NASCAR champion and Daytona 500 winner Kurt Busch believes the World Rally Championship has the potential to crack America after receiving a taste of the series at Rally Finland.
The 2004 NASCAR Cup champion and 2017 Daytona 500 winner made the trip to Finland to experience the WRC for the first time. The 46-year-old has been a long-time admirer of rallying and in 2014 competed in the Monza Rally Show, driving an M-Sport-built Ford Fiesta RS WRC.
Busch, who is set to be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame next year, received a taste of the WRC first hand on Thursday, when he joined Rally Estonia winner Oliver Solberg for a ride in the Swedish driver’s Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 car in shakedown.
“For me, it took me back to when I ran the Monza Rally Show 10 years ago. To experience it [the WRC] first class with Oliver Solberg on an actual WRC rally,” said Busch.
“The car is like a ballet and what Oliver is doing with the car is what is the most difficult part for me to digest. I feel the car going sideways and I’m fine, but the jumps, the twists and the turns – the car is so nimble. Our NASCAR cars are so heavy and are buried into the track, but these rally cars are floating on top of the track.
“Launching an all-wheel drive car and heading into some of the corners and switchbacks, it was like Oliver was a step ahead of where my body was digesting that corner to be. When you respect someone like that there is no fear whatsoever.
“For sure, our NASCAR discipline is very different. It is a lot about tyre management and getting the grip level on the asphalt. This is all-wheel drive, lightweight, and go as fast as you can go while the tree branches are hitting the windshield. It is a whole different discipline, but it is fun to see it at the top level.”
Busch’s visit ironically arrived on the day the WRC announced its 2026 calendar, which confirmed that plans to bring the championship to the USA were postponed for at least another year. The FIA, however, remains confident that its aim to take the WRC to North America for the first time since 1988 will come to fruition in 2027.
When asked about the appeal of WRC to a US audience, Busch was confident an event on home soil could prove popular and raise the profile of the discipline.
“It would be fantastic [to have the WRC in the USA]. I think the newness of what NASCAR did with the Chicago street race and Formula 1 what they have done with Las Vegas and Miami is a hybrid street race, it brings it to city centres that wouldn’t normally be accustomed to it. Can rally do that? Absolutely, but you have to have the outlying areas for the stages to happen.
“I think anything new right now is an adventure and when you have the proper support behind it from the series and the manufacturers that are involved [it can work] if you are quite close to big town like that [Chattanooga], that is when you have the other nightlife and the ability for people to park and to get to where they need to go.”
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