​One of the most widely watched international motorsports could be coming to Kentucky — but few Americans have heard of it, much less watched a race.The World Rally Championship, one of the oldest international motorsport series, is considering debuting a race in Tennessee and Kentucky in 2027. Officials from the FIA, the international governing body of motorsports, held a candidate event within the U.S. in June, visiting an American Rally Association race in Ohio and testing potential stages within Tennessee and Kentucky.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHere’s what to know about rally racing.Exclusive: An international race could offer a lifeline for Eastern KYForget the glitz and glamor of Formula One or the never-ending bumper-to-bumper of NASCAR. When it comes to the world of racing, rally is unique.Staged rally car racing is one of the oldest recognized motorsports, dating back to 1895 in France. It’s also one of the oldest international championships awarded by the FIA, behind the Formula One World Championship and the FIA Karting World Championship, with the first rally championship season in 1973.Unlike other motorsports, rally races are in timed stages, ranging from a few miles to nearly 20 miles per stage. A rally event can host more than a dozen stages, held over the course of several days.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThere are also few, if any, paved roads during an event, often held instead on gravel, dirt or sand roads full of tight twists and high-speed straights. Drivers fly through narrow roads, banked by trees, creek beds and ravines, hitting speeds of upwards of 100 mph on a stage.As opposed to races with purpose-built tracks, there are no grandstands in rally cars. Spectators line the roads, cordoned off at a safe distance but close enough to feel the spray of gravel and dust as the cars rush through.1 / 28Driver Patrick Gruszka speeds on a closed public gravel road in Owsley County, Kentucky. Rally cars are modified with beefed-up shocks and struts to take the inevitable jumps from hills as well has pushing almost 400 horse power from turbocharged 1.6-liter engines. May 12, 2026.(Matt Stone/The Courier Journal)High speeds and the ever-changing terrain require the other part of what makes rally so special — the co-driver.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementRally is the only motorsport with two drivers in the car: one to physically drive and another to call out directions from their pace notes, a handwritten series of directions that the driver and co-driver create during their few practice runs through the circuit.Pace notes are nearly illegible without a co-driver translating, and each driver has their own signs and signatures. John Hall, 74, said the notes are almost like math — “if you read this equation, it takes you down the road.”Hall has been a co-driver since he was 16 years old in the 1969 Barclay rally at the Chester Motor Club in England, learning first from his co-driver father. Reclin