hardcore enthusiasts made their way to the area, which from what we can tell is literally the middle of nowhere. This video, set to some opera for dramatic effect, has some of the event’s highlights. Hot rods, supercars, motorcycles, musclecars and everyday vehicles all took part.

We found it very cool to see high speed racing going on in a part of the world that most of us would never associate with motorsports and speed. We also found the types of cars in attendance quite surprising, classic and hot rod trucks and cars, muscle cars that any enthusiast will recognize, as well as late model every day cars.

We hope for the enthusiasts in this part of the world that this event continues to grow each year, another meet is planned for September 2013. So who wants to sponsor us a trip to South Africa to cover this one and checkout the cool cars from literally the other side of the planet next fall?