The World Rally Championship has not run an event in the United States since Washington's Olympus Rally ended back in 1988. After 35 years, the world's top rallying category looks destined to finally return to American soil by potentially hosting an event in Tennessee's Smoky Mountains.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that the city of Chattanooga would be the heart of a proposed rally through three Tennessee counties. If approved, the event being suggested by the Chattanooga Tourism Co. would build on a domestic rally previously run through National Forest Service land in the region. Routes would mainly be built around gravel roads in the Cherokee National Forest, with a viability test run in conjunction with the hosts of Rally Mexico set for early April of this year.

The Smoky Mountains were one of at least four regions under consideration for a WRC event when Jalopnik spoke to WRC leadership back in February of last year. Now, the region seems much further along the path to holding a rally in the near future. At the time, WRC director of business development Marc de Jong suggested a rally through the region would be something akin to "Tail of the Dragon, but on gravel." He also invoked the history of moonshiners racing through those same gravel roads during and after Prohibition, the shared popular founding myth of stock car racing.

No timetable has been set for officially approving and scheduling the rally, but the tests are scheduled for April 7th and 8th. A date on the 2024 WRC calendar could be approved shortly afterward.

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