jaki was born hard of hearing in 1974 because his Mom had rubella while she was pregnant with him. He was only around 9 months old when his parents became concerned that he wasn’t responding to his Dad’s calling behind him. He was diagnosed with severe to profound hearing loss and ended up wearing hearing aids till 2005, after which he had himself bilaterally implanted in the USA.

He went to a normal primary school that had a department for speaking and hard of hearing children. He then went on to ordinary high school where he was the only hard of hearing kid. This did not stop him from having fun and he graduated every year.

As you are aware, the Scheckter name is synonymous in the motor racing world, so jaki naturally grew up racing. He began in Motocross, both locally and nationally, where he won races and a border championship. Then in 1991, he started to race cars and in 1992 he won the South African Formula Ford Championship. In 1995 jaki won the Barber Dodge Pro Series Championship in the USA. He also won the 2013 Legends of 9 Hour Class championship in a 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 LTD.

Tomas Scheckter introduced jaki to cochlear implants in the 2000s when he was racing Indycars in the USA and jaki was his PA. Tomas supported jaki, and with the Indycar community, they got his cochlear implants. jaki chose Advanced Bionics, an American company, to be the brand he would wear for the rest of his life. He had them bilaterally implanted in his head in Indianapolis in 2005, changing his life forever.

In the early years, jaki had various jobs, mostly in the IT industry, and later in the motor car industry. Recently Jaki launched the scheckterspeed.co.za online car auction business that jaki's HEARING is proudly partnered with. Currently, he is involved with Pablo Clark Racing which has partnered with him since 2010. He drives, races and coaches in their racing Ferraris, classic BMW’s and Ford Galaxie.