If you’re into fast cars and love driving them too, you would have been as excited as I was when I got the email inviting me to the launch of the 2015 Ford Focus ST!
The launch took place in Durban, which is a city I’ve only been to twice in my adult life, both times to go check out cars! The first time I went there was a couple of years ago to watch the Top Gear Show, but this year I got to live in my own Top Gear show with a buddy of mine Dene Botha as we test drove the all new 2015 Ford Focus ST!
Despite an early start to the day with a 6am flight out of Cape Town, when we all landed in Durban and were greeted with this sick line up of cars, the last thing on any of our minds was sleep!
What’s better is that we were told that we were going to be driving these beasts from the airport to a RACE TRACK 170km’s away! This meant that we didn’t just get to see Durban, but we got to see a bit of the South Coast of Kwazulu Natal too!
Dene drove first, but at around 75km’s into the drive, there was a driver change, which is where I got to put my hands around that beautiful new steering wheel of the 2015 Ford Focus ST and down my foot went! VROOM!
From there we drove to the Dezzi Raceway which is one of the few racing tracks close to Durban itself, which actually started off as an old Air Strip!
www.doitnow.co.za
What you don’t see from the image above is that some of those corners are blind corners, so while being shown the track by profession race car drivers at speeds of up to 200km/h, those corners certainly got the adrenaline flowing!
I’m getting ahead of myself though…
When we got to to the track, we sat down and got to hear about the amazing features the 2015 Ford Focus ST has, as well as more on the Ford Performance Cars, by none other than Mr Ford Mustang himself, Kuda Takura!
Once done with the business session, we all enjoyed burgers, curries, pop corn and more from the Food Truck that was brought in for the launch!
After that, we were split into two groups where one group got to take drive around the track while others had the opportunity to take the 2015 Ford Focus ST sideways in a gymkhana set-up!
If I didn’t miss my reverse parking, I would have been a contender to win a MONTH with the Ford Focus! Alas, one of the twins from Twins on Decks won with an incredible time of 38 seconds!
If I thought for a second that was exciting, little did I know what we were in for when we made our way back to the pits! From there we were taken around the Dezzi Raceway by a professional race car driver and I was pretty stoked I’d had time to let my food settle because I sat up front for the test run before I got to take the car around myself!
There really isn’t anything better than taking a car onto a racetrack because you don’t have to worry about any other cars around you AND you get to drive fast, VERY FAST!!!
Once I got back from my 3 laps around the track, I was pumped FULL of adrenaline and to cool off, I got to enjoy an ice cold magnum as the rain started blowing in, which is also when I decided to give panning photography a bash!
Here are my very first attempts at taking panning shots, which I think came out pretty cool!!
The day finally came to an end, much to the dismay of everyone that attended the 2015 Ford Focus ST Launch and we all made our into the sunset as we drove back to the airport.
Thanks again Ford South Africa for such an epic day out, I cannot wait till the next time we get to hang out!
Check out ALL the photos I’ve edited from the day on my Life of Mike Facebook Page.
