Posted Friday, February 27, 2026 at 9:44pm
our decades ago, the world watched in wonder as Group B came to a spellbinding – not to mention fittingly controversial – conclusion on the Olympus Rally.
In April, those stories and those stages will be back for a sell-out anniversary edition of what was arguably America’s greatest ever rally. The 2026 Olympus Rally presented by DirtFish has been 40 years in the making.
Steve McQuaid has been at the heart of the event for those 40 years. He was quick to deliver his verdict on plans for this year’s celebration.
“It’s just taken off,” he told DirtFish of the April 17-19 rally. “We opened entries and we were full in no time. I was thinking we’d do well to get around 80, but we blew right past there and then past 100. We’re up to 106. We’re beyond capacity, but we’ll have to see what we can do. I don’t remember an entry like this one before. It’s incredible, it seems people are keen to come along and celebrate what happened in 1986.”
That 1986 Olympus was the culmination of a fascinating title fight between Finns Juha Kankkunen and Markku Alén. Lancia man Alén won in Washington and took the title, only to lose the drivers’ crown 11 days later when the results from Italy’s WRC round were annulled following yet more controversy.
