New NORRA tech director Bill Savage hopes to ensure “classic vehicles stay vintage” while prioritising safety

Bill Savage has worked with basically every major off-road motorsport under the sun from short course to desert racing, so it makes sense for NORRA to entrust him as the new technical director. He will lead the sanctioning body’s inspection team of Ray Files, Greg Garber, Mark Growe, and James Tiglio.

Savage has served as the tech director for series like SCORE International, the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, and the Mint 400. His position certainly garners him a reputation for his uncompromising adherence to the rulebook, which is to be expected out of the person who oversees vehicle inspection. With NORRA, he wants to be clear that although driver safety remains top priority, he does not wish to mess with older vehicles by slapping on the latest technology.

“Safety is number one for me,” he explained. “Safety and providing a level playing field for everyone. I want to make sure the classic vehicles stay vintage and will try to keep the high costs of racing confined to the more technologically advanced unlimited classes as much as possible.

“We will always adopt the latest safety advances for everyone, but as long as the older cars and trucks stick to the same parts and configurations they had when built, their rules will remain consistent.”

NORRA races are a mishmash of historic and modern off-road motorsport, featuring vehicles and competitors from the top series today as well as days bygone. For example, the Mexican 1000 in May was won by a 2021 Mason Motorsports Trophy Truck while other class winners included pickup trucks from the 1960s and even a Gulf War-era Chenowth Advanced Light Strike Vehicle. Cars are categorised by era: Pioneer is for those built between 1967 and 1975, Legend for 1976 to 1982, Challenger runs from 1983 to 1992, Vintage is 1993 until 2003, and the modern Evolution vehicles are from the last twenty years.

Before working in an organisational role, Savage was a decorated off-road truck builder whose companies prepared vehicles that went on to win races such as the Baja 1000. Savage himself won the 1979 Baja 1000 in Class 11 and the 1985 race in Class 14. His expertise even prompted NASA to call upon his Speed and Performance by Design (SPD) firm to help build he lunar and Mars rovers.

He was inducted into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2017. The following year, Savage and Dick Landfield entered the Mexican 1000 in a Ford Raptor with ORMHOF support, where they finished 116th overall and twenty-eighth in the Evolution Pre-Run Trucks class.

The second and final NORRA race of the year, the NORRA 500, is scheduled for 11–13 October.