VRG History:

Our Club was founded in May, 2004 at NHMS. The founders met in Brad Marshall’s motorhome at the track, and decided to form a club, and appointed the officers and board members. It was announced at the drivers’ meeting the following day.  There were no additional events in the remaining months of 2004.  There were other meetings prior to May 2004 to plan and consider the creation of the new club including in Tivvy’s trailer at Mont Tremblant but the actual Club was founded in May, 2004 by Bob Girvin, Mark Palmer, Brad Marshall, Tivvy Shenton, Ralph Steinberg, Bill Hollingsworth, Chris Shoemaker, David Fenton and Kim Eastman.

Our founders set up a great process with term limits with a rotation to encourage fresh opinions and ideas as the club evolves. This process has led the club to remarkable growth and success over time and we thank our founders for their prescient planning and ongoing advice throughout the club’s history.

EARLY EVENT HISTORY:

2004: The NHMS event was officially sanctioned by NHMS, with Brad Marshall supporting. Later in the year, Mike Connelly invited VRG to join the PVGP at PittRace in 2005 which was the second year of the PittRace event as well as the second year of VRG, and we accepted.

2005:  VRG was the sanctioning body for three events: NHMS in May, PittRace in July (with PVGP), and Summit Point Shenandoah (in October).  We also ran the first VRG School at NHMS as a stand-alone event in July.  We negotiated deals with several other clubs, to be partners/invited guests at the following events:  VDCA/VIR, VARAC/Mosport and Tremblant, and VSCDA/Mid-Ohio.  So our schedule consisted of three of our own events plus the School, and four partner/invitation events.

2006:  VRG added the Turkey Bowl to the schedule in addition to the 2005 events.

2007:  VRG added Watkins Glen by partnering with EMRA on their existing date.  Also, the VRG School was added to the NHMS race event in May.  We moved Shenandoah from October to August.  Otherwise same schedule as 2006.

2008:  We added NJMP, this was the first year that the track was open.  We took over the Watkins Glen contract from EMRA.  Tremblant and Shenandoah were dropped from the schedule. Otherwise same as 2007.

2009:  We added the Jefferson 500, otherwise same as 2008. This meant that after 5 years, VRG now sanctioned 8 events at 7 different tracks, from April to November.

Over the time between 2009 and 2019, VRG added events at Thompson in CT, Palmer in MA and ran our own event at PittRace. We tried both Lightning and Thunderbolt at NJMP and moved some events around on the calendar over time. The school was moved from NHMS to Summit Point, to take place in the days before the Jefferson 500.

2019: VRG was asked by Dan DelBianco and Ken Murin from PVGP and Skip Barber and Murray Smith from LimeRock to rejoin/join their events at PittRace in July and LimeRock in September. As a result, our events at NJMP and PittRace were dropped and the schedule was now a very diverse mix of tracks, festivals and Club events and contains a mix of events where we operate the event independently, as well as events where we support and sanction the event.

2020: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the planned schedule did not happen (PVGP, Jefferson 500, Thompson and the Wild Hare were all cancelled). However, VRG did participate in their first official LimeRock Historics, as well as running the only race weekend at Watkins Glen in 2020 and a Turkey Bowl that was as successful as any, back to the early days!