SCCA Executive Director John Bishop helped to create the series in 1962 to recover races that had been taken by rival USAC Road Racing Championship, a championship that folded after the 1962 season.
The USRRC ran from 1963 until 1968 when it was abandoned in favor of the more successful Can-Am series, which was also run by the SCCA.
Entries for the series were sparse, and the final two rounds were cancelled.
At the end of 1999, the series was taken over by the new Grand American Road Racing Association (GARRA) and the championship was reborn as the Grand American Road Racing Championship (Grand-Am), also known as the Rolex Sports Car Series.
In 2014, Grand-Am and the American Le Mans Series merged to form the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.