Soweto ‘spinners’ in new TV show

THE “spinners” of Soweto star in the former Top Gear stars’ adrenalin-filled new TV show.

Presenter James May investigates the underground racing craze in which drivers spin their wheels at high speed until their tyres are shredded.

“May wanted to throw up after being one of the spinner’s passengers,” a source told Mail Online.

“He clearly didn’t enjoy the experience and appeared to have drawn the short straw.”

Soweto is said to have 10 000 spinners, whose exploits make them local celebrities.

Some of them joined the 350-strong audience when May, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond filmed a studio segment of The Grand Tour –a 12-episode series due to premiere on Amazon Prime on Friday – in a tent in Johannesburg.

Oscar-winning South African actress Charlize Theron was seen by the South African audience being “hunted by a lion”, Mail Online reported.

“The tent has a massive gauze window which overlooked the bare valley behind the guys, and Jeremy announced that he was going to have the crowd’s favourite local celebrity fed to a lion.

“They saw a guy dressed as a lion chasing a blonde woman, who looked like Charlize Theron, and then bring her down.as a lion would in a kill in the wild.

“It was all over very quickly, and it was funny and shocking at the same time because Charlize is such a big star. Jeremy just said to the crowd, ‘Oh sorry, she’s dead’.

“Then the show moved on as if nothing had happened.”

The Johannesburg audience also took part in a quiz, facing punishments for incorrect answers.

Amazon is said to have paid for 36 episodes of The Grand Tour over three years, at an estimated R81-million a show.