Born in Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa, Botha was an avid sports car and endurance racer.

During the VIII Grande Premio de Angola, the Elva proved its worth, achieving a fifth overall splitting the pack of Ferrari 250GTs from first to eighth.

During a race at Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, in Mozambique, he crashed heavily as a run-off area was swamped by the crowd.

Later he continued his love of South Africa by farming in the KZN-Midlands before moving to East London to fill a post as an engineer.

A number of years later he moved his family back to his birth town of Pretoria where he later was appointed as CEO of the Tswane Metropolitan Council.