Ready to EXPLORE
IN 1967, the Roof of Africa was contested for the first time. After Lesotho received some international funding in the early ‘60s, a gent by the name of Bob Phillips was tasked with building a road up the Moteng track from Butha Buthe to ease access to central Lesotho. As the road neared completion, Bob bragged to his friend Louis Duffet from the RAC that he had built the world’s worst road. Duffet took it to the sports car club where John Butress was asked to organise a rally crossing Duffet’s Moteng Mountain Pass.
The rally started in Johannesburg, had an overnight stop in Bethlehem before crossing Moteng Pass, following the mountains past Mokhotlong and down Sani Pass before finishing on the Durban beachfront. The rally element was eventually scrapped and a race from start to finish was born.
Motorcycles started competing in the Roof of Africa in 1969 and it was Barry Roady who grasped the
