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Yolanda “Girlie” Lukhele is a South African sim racer, content creator, and rookie rally driver who turned a second-hand Xbox into a credible motorsport career — and is only getting started.

EARLY YEARS

Growing up, Lukhele was drawn to anything with wheels: rollerblades, bicycles, quad bikes [1]. She also grew up playing games on the original Xbox [1]. Those two threads would eventually converge. Her parents supported her early interest in gaming by helping her buy games and expansion packs, and she later saved up to purchase a steering wheel, pedals, and shifter of her own [2]. Around 2018, she began her motorsport journey in earnest [3], though a more formal push into sim racing as a vehicle toward real competition came later.

In 2023, a friend pointed her toward the YouTube creator Cookies and Cars and suggested she get a sim wheel and start posting content. She borrowed an Xbox, fired up a racing game, and began [3]. The early going was rough in the way it is for anyone learning from scratch: she struggled with heel-toe shifting, handbrake use, and left-foot braking. Experienced sim racers helped her through comments on her videos [3]. The community, it turns out, was a classroom.

She pursued a law degree and worked as a candidate attorney while the racing and content creation were ramping up. Eventually, the balance became untenable — content opportunities were growing faster than the calendar could accommodate both [3]. Law’s loss was motorsport’s gain.

She started on a second-hand Xbox before circumstances pushed an upgrade. As she later explained: “I started out with a second-hand Xbox which I eventually had to upgrade in a few months’ time as many of the games I liked were being phased out of that Xbox.” [2] The sim racing, she’s been clear, wasn’t just screen time. “Sim-racing truly played a huge role in shaping and developing me as a driver.” [2]

OTHER INTERESTS

Lukhele creates content centred on sim racing and her motorsport learning process, sharing her progress and experiences with her audience as she goes [2]. She has partnered with sim-racing companies, and affiliate programmes have provided her with the most consistent creator income — she has specifically named Next Level Racing and EA Sports as partners [3]. Some of that income goes back into racing, which is, as she has noted, an expensive pursuit [2][3].

She has described quad biking and sim racing as activities she gravitated toward in spaces where boys outnumbered girls, and said she was simply inclined to go ahead if she wanted to do something [3]. That disposition has served her well in a sport that has historically made access difficult for people who look like her.

EARLY SUCCESS

The transition from sim to real car was built on deliberate preparation. Sim racing helped her learn techniques and get comfortable with pace notes before she ever applied them at speed in an actual vehicle [3]. When she did get behind the wheel of a rally car, the groundwork was already laid.

In 2026, she competed in the South African National Rally Championship alongside co-driver Shaun Visser under the SHIELD Racing banner, piloting a Toyota RunX. The pair finished 10th overall in their event [4]. It was the kind of result that doesn’t make headlines but tells you someone is doing the work.

Also in 2026, she competed at the Simola Hillclimb in the King of the Swifts competition as part of Team Suzuki, driving a Suzuki Swift. Suzuki reported she broke into the 1:05s on a run [5] — a benchmark that confirmed the sim hours were translating.

Then came May 2026 and a different kind of test entirely. Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa selected her for the GR Cup Hot Seat programme, placing her in a GR Yaris AT for Round 3 of the GR Cup Media Challenge at Zwartkops — her first-ever circuit-racing experience [1]. She qualified fifth in the class and finished third in class in both races [1]. Toyota described the performance as “impressive” and the debut as “memorable” [1]. Her own assessment was unambiguous: “To sum up the GR Cup, wow, it was phenomenal. It was honestly an out-of-this-world experience.” [1]

NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS

• 2026: Made her circuit-racing debut at Zwartkops in the GR Cup Media Challenge, qualifying fifth in class and finishing third in class in both races on her first-ever GR Cup appearance [1].
• 2026: Competed at the Simola Hillclimb King of the Swifts with Team Suzuki, recording a run in the 1:05s in a Suzuki Swift [5].
• 2026: Finished 10th overall in a South African National Rally Championship event, co-driven by Shaun Visser in a SHIELD Racing Toyota RunX [4].

INSPIRATIONS

A friend’s suggestion to look up the YouTube channel Cookies and Cars was the nudge that started the whole content-and-competition journey [3]. Beyond that single prompt, it was the online community that shaped her development — experienced sim racers who left comments and guidance as she worked through the technical difficulties of learning to drive fast in a virtual environment [3]. She has also credited audience feedback more broadly with helping her develop both her skills and her content [3].

On the question of representation in motorsport, she has said the sport has made progress — more women and people of colour are visible in it — while identifying access to information and support structures as areas still needing work [2]. She has called for better access to rally and event information, more talent-search initiatives, and more support to help interested people find a path in [2].

REPUTATION

Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa described her May 2026 GR Cup debut at Zwartkops as “memorable” and her two class podium finishes as an “impressive performance” [1] — this from a manufacturer programme that places media figures and content creators in competition-spec hardware and watches what happens. She also acknowledged the particular pressure she placed on herself: she has described feeling the weight of proving herself both as a woman and as a content creator entering a sport that tends to be skeptical of both [3].

FUTURE GOALS/PLANS

As of a July 20, 2026 profile, gravel rallying is her next competitive target, with the move planned for the coming months [3]. She has also described encouraging others to try sim racing and step outside their comfort zones as a personally meaningful goal — a throughline that connects her content work to her competitive ambitions [3].

References:

[1] Toyota South Africa, “UPDATED: GIRLIE LUKHELE IMPRESSES IN GR CUP HOT SEAT DEBUT AT ZWARTKOPS”
[2] Gadget, “Girlie Lukhele turns screen time into track time”
[3] Net Influencer, “Driving Her Own Story: How Creator Girlie Lukhele Turned Content Into a Motorsport Career”
[4] The Citizen, “Slippery start to National Rally Championship campaign”
[5] Suzuki Auto South Africa, “King of the Swifts delivers thrilling finale at Simola”