City Press Motoring Editor Steve Dlamini-Kabini has passed away. Steve was riding his Honda CBR 1000RR superbike on the way to the A1 GP race in Kayalami this morning when he collided with a white Audi S3. Details of exactly what happened are incomplete at this point but I understand he was overtaking a fleet of cars which had come to a standstill because of temporary A1-related road closures on Allandale road, Midrand, just off the N1 north. The S3 was attempting to leave the traffic jam by doing a U turn.
I got that shocking call from a friend as soon as I walked into my house after spending the night with the Renault guys for the Sandero local launch. I actually thought it was a prank call because we’d all been with Steve on Saturday at the launch. He had arrived at the launch riding the bike and was his usual chirpy, cheerful self. We joked around with him during lunch and he said he wasn’t spending the night with us at the hotel, and after lunch said goodbye. That was the last time I saw him alive.
After the call my wife and I went straight to the accident scene. On the way I got several calls from other motoring journalists and industry colleagues who had also heard these horrible unbelievable news. To me it felt like a dream, a bad dream I’d soon be woken up from with another call. But it wasn’t. It was real. I knew as soon as I stopped a few metres from his motionless body that it was him, and that he was truly gone. His hard leather jacket was still on him but the black helmet was cracked. Seeing the helmet confirmed my worst fears; that he had received a head wound and was probably taken by it. The bike had been flung about 150m on to the other side of the road. It looked badly damaged and the tow truck driver at the scene said it was a complete write-off.
Steve’s photographer colleague at City Press was the first on the scene because he himself had been stuck in that line of traffic going to cover the A1 GP. He said he heard the bike go past him and the next minute Steve was laying on the floor. He then identified the body and started making calls.
I first met Steve (32) about 7 years ago when he was still Motoring Editor of the then-new daily Daily Sun. Previously he had been the motoring writer at sister paper the Sunday Sun. He was an optimistic bloke who although dreamt of moving up in the world of motoring journalism beyond the daily tabloid, never took his eye off the goal. Eventually his dream came true when he was appointed Motoring Editor at City Press in early 2006.
Myself and other industry colleagues will remember him for his easy style, his enthusiasm for cars and bikes, his work and his humour. He would put an entire room in stitches until we all cried when the mood took him. Where there was Steve there was sure to be lots of laughter. When we all last saw him on Saturday afternoon he was at his best making a joke about another colleague. He then bade us farewell and said he was not sleeping over with us.
The South African motoring industry has lost a friend and important piece of its puzzle in Steve. He was known for asking tough questions of motor manufacturers if he felt shortchanged as far as information was concerned. Some co-workers also understood him to be a tough customer to work with. That was the Steve I knew.
I know we will all miss him dearly. We wish his wife Berenice and his two children, a boy and a girl, the most strength ahead in this their greatest personal loss. We cannot begin to fathom what they are going through but we know in time they will go through it.
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