The Motor Racing Association (MRA) was inaugurated on the 28th of June, 1999, with Founder President Mr. Bri Ponnambalam & Vice President Mr. Richard De Zoysa, together with 60 leading racing drivers of the time present at the commencement of the club’s illustrious history. Among the first events organized by the club were the St. James Hill Climb, resurrected to a resounding success after a lapse of 45 years, and the revived Talduwa Rallycross, the first event organized in a now-longstanding association with the Sri Lanka Army.
In February 2002 the MRA organized the first ever international style special stage rally to Sri Lanka, run on the grounds of the Pelwatte Sugar Industries plantation. This event birthed high-speed rallying in Sri Lanka and over the years the MRA has run several successful rallies across the island, from the classic sugarcane plantation gravel stages of Pelwatte, Sevanagala and Kantale, to tarmac rallies in Kukuleganga & Samanalweva.
Rallying is in the club’s DNA and in 2019 we returned to special-stage rallying action with the highly successful Northern Speed Rally, the first-ever motorsport in the Northern Province, and also the first Sri Lankan rally to feature a city-based spectator superspecial, run at night in front of the historic Jaffna Fort, watched by large crowds. This event was also conducted jointly with the Sri Lanka Army Motorsports Committee (SLAMSC), and only saw
success thanks to the untiring efforts of Major-General Indu Samarakoon, himself a former President of the MRA, Colonel Duminda Jayasinghe, and the other officers of the Sri Lanka Army Motorsports Committee.
In addition to its core discipline of special stage rallying, the MRA also conducted the Carlton Supercross meet in Tissamarahama for many years (a RallyCross event for cars, and Motocross for bikes), numerous TSD Rallies, and in 2021 went back to Kukuleganga area to run the highly-successful and very fast KKG Speed Hill Climb, once again in partnership with SLAMSC.
