Red Bull Box Cart Race is returning to Sandton Drive on Sunday 20 September 2026, and Mzansi’s most creative, most daring, and most gloriously unqualified engineers are officially invited to apply.
Red Bull Box Cart Race is a downhill race featuring hand-built, completely engine-free vehicles that bring out the teams’ creativity, and humour. Teams of up to five design a cart, build it from scratch, perform a skit at the start line to impress the judges, then send their driver hurtling down a course loaded with jumps, obstacles, and the ever-present possibility of spectacular public failure. It is a celebration of creativity, speed, and sheer ingenuity. And it is completely, beautifully unhinged.
Johannesburg last hosted the event on Sandton Drive in 2018, when 80+ teams lined up in front of twenty-five thousand spectators. This time, it’s going to be even bigger.
Think you’ve got what it takes?
Applications are open now at https://www.redbull.com/za-en/events/red-bull-box-cart-race-south-africa. Teams of up to five can submit their cart concept and team details via the online application. Show the judges a design wild enough, creative enough, and entertaining enough to earn a spot on the starting grid and you’re in.
A few ground rules: your cart must be powered by gravity only (no engines, no batteries, no catapults, no excuses). It needs functioning steering and brakes, remember, the hill is steep and your friends will be watching. Maximum dimensions apply. Beyond that, the only limit is your imagination (and possibly your budget at the hardware store).
Applications close Friday, 3 July 2026. Don’t leave your masterpiece on the drawing board.
Mzansi’s Box Cart story so far
South Africa remains the only African nation to have hosted the event, and the track record is properly entertaining. The first SA edition hit Joburg in 2003. Since then, the race has visited Johannesburg, Soweto, Sandton, and most recently the steep, cobblestoned streets of Bo-Kaap in Cape Town, where the 2022 edition drew over 22,000 spectators.
The reigning champions are The Potjie Boytjies from Stellenbosch, who won the Cape Town edition with a potjie pot on wheels, a nod to South Africa’s melting pot of cultures, and proof that the best cart concepts are the ones that tell a story nobody expected. Past judges and hosts have included Red Bull Motorsport rally driver Giniel de Villiers, rapper Nasty C, Protea’s quick bowler and Red Bull Athlete Kagiso Rabada, Red Bull BC One ambassador Courtnaé Paul, and comedian Dalin Oliver.
The 2026 edition marks Joburg’s return to the starting grid and South Africa’s seventh Red Bull Box Cart Race overall.
Previous participant | Craig Kolesky Red Bull Contentpool
The world can’t get enough of this chaos
Red Bull Box Cart Race (also known as Red Bull Soapbox Race in other parts of the world) has been running since 2000, when the first edition launched in Brussels with a simple premise: build something ridiculous, point it downhill, and hope for the best. Twenty-six years and over 160 editions later, that premise hasn’t changed, but the scale has exploded. More than five million spectators have attended events across 53 countries.
In 2025, three US editions drew record numbers, with the Des Moines event alone attracting over 35,000 people to the Iowa State Capitol grounds. Red Bull’s YouTube compilation of the most outrageous runs cracked 21 million views within months of release. The 2026 global calendar is stacking up fast, with confirmed editions in Belfast, London, Denver, and Los Angeles.
Red Bull Box Cart Race is a free event for all spectators. Further details on the event schedule, participating teams, and judges will be announced in the coming weeks.
