The North American Road Racing Association (NARRA) was created in November, 2008 when a group of drivers bought the assets of Viper Days and the Viper Racing League. The purchase of a series with so much history and achievement has allowed NARRA to build upon a foundation that took Skip Thomas fourteen years to create.
In 1994, Skip learned of a man who was involved in a fatal accident while casually driving his new Dodge Viper on a sunny afternoon in Florida. At the time, the Viper was the fastest high-performance sports car made in America and these accidents were becoming all too familiar. Skip started a driving school, named Viper Days that was dedicated to properly teachinf people how to drive a sports car with such an incredible amount of torque and horsepower.
After getting started, it wasn’t long when a group of BMW and Porsche club instructors agreed to help Viper Days teach their students how to safely handle high performance sports cars. In the early years, Viper Days proved to be a big hit as the car continued to gain popularity among a very passionate group of high speed enthusiasts. The series attracted sponsorship support from companies such as Hoosier, Michelin and the Viper Club of America which allowed Mr. Thomas to host up to sixteen events per year.
In 1998, a timed lapping series was introduced to create more competition between the drivers and to promote individual performance. The Michelin Challenge Series quickly become the center of attention. Sitting at the start/finish line with a stop watch, a group of drivers competed to see who could lay down the fastest lap times at some of the country’s most popular road courses.
Two years later, the Viper Racing League was created to answer an increasing demand from drivers who wanted to compete in a wheel-to-wheel amateur road racing series. It’s interesting to note, that under the leadership of Skip Thomas, seventeen drivers who participated in the VRL have moved on to compete in variety of professional racing series such as SCCA World Challenge, Grand Am Series, and the American LeMans Series.
