Phakisa Freeway was built on the site of the former Goldfields Raceway, which had closed in 1997 following financial difficulties associated with the decline of the gold-mining economy in the Welkom region. The current facility opened in 1999 and comprises two distinct layouts: a 4.242-kilometre road course and a 2.414-kilometre oval.
The oval track was constructed along lines similar to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in its 1997 configuration, with 12-degree banking in the turns, nine degrees on the tri-oval section, and three degrees on the backstretch. The ambition of the developers was to attract American oval-racing series such as NASCAR or IndyCar to South Africa. The road course uses the oval's pit lane as its backstraight and crosses the oval's backstretch at two points, creating an unusual hybrid configuration.
Phakisa Freeway is one of the very few oval speedways outside the United States and is the only banked oval circuit on the African continent.
From the circuit's opening year in 1999, Phakisa Freeway hosted the South African Motorcycle Grand Prix as part of the FIM Road Racing World Championship. The event ran for six consecutive seasons, making it a regular if relatively brief fixture on the MotoGP calendar during the transitional period from the 500cc two-stroke era into the four-stroke MotoGP class that was formally introduced in 2002.
The Welkom round attracted the full field of premier-class riders during its run, and the wide, fast nature of the circuit — influenced by its oval origins — produced racing with high average speeds and significant opportunities for slipstreaming on the long straights. The event did not return after 2004, and South Africa has not hosted a MotoGP round since.
After the departure of MotoGP, Phakisa Freeway's international profile declined sharply. The Superbike World Championship announced plans to race there from 2014 onwards, but homologation issues prevented the series from ever competing at the circuit, and those plans were ultimately abandoned. Since 2014, Phakisa Freeway has hosted only national-level events.
The oval track hosted one notable international event: the Free State 500 in 2010, in which the American Speed Association imported NASCAR Generation 4 stock cars to South Africa. Drivers from South Africa, Europe, and the United States competed, including former NASCAR competitor Geoff Bodine. The Free State 500 remained the only race held on the oval portion of the facility.
Phakisa Freeway occupies a minor but distinct place in MotoGP history as the venue that brought the world motorcycle championship to Africa. Its six-year run as a MotoGP host coincided with the championship's transition from two-stroke to four-stroke machinery, meaning it witnessed both the final years of the 500cc class and the early seasons of the modern MotoGP era. No successor venue on the continent has emerged, leaving South Africa's participation in top-level motorcycle racing limited to this six-year window at the turn of the millennium.