Seth Quintero has quickly become one of the most talked-about names in American rally racing, and this weekend gives him another chance to build on that momentum. The Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team driver heads into the Overmountain Rally in Newport, Tennessee sitting second in the overall American Rally Association driver standings, trailing series leader Lia Block by just two points with only three rounds remaining on the 2026 calendar.
Quintero’s rise in stage rally has been remarkably fast. He made his ARA debut only in April behind the wheel of the brand-new Toyota GR Corolla Rally RC2, and the results came almost immediately. Back-to-back victories at the Southern Ohio Forest Rally and Rally Colorado’s national championship event on July 18-19 vaulted him into serious title contention despite having just three starts to his name in the series.
Before making the jump to stage rally, Quintero already had an accomplished off-road and rally-raid resume. Born in 2002 and raised in San Marcos, California, he grew up off-roading in the desert with his family and was riding a quad bike by age four. He captured the youth class of the UTV World Championship in 2014, then added the full UTV World Championship and a WORCS youth title in 2015. As a 16-year-old in 2019, he won the Best in the Desert Pro class championship by taking five of six events that season, becoming the youngest driver ever to win the Mint 400, Vegas-to-Reno, the UTV World Championship, the Parker 250 and the Silver State 300 in the UTV Pro NA class. He first attempted the Dakar Rally in 2020 at age 17 but was turned away over age restrictions; the following year he made his Dakar debut and became the event’s youngest-ever stage winner.
With just three rounds left in the 2026 ARA season, Quintero is firmly in the championship fight, and the Overmountain Rally this weekend shapes up as a pivotal round in that battle.
This weekend’s action also has a personal tie-in for us. Our sister site, Backfire Racing — the newest addition to our publishing family and a site dedicated solely to motorsports coverage — will be on the ground at Overmountain, marking the brand-new outlet’s very first event coverage. The Backfire Racing crew was invited out by Red Bull, who is coordinating access alongside Toyota for a weekend that includes race-day paddock and viewing access plus a rally car ride-along experience the following day. It’s a fitting event to launch the new site’s coverage, given how closely Red Bull, Toyota and Quintero’s own story are intertwined this season.
Stay tuned for on-the-ground coverage, photos and video from Backfire Racing as the Overmountain Rally unfolds, along with more on Quintero’s championship push as the 2026 ARA season heads into its final stretch.
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