‘BOSS OF THE ROAD’ TO BOOST TOURISM SECTOR

MBABANE - Talk about a ‘boss’ event!

The much-anticipated ‘Boss of the Road’ event will not just be about fast cars and bikes, but is set to boost the country’s tourism sector. This is because over 20 drivers from neighbouring South Africa and Mozambique are set to participate in the event and they will be accompanied by their race crews. The event is stated for Saturday January 29, 2022, at the Biotechnology Park situated at Nokwane next to the Summerfield Botanical Gardens. The drivers of the cars will also spend on fuel plus book into local hotels. This was confirmed by the Race Director and President of the Obsession Motorsport Eswatini (OME), Terence Rudd.

According to Rudd, Mozambique visitors had to be limited to 20 race entrants and that South African drivers had confirmed eight participants as well. He stated that the visiting motor clubs would come into the country with a support crew and family, looking at making a weekend out of it. “Local hotel accommodation near Biotech is sure to benefit from bookings of these visitors which will be a much-needed boost to our tourism sector and hotel industry. The official afterparty venue will be at Esibayeni Lodge and many of our local drivers and partners will be looking to book in at Esibayeni Lodge to avoid drinking while driving and being able to relax after a fun day at the races, where drone footage of the days event will be shown on the big screens with music from a local DJ,” said Rudd.

He explained that the about 28 foreign drivers plus support crews would begin to arrive in the kingdom from Friday afternoon. “They will mainly be here for the race day and afterparty, departing country on Sunday at their leisure. We anticipate that some will take the opportunity on Sunday to visit tourist attractions around our kingdom. As this is the inaugural event, undoubtedly, foreign interest will grow event on event and we will begin to see a surge in participants and spectators as drone and video footage makes its way onto the international media circuit,” he highlighted. Rudd was asked on the types of cars and bikes that would be racing and he stated that OME readily accepted all motor heads which meant that they promoted inclusive racing where there were classifications for all performance cars.

Scene

“So, expect anything from a Polo GTi (14.3 sec) to a Porsche (10.21sec). On the bike scene, we have some really super-fast entrants with local OME bikes being the BMW RR, Kawasaki ZX10 and the Kawasaki H2. Undoubtedly there will be one or two sleepers in the pack, so the crowd may be in for one or two shocks. A sleeper is a car that looks very stock standard on the outside but when you open the bonnet, its got what we call chillies,” he explained. The main aim of the event, according to Rudd, is to offer local drivers 960 meters of track to race in a controlled and safe environment.  He said supporters would witness first of its kind street legal drag racing with race timing equipment in place, allowing for instant times to be displayed on the big screens as the cars or bikes cross the line.  

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