On of America’s premier Hard Enduro race is levelling up. Organisers of the Tennessee Knockout have unveiled a significantly expanded format for the event’s 16th edition, running August 28-30 in Sequatchie, Tennessee, and while the TKO sits outside the FIM Hard Enduro World Championship, the entry list is expected to carry serious world-class weight, with HEWC championship leader Manuel Lettenbichler and Billy Bolt among the names tipped to line up.
More racing, bigger final, new youth classes
The headline change for 2026 is a longer main event. The pro final for the top 20 riders grows from 35 minutes to a 45-minute-plus-one-lap format, with the leading riders set to race for roughly three hours in total across four rounds of competition on Sunday. A $12,000 prize purse will be decided in the main event.
Amateur racing has been reworked too. All amateurs will now contest Saturday’s opening TKO race, with the top 250 finishers inside a 2.5-hour limit advancing to Race 2 and the best 30 earning the right to race alongside the professionals. New Peewee and Junior Kids classes for riders aged four to fifteen complete the picture, alongside all 23 AMA National Hard Enduro Championship classes, including two eMoto categories for electric machines. Entries are capped at 500 riders, with a July 15 deadline to secure a personalised number plate decal.
A non-championship race
To be clear: the TKO is not a round of the FIM Hard Enduro World Championship, and no championship points will be at stake in Tennessee. The event serves as the final round of the AMA National Hard Enduro Championship, where six-time TKO winner Cody Webb returns chasing a seventh crown against Canadian Trystan Hart.
But the calibre of riders expected, Lettenbichler and Bolt chief among them, speaks volumes about the event’s standing in the global Hard Enduro landscape. Notably, organisers shifted the TKO’s date this year specifically to avoid clashing with the HEWC calendar, a move that keeps the door open for the world’s best to make the trip stateside.
First, though: Sweden
Before any of that, the FIM Hard Enduro World Championship resumes with Round 4, Forza Orza, in Sweden on August 20-22, the championship’s first-ever Swedish round, promising raw Scandinavian forest and rock. The title fight is finely poised: Lettenbichler leads on 88 points, but Mitch Brightmore’s victory at Silver Kings closed the gap to 13, with Teodor Kabakchiev lurking on 68. Home hero Eddie Karlsson will carry Swedish hopes on home soil. With five rounds still to run, check the full championship standings