MINI’s John Cooper Works Race Team Heads Into Ojibwe Forest as the 2026 ARA Season Tightens

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MINI USA and the John Cooper Works Race Team are in Bemidji, Minnesota this weekend for the Ojibwe Forest Rally, round six of eight in the 2026 American Rally Association National Championship. It’s the point in a season where the storyline stops being about arriving and starts being about closing.

The program is run in partnership with LAP Motorsports, which we covered when the deal was first announced back in November. MINI hadn’t fielded a serious rally effort in the U.S. in years, so a full factory-backed return, confirmed officially in February, was the kind of move that reads better on paper once it survives contact with an actual season. Six rounds in, it mostly has.

Two cars, two classes. David and Drew Quillen campaign a John Cooper Works 2-Door in Open 2-Wheel Drive, while Luis Perocarpi and Carlos Schrunder run a John Cooper Works Countryman ALL4 in Limited 4-Wheel Drive. Different cars, different problems to solve on loose surface, and that split has turned out to be one of the smarter parts of this program: it gives MINI two ways to be right in the same weekend instead of betting the whole entry on one setup.

The season itself has had shape, not just mileage. It opened with a podium at Sno*Drift in February, which is the best possible way to answer skepticism about a comeback effort. March brought a trip to the 100 Acre Wood, and April brought a stumble: the team finished outside the top three at Olympus Rally, a result that mattered more for what it revealed than for where it landed in the standings. A season that only shows up in photo finishes isn’t a season, it’s a highlight reel. Olympus was the reminder that this is still a program working out its footing on stages that don’t forgive.

By July, the answer looked better. Ahead of Rally Colorado, the team talked about consistency, and then backed it up with another class podium. That’s two podiums against one off weekend through five rounds, which is a respectable ratio for a first year back, and it’s the kind of trend line that makes round six worth watching rather than just noting.

Ojibwe Forest brings 143 competitive miles of fast, flowing terrain, higher-gear sections mixed with narrow access roads, rocks, and ruts that punish a car that isn’t set up right. Driver Luis Perocarpi framed it plainly ahead of the event: both the 2-Door and the Countryman ALL4 have consistently shown their performance and toughness across the season. It’s not a flashy line, but it’s the correct one. Toughness is the unglamorous variable that decides rally championships, not outright pace on the one stage that makes the highlight reel.

There’s an obvious temptation to lean on MINI’s Monte Carlo history every time the brand shows up on loose surface, and it’s worth resisting that a little here. This isn’t the Works team chasing overall wins against the world’s best in the 1960s, it’s a domestic club-level effort finding its footing eight years after MINI last had a serious presence in American rally. The comparison that actually matters is a narrower one: does this program look like something built to last past 2026, or a one-off marketing exercise timed to a new Countryman. Two podiums, one hard lesson, and a car program split intelligently across two drivetrain classes is more evidence for the former than the latter.

Two rounds remain after this weekend: Overmountain Rally in Tennessee in September, then Lake Superior Performance Rally in October to close the year. Neither the Quillens nor the Perocarpi and Schrunder pairing needs a win at Ojibwe Forest to validate the season. What they need is what they’ve mostly delivered so far: finish, don’t break the car, and let the podiums come from attrition and consistency rather than heroics. That’s a less romantic story than a stage win, but it’s the one that gets a factory program renewed for another year.

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