Karisa Haydon and Trista Smith’s friendship began with a dead Subaru alternator on a rainy evening near Portland, Oregon.
Fast forward 15 years, the friends are gearing up for their third year of navigating through the desert of Nevada and California in a Ford Bronco. They’ll be one of 60 teams competing in the Rebelle Rally, an eight day off-roading competition exclusively for women. Participants must navigate checkpoints using maps and compasses – no cell phones or GPS devices are allowed.
The duo has never been the type to shy away from a challenge. Their previous feats include triathlons and 24-hour mountain bike races.
Two years ago, they spent a few weeks training for the Rebelle Rally in and around Soldotna – Haydon’s hometown. Her husband sent the team to different coordinates in the area, like the mouth of the Kasilof River and the now-demolished Good Time Charlies.
Haydon piloted their vehicle.
“We were out and about, we got maps of the area, and we did a little checkpoint hunting in Soldotna just to kind of sharpen our skills in a vehicle with a map," Haydon said. "Hunting random checkpoints of places we had no idea where we were going.”
That training proved valuable for the duo, which now races as Team Velocity. In 2022, the team was named Rookie of the Year and was the highest scoring team during one of the race days.
They competed again in 2023 and placed 6th overall. The Ford Motor Company supplied them with a new Bronco Wildtrak for that race, which they plan to use again this year.
“Even though it is our third year, I feel like I almost have, I don’t want to say fear, but respect for the event, where I’m just thinking about it a lot and processing it a lot,” said Smith, who's energized by the rally’s sometimes unpredictable obstacles. She’s in charge of navigation.
“And, okay what actually about this event causes us to come back? Why do we love this so much? And it truly is the daily journey that we go on. The journey is so epic, these are things that are in our American backyard,” Smith said.
Since April, Team Velocity has been training off and on in the California desert – refining their navigational skills with eyes on a win. Smith says she never saw herself competing in offroad racing, let alone with just a map and compass to guide her.
“That first race was amazing and crazy," she said. "We learned that we’re capable of doing really hard things, that’s something that Karisa and I say all the time, is that you can do hard things and learn hard things, and the Rebelle really taught us that.”
Smith says more women have started participating in offroad racing in recent years. She says both women and men in the racing community have been supportive of newcomers like them.
Smith encourages any woman interested in offroad racing or the Rebelle Rally to take the sport for a test drive.
“I think there’s this historic barrier to entry that we’re slowly chipping away at now," Smith said. "Women are buying Broncos, women are buying Jeeps, women are buying these vehicles capable of going to most of these places. I think for us we learned that we really need to be just willing to learn, and when we were willing to learn, we found the right people who were willing to teach us.”
This year’s Rebelle Rally will start October 11 and run through October 19. You can follow Team Velocity’s journey on Facebook or Instagram.
