America's national rally championship has shared its plan to launch a national training center to upskill, and breed, officials
Photography by ARA
Words by Luke Barry
The American Rally Association’s latest step to boost US rallying is through a planned national training center – designed to cultivate a nationwide generation of officials.
Rallies obviously need competitors to function, but no event – even at World Rally Championship level – can operate without an army of officials who ensure a safe, and reliable, sporting event is held.
Attracting enough officials can be an issue for events at national level, so the ARA has taken steps to safeguard that, but also to grow rallying’s popularity Stateside, in the creation of its national training center.
To be based at a 200-acre site in Owsley County, Kentucky, a 1.4-mile off-road course for OEM and team testing and training will be included, as well as the 60,000 sq ft facility where ARA’s new national training center will be based.
The project also includes a collaborative effort to vet and map every public access road across the region for competitive stage rally use.
Lance Smith, founder of the ARA’s promoter Rally Forward, said: “ARA’s mission is to advance the sport of stage rally in the U.S, and a big part of doing that is assisting our event organizers in recruiting, training and retaining the people who make it all possible.
“The ARA National Rally Training Center will give us a base of operations to share knowledge, safely practice skills and ensure we have a world-class rally workforce ready to execute events as the sport scales up.”
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: ARA, Lance Smith, National Training Center
Publish Date July 15, 2025 DirtFish 
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/07/KBGTuWtF-2025-SouthernOhioForestRally-NathanCollins-%40nathisimo-B4n89-IMG_6974-780x520.jpg July 15, 2025
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