MINI USA and the John Cooper Works Race Team compete this weekend at the Overmountain Rally, September 18 to September 19, in Newport, Tennessee, the seventh of eight rounds in the 2026 American Rally Association National Championship. The event covers 100 competition miles and 160 transit miles through the Cherokee National Forest, with stages that mix smooth and rough gravel, clay, hard-packed dirt, and short tarmac sections across steep elevation changes and tight hairpins. The high-banked Newport Speedway serves as the central paddock and hosts a stadium-style, mixed-surface Super Special stage under the lights.
The team, run by long-standing MINI USA partner LAP Motorsports, is campaigning two cars in its first season of ARA National competition: a MINI John Cooper Works Countryman ALL4 in the Limited 4 Wheel Drive class and a MINI John Cooper Works 2-Door in the Open 2 Wheel Drive class. For Overmountain, David and Drew Quillen drive the 2-Door, while team owner Luis Perocarpi and Mark Wells take the Countryman ALL4. The program has two class podiums so far, both in the 2-Door, with a second in class at the Sno*Drift Rally season opener in February and a third in class at Rally Colorado in July.
ARA rules for both classes allow minimal changes from factory components beyond safety equipment, and the program also rotates four technicians from the MINI dealer network onto the pit crew at select rounds. LAP Motorsports and MINI USA have worked together since 2015, previously fielding the John Cooper Works Race Team in IMSA’s ST class and more recently in SRO’s TC America series before moving into rally this year. The 2026 ARA season concludes with the Lake Superior Performance Rally, October 9 to October 10, in Marquette, Michigan.
GalleryPhotos by MINI
