BMS pushes for Africa's longest race
Kabelo Boranabi | Saturday November 18, 2023 06:00
The race was to be dubbed Morolong and was to make its debut in 2020 only to be disturbed among others by the outbreak of COVID-19. Goodhope had emerged as the starting and finishing point for a race that was meant to cover between 5,000km and 7,000km for seven days in the furthest south terrain of the Borolong area.
Morolong would eclipse the World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) race, Rally de Maroc which stretches just under 3,000km while the popular 'Mantshwabisi' has a distance of around 1,000km. The race budget is around P10 million and the event was launched in Goodhope in 2019. "We have engaged the government with regards to these kinds of projects so right now it is an issue of going back to the drawing board. We have not finalised anything yet but it is something that is being thought of, information is being put together and the project costs have been included (in our talks)," BMS president, Kagiso Modibedi said this week.
He further told MmegiSport that talks are to be concluded in the near future with the next two years lined up to host the race. "In the next year, we will be working with one or two clubs looking to benchmark from them on how they operate the longer distance races. We will be using those to find where to fix it if there is a need. Before you get these particular big races, you would want it to be in the federation calendar," Modibedi said. He also stated the BMS could make a debut appearance at the FIA Motorsport Games in 2024.
The FIA games are a biennial event that includes 16 competitions from nine motorsport disciplines such as circuit, rallying, autocross, karting, and Esports amongst others. The BMS will this weekend conclude the 2023 Motocross season in Orapa. The BMS will host rounds three and four of the BMS National Motocross Championship at the Orapa MX Track. The championship is limited to four rounds this season as competition was delayed by insurance obligations.