South Africa’s best spray-painter competes in Russia

One of South Africa’s best motor spray-painters, Trevor Roets, was invited to represent his country in the U/23 team at the International Spraypainting Championships that took place in Kazan, Russia.

He qualified to participate on international level after competing in the provincial championships. This year, 1 354 participants from 63 different countries participated in various categories at the championship. Trevor was rewarded with a gold medal and ended his championship as the 12th best spray-painter in the world.

Trevor said that something he will always remember from his time in Russia was the ritual they have for visitors from other countries, and explained, “Every country that went to Russia to participate in the Championships was given a tree that they had to plant”.

When asked what the best moment of this experience was, he replied, “Well, Russia is a very secure place, on every corner you will find a patroller and before you can enter a place, they have people searching and dogs sniffing. One dog sniffed around one of the guys’ mechatronics parts, and, based on the dog’s behaviour, it was thought to be a bomb. We were taken to the side and then the police and bomb squad showed up, just to find out that it was only metal.”

For him the journey was like no other. “It was something new. You can’t imagine how green and beautiful it is in Kazan. To see all the different countries and their technology was amazing. You see how every country does it in a different way and uses their technology on a different level to get to the same end result. But, there was one thing that was not good about them – their hash browns are definitely not made from potatoes,” he concluded.