WRC confirms Knoxville as the base for Rally US, round 11 of the 2027 season, with a Nashville start

Rally US now has an address. On 27 October 2026 the organisers and the WRC Promoter confirmed that Knoxville, Tennessee will be the headquarters of the World Rally Championship's return to America, set for 26 to 29 August 2027. The service park and team base, branded the WRC Arena, go into Knoxville's World's Fair Park and the city's convention centre. The ceremonial start will be held on Lower Broadway in Nashville, the honky tonk strip that already hosts a big city centre motorsport crowd.

The competitive stages are gravel, run on state controlled forest roads across more than 15 counties in Tennessee and Kentucky, from the Appalachian Mountains out to the Cumberland Plateau. Reports from the announcement describe fast open sections mixed with tight forest roads, single track wooden bridges and jumps. Stage maps, competitive distances and ticket details have not been published yet.

"Knoxville and the roads of Tennessee and Kentucky give us a spectacular, challenging setting," WRC Promoter chief executive Eric Boullier said in the announcement. Rally US president and chief executive Matt Crews, who brought IndyCar's Music City Grand Prix to Nashville in 2021, is running the event.

This is the first WRC round on American soil since the Olympus Rally in Washington state in 1988.

Where it sits in a 15 round season

Rally US is round 11 of a 2027 calendar that grows to 15 rounds, the longest WRC season since 2008. The calendar was signed off earlier in October. It opens with Rallye Monte Carlo on 21 to 24 January and closes with Rally Saudi Arabia on 25 to 28 November. Rally Scotland returns a month after the US round, a Rome based asphalt Rally Italy comes in during July, and Rally Japan moves forward to early June. Portugal sits out the season.

The second half is almost entirely gravel, with Estonia and Finland a week apart in late July, then the US, Scotland, Paraguay and Chile.

What this means for an Indian rally fan

There is no Indian round on the 2027 WRC calendar, and there has never been one. The closest the championship comes to this part of the world is Rally Japan on 3 to 6 June and Rally Saudi Arabia at the end of November, both of which fall at reasonable viewing hours for Indian audiences through the championship's streaming service. India's own international fixture stays in the FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship, where the South India Rally ran as round 2 of the 2026 APRC in April.

For anyone who would rather smell the dust in person, the domestic season is still live. The Indian National Rally Championship moves to the Robusta Rally in Coorg on 20 to 22 November, round 3 of the 2026 season, after Dean Mascarenhas and Gagan Karumbaiah beat Karna Kadur by 23.482 seconds over 110.80km of gravel at the Rally of Coimbatore in September. That is the same recipe Tennessee is selling, loose surface stages through plantation and forest roads, only with 64 cars and coffee estates instead of the Cumberland Plateau.

The useful part of the Knoxville news for Indian crews with international ambitions is simple. A WRC round in a large, cheap to reach rally market usually pulls in a big support programme and a crowded national field around it, which is where privateers from outside Europe tend to find a seat. Nothing of that kind has been announced for Rally US yet.

Sources