FIA Toys With Our Feelings Once Again As It Considers A U.S. World Rally Championship Event For The 5th Year In A Row

A few years ago, there was a lot of talk about a possible World Rally Championship in the U.S., only for nothing to come of it. Now the FIA is dangling that carrot in front of us again, with the announcement of a WRC candidate event to run this June.

Organised in collaboration with the Automobile Competition Committee of the United States (ACCUS), the candidate event, running from 11-17 June, will see FIA delegates conduct a thorough inspection and assessment of every aspect of rally organisation – from sporting operations to safety protocols. The goal of this event is to evaluate the potential for hosting a full WRC round in the U.S. starting in 2027.

Keen observers will note that these dates directly overlap with the Southern Ohio Performance Rally, the fourth round of this year's American Rally Association championship. At first, this may seem like quite an oversight, since the U.S. rally community will be focused there. However, the overlap is not a bug, but a feature.

Delegates will explore stages and infrastructure across Kentucky and Tennessee, gaining first-hand insight into the terrain and facilities. The programme will also include a visit to a round of the American Rally Association (ARA) National Championship, offering the FIA team a chance to engage directly with the U.S. rally community, including organisers, volunteers and fans, and meetings with the proposed event promoter and organiser, Podium Event Partners, which has long-established experience across multiple motor sport disciplines, including NASCAR.
A successful candidate event would pave the way for the United States to rejoin the WRC calendar in 2027, marking a milestone for both the championship and rallying in the country.

The term "candidate event" sounds like the FIA visiting and evaluating an existing rally event for inclusion on the WRC calendar. The Olympus Rally was the last WRC event held in the U.S. back in 1988, and it continues to run as an ARA event today. However, the candidate event FIA involves examining various components of the potential WRC event separately. As DirtFish explains:

America's bid won't be focused on one specific rally in June, it will comprise delegates being shown all aspects of the planned event infrastructure in both Tennessee and Kentucky. In that week, they will be shown key stages for the route as well as the proposed service park venue, fan zones, superspecials.
Logistics will be detailed along with the opportunity to meet key figures from the ARA National Championship and wider American rallying community.

In other words, FIA officials will examine the proposed locations for the WRC event, but will visit SOFR to see how an American rally is actually run. It seems the FIA may still be considering the Chattanooga area as before, but this has not been confirmed, nor have dates for a potential 2027 event.

One thing I always found odd about previous efforts to hold this event is that an organization outside the established U.S. rally structure was running it rather than ARA, NASA Rally Sport, or any other established structure. It held a training event in 2024 that DirtFish gave mixed reviews, and did not seem to leverage ARA's existing methods or experienced volunteers from other events. That inexperience may have led the FIA to pump the brakes on the proposed U.S. WRC event for the past couple of years, and could explain the active involvement of ARA and ACCUS this time around. You can even sign up for emails about WRC volunteer opportunities from ARA's website.

Still, the FIA has been teasing us about this event for the past five years, and it still hasn't happened. None of the cars currently competing in the WRC are for sale in the U.S., so "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" doesn't apply. Also, the current political environment is not particularly friendly to outsiders, which certainly doesn't help. While I don't trust Lucy not to yank the football out from under us again, I'd still love to see a WRC event on American soil for the first time since 1988.