Chattanooga driver Michael Hooper won Saturday’s Tennessee Rally USA test event for a proposed World Rally Championship round.
Hooper was one of four finishers for the shortened event, with his Lexus taking victory from Corey McKenzie’s Nissan Sentra. Former Sno*Drift winner Mark Piatkowski built an early advantage in his Subaru before retiring on the sixth of eight stages. He was one of five retirements.
Hooper admitted it was miracle he made the finish after a tough day on his home event.
The WRC test event features a downtown Chattanooga start on Friday evening
He told DirtFish: “This event went from being excellent to a total s-show in about two seconds. We were towing a fellow competitor who was low on fuel, then we ran low on fuel and had somebody tow us. We’d left the e-brake on and that cooked the brakes on a rear corner which meant we had to push the car into service. While I was doing that, I dropped the [car] key out of my pocket in the middle of the highway – it got run over about four times but by some miracle the battery still worked.
“After that, we didn’t shut the engine off. It was super-sketchy, but we got very lucky.”
Talking about the event, the local driver added: “Our shop is half a mile in one direction and our house is half a mile in the other – the idea of a WRC event coming here is mind-blowing! It would change the city and be very cool.”
Rally manager Stuart Wood admitted the event had been challenging, but insisted progress was being made towards a proposed WRC round in 2026.
“It went very well,” Wood told DirtFish. “Operationally it was a success. We had a lot of little issues, but this is an area where [a] rally has not been held for a long time. We lost some stage miles, but we didn’t drop a whole stage. We had nine cars, not a lot of cars, but we had some good success – there was a lot of talk to sponsors and we’ll have groups going to [WRC rounds in] Latvia and Finland now.”
Ahead of the event, Wood talked about the importance of engaging local communities and agencies.
“Operationally, that was the most important thing,” he said, “and that was a success. Honestly, they had no understanding of how a rally works, but that changed. The first car goes by and click, they got it. They saw the process and one second they didn’t understand it and one second later they did – we all know that’s how rally works.
“I had 50 conversations with them and the answers were always the same: “You guys run a tight ship, you guys understand how to manage the safety on event.”
Rally USA benefitted from vehicle support from Toyota
Wood admitted there were some issues with disgruntled spectators, but he put that down to a lack of understanding of the sport.
He added: “I talked to [officials at] both spectator drop-off points and the answer was that we had a lot of people that had great time and a fair number that were disappointed, but some people didn’t understand rally math. They didn’t understand rally and it was those people who got a little frustrated – they arrived five minutes before a car. It dawned on me the novice [fans] that were disappointed is still a great sign, even with no prior rally experience the fact they showed up is a huge win.”
Rally USA’s next step is another test event in March next year, which is the anticipated running time of the WRC round in 2026.
Rally USA manager Stuart Wood met with Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala in Monaco earlier this year
“We will use the footprint we had for this event,” said Wood. “We planned a two-day event: one full day, half a day on Sunday and a gallery stage on Friday night. Those plans changed when we lost two stages because of repairs to the culverts. We’ll dust the [original] plans for the June event off and that’s what we’ll run in March.
“We’ve really tried to include the level of attention [found] at higher-level events. Yes, we’ve had a small-format event, yes we had nine competitors, but we have a podium that more like a world rally podium than most events in America. We have rally arches showing sponsor signage and we have a lot of the accoutrements that are signs of a higher-level rally. We’re trying to feather those in to slowly elevate [the event], so when someone from a world rally background sees the event they can very easily imagine – one step, two steps later – they can see a world rally here.”
