American rallying fans are presently having a conniption after the 2026 World Rally Championship calendar was revealed on Thursday. Despite previous confirmation from WRC leadership that fans should see the sport officially returning to North America for the first time in almost four decades, those events were conspicuously absent from the newly released WRC calendar.
In April, the WRC confirmed that 2026 would see gravel-focused stages in Chattanooga, Tennessee. But that was subject to approvals from the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile). Thus far, there have been a handful of exhibition and testing events since 2023. However, the long-term goal has been to bring the WRC back in earnest for the first time since the 1988 Olympus Rally in Washington State.
If you think Formula One fans have a lot of bad things to say about the FIA, you’ve probably never spoken to a rally enthusiast. While the sports’ governing body have often been subject to criticism, decisions made over the last several years (allegedly to help broaden global appeal) have rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Censoring drivers hasn’t gone over well and there have been plenty of accusations that the FIA has an axe to grind against American venues and teams.
However, it needs to be said that the FIA has made serious efforts to draw in more U.S. and Canadian fans in recent years. It likewise wasn’t the only entity tasked with finalizing things to bring WRC back to North America. The Automobile Competition Committee for the United States (ACCUS) also needed to have certain requirements met before signing off.
Officially, the WRC has confirmed it just wasn’t ready and would rather wait another year instead of trying to rush everything through at the last minute. The FIA has likewise said that all parties agreed that postponing any U.S. rallies until at least 2027 was the correct decision.
“We have always had the objective for an important market like the USA that we have to ‘get it right the first time,” a WRC Promoter spokesperson explained to The Drive. “With much work needing to be done to build the event from the ground up, we are being necessarily cautious towards the debut year.”
“A planned Candidate Event in September will provide the best possible ‘proof of concept’ as well as a training opportunity for all of the U.S. rallying organisational community to learn about the standards of a modern WRC event, and this will provide an ideal evaluation platform. This is something we’re working on with the FIA, ACCUS and ARA hand-in-hand.”
But there have likewise been some rumors that the FIA wants to make sure that the Americans will be doing things by the book, as written by them. This is according to a report from Motorsport.
“We’re still working on delivering the candidate event so the discussion is certainly ongoing. However, it could have also meant that the calendar would have been a 15-event calendar,” FIA’s Road Sport Director Emilia Abel was quoted as saying at Rally Finland. “So it has been decided for now that we still work together with the organisers [sic] and the ASN and the promoter to make sure of that once we are entering the new continent.”
“As we all know, rallying is a slightly different discipline and perceived slightly different [in the USA] than in Europe,” Abel continued. “We have decided that we want to be 100 [percent] confident that they are following exactly the same requirements as the FIA, and just need another year to be prepared and trained for the event, just purely from the organisational [sic] point of view.”
From Motorsport:
When asked if the FIA was confident the USA would appear on the WRC calendar in 2027, Abel added: “Yes, confident, 100 [percent]. We see some very good progress already over the last month. We see a dedicated team, so it’s certainly on a good path.”
Details regarding the candidate event for Rally USA are yet to be defined, although it has been potentially earmarked for September.
“It [the candidate event] is in progress. There is no official application yet, but it is in progress, and it’s considered to be at the moment at the end of September, but there is no official application. So until the official application is there, I can’t say that it is 100 [percent] happening,” said Abel, referring to the candidate event that is needed before a rally formally joins the WRC calendar.
As frustrating as that undoubtedly makes my fellow American WRC fans, it’s likewise understandable. All racing takes a staggering amount of prep work. But rallies are run on public routes, requiring an immense level of cooperation from the teams, race organizers, and the local government. There are a lot of moving parts and it honestly does look like all parties want to see Tennessee happen. That includes the Chattanooga tourism board, which reportedly went to Finland several years ago to get a handle on what a WRC actually entails.
Meanwhile, the American Rally Championship will have to tide everyone over for another year. While more scattershot than the WRC, it’s been keeping some historic rally courses relevant (including Olympus) and rarely disappoints the fans. The events are worth hitting if there’s one happening in your neck of the woods.
[Images: Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile]
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