SNAPSHOT: Dezzi Raceway, South Africa

Think of the great drift venues around the world and your mind will probably wander to the House of Drift at Irwindale before taking a transatlantic flight across the pond to Mondello, a skip over to Driftland in Scotland, stop off at Teesside Autodrome in the UK, trek across the continent hitting up Brno in Czech, Karpacz touge in Poland and Bikernieku in Riga, catch some sun at Yas Marina before a final jump over to Japan to visit Ebisu, Meihan, Tskuba, SportsLand Sugo, Nikko… damn, Japan is spoilt! But there’s one circuit which has caught our eye and it’s somewhat off the beaten trail.

Introducing Dezzi Raceway on the southeast coast of South Africa, around 130km south of Durban.

A relatively new circuit, Dezzi started out life as a grass runway, but has since been expanded to create an awesome-looking racetrack.

The circuit is built on private land, owned by Des Gutzeit, founder of Dezzi Equipment – manufacturers of heavy plant equipment.

The track started out life by the owner wanting to create a place to test his sports cars…

…but following a peaking interest in drifting by Des’ son, the venue was developed with drifting in mind, and we have to say, it looks amazing.

With sweeping bends, elevation shifts and a cracking view, what more could you ask for?

A built-in judging tower at the optimum position maybe?

The facilities nearby are reasonable, too.

There’s even a built-in tarmac runway, perfect for jet-setting drift stars to fly in, drift and fly out.

Dezzi currently plays host to the local South African SupaDrift series, but how long will it be before it attracts a major international event? When it does we’re booking a plane ticket, that’s for sure!