The South African Grand Prix was a Formula One World Championship event contested most years from the early 1960s through the early 1990s. It started as a race on a 23.4 km public roads course just west of East London in the 1930s. After World War II, the track was rebuilt as a 3.9 km semi-permanent course (still using some of the same public roads). The first Grand Prix was run here in 1962, but after the non-championship event in 1966, it was decided to move the race to a newer track at Kyalami, roughly halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria.