Category: Let's talk
South African Hein Wagner has become the world’s fastest blind driver. Driving a red Maserati V8 Gransport, he notched up 269 kilometre per hour along an
airstrip in north-west South Africa.“It is an absolutely awesome feeling. It was so fast,” the 33-year-old said, after breaking the previous 233km per
hour record.
Blind from birth, Mr Wagner is a motivational speaker from Cape Town and was raising funds for the South African National Council for the Blind.
Though blind, his eyes are, however, open. “We’ve raised 60,000 rand ($9,500) so far and I’m aiming to get 100,000 rand ($15,500),” he told the British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website on his arrival back in Cape Town. The record was set on an airstrip because blind people are not allowed to drive
on public roads, he said.
“I’m exhausted, I can see why people don’t manage to break records very often,” he said. “I had five hours training in the car before I made the attempt,”
he said. He said he had to drive the sports car, owned by the car dealer, Viglietti, without any insurance. “Unsurprisingly, nobody would risk insuring
a blind driver,” Wagner said. He describes himself as a “blind man with vision” and this is not his only intrepid sporting success.
In 1998, he was part of the South African blind cricket team which won the first-ever blind World Cup. He has also completed two marathons; climbed 10 of
the highest mountains in South Africa’s Western Cape region and finished the Cape to Rio Yacht Race in 1993. His next ambition, he said, is to break the
blind world air speed record in a plane. “I enjoy flying, so I’ll investigate that perhaps in the next six months,” he said.
i've never heard of a blind driver. where did you hear that?
well, it was on the news yesterday on TV. and I just looked up a article on it on news.google.com
WEll, I mean, if it makes him happy, sure, but I don't really see the big deal though. He is a remarkable guy though, running a marathon is really incredibly hard and I admire that but driving a car on a big open field, sure, it takes some guts for sure, but beyond that you just push down the gas and go, I've never been too into motor sports so perhaps there's a lot more to it than that, but I'm sure I could find something, like a blind man's record for eating baked beans or something if I wanted attention. At lesat this was done for a good cause, which is cool.