Two West Seattle women. One big desert. Meet your neighbors who are about to compete in Rebelle Rally
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
What are the odds?
Somehow two West Seattle women are part of a major offroad endurance rally competition that starts in a few days, covering 1,700 miles of Southwestern U.S. desert – though not only are they on different teams, they didn’t even know each other before discovering they’re both on this year’s participant list for the 10th anniversary running of the Rebelle Rally.
We sat down with both of them this week to find out more about the women-only rally and how they got involved with it.
More than 60 teams will participate in Rebelle this year, an 11-day event featuring 8 days of competition starting October 9 from the Mammoth Mountain area – each team consisting of a driver and navigator. Angela Rickerson (above left) drives her 2017 Jeep Wrangler for her team, in her second year competing; Kelli Diann Gordon (above right) navigates for her team (in a 2022 Toyota Tundra), and this will be her first year. And “navigating” is far more than you’d think – they are not allowed to use phones, GPS, other technology – they start each day with coordinates on a paper map. Angela insists the driver is just a team member supporting the navigator. (And the vehicle, which is the “third member of the team.”) Some teams are sponsored by car companies; some – like Angela’s (Team 102, Double A Rally) and Kelli’s (Team 185, Hoot ‘n’ Holler) – are “privateers,” though various kinds of sponsorships and support remain vital, as Rebelle has a five-digit entry fee (which among other things supports traveling “base camps” and meals for the teams during the rally – more on that later).
This is Angela’s second year in Rebelle, Kelli’s first. They stress that it’s a competition but not a race – it’s a competition for staying accurately on course, for getting to certain checkpoints “with the clock ticking” – these aren’t physical checkpoints with someone sitting there keeping track, but rather spots at which a satellite tracker makes note of the vehicle’s presence via its tracker. They are truly out in the middle of nowhere, though – here’s a photo from last year’s course:
(2024 photo by Richard Giordano)
Though the teams can’t use anything fancier than a compass, Rebelle overall makes use of tech for communication as well as tracking. Live streams during the rally follow the teams’ trackers, so family, friends, and fans can follow along. And video is recorded via “tons of drones following all day,” Angela explains – plus human videographers on the course too “although you may not see them.” And it’s not completely a case of “roughing it” – here’s a photo Angela shared of one of the base camps:
So how did they discover Rebelle and decide to pursue participation?
Angela said her feed algorithm served up info about Rebelle, and she “started watching it and just became obsessed with it.” That includes a docuseries about it called “Dead Reckoning,” a reference to the skill that leads you to success in the sport. She also met her teammate online.
After posting a question on Instagram about how to get involved, she received “so many messages” including her now-teammate Adriana, whose previous teammate couldn’t repeat with her. (Adriana lives in L.A.)
As for Kelli, her teammate is a cousin and had immersed herself in offroading culture, in no small part because of the Toyota Tundra she’s driven for many years. But ultimately, she says, the algorithm got her too – her cousin “kept seeing all these ads for Rebelle, then called me in late February, said, ‘I want to do this, would you want to do this with me?’ I said ‘yes, but my wife is pregnant’.”
Eight months pregnant now, in fact, just as Kelli prepares to head out for her first Rebelle. Nonetheless, they decided to go for it, “got a website together, got a team name together.”
So how did Kelli and Angela discover each other, competing on different teams but both living in West Seattle, hardly a hotbed of offroad culture? Angela explains that she reached out online to people in the area, in the spirit of mentoring, passing on knowledge, talking about what it’s like. She says that although the Rebelle rally is a “super-fierce competition,” people “want to share information … that’s very different from other motorsports.”
Kelli says the entire event itself is unique: “The design is very thoughtful, designed by women for women. The design of the scoring is thoughtful and helps teams support each other – (for example) there’s a rule to stop and check if you see someone in distress, or else you can get penalized.”
(Angela driving last year, photo by Nicole Dreon)
The Rebelle Rally’s founder Emily Miller “wanted women to have … a chance to compete on a national stage,” Angela adds. Even aside from the women-only aspect, “this is one of the few big national rallies.” (They note there’s one from Kirkland to Alaska – the Alcan 5000.)
With both women living far apart from their teammates, and in an area that’s not exactly rich in the type of terrain they’ll face in the Rebelle Rally, how do they prepare?
It’s “super-challenging,” acknowledges Angela, but far from impossible. She flies to California a few times a year to work with her teammate, who makes some trips up here too. And “you can practice finding checkpoints,” with the help of a mapping app, wherever you are. Kelli says navigators can practice “several different skills . instead of using GPS, my wife and I will use atlases.” And they practice communication – if you’re telling a driver where to go, how far in advance do they need that direction, for example? With a work history in the hospitality industry, she says, they often work in “kitchen shorthand.”
Speaking of kitchen, the Rebelle Rally doesn’t just provide subsistence-level meals for teams. It has a Michelin-starred Chef, Drew Deckman. The base camps also bring in support mechanics, fuel, water, and power – “huge semi-trucks with solar panels.” Angela observes, “It’s cool to see how the organizers have thought through everything.” That even includes a “crash course” on how to help endangered desert tortoises if they’re seen along the route. And the number of Rebelle staffers, they add, is roughly a “one staff member per participant” ratio.
All that costs money, a major reason for the entry fee, but the West Seattle competitors have found ways to cover it. Kelli and her teammate cousin even have been running fundraising “sweepstakes” online (the cousin has been donating items from her spice shop as well as Airbnb’s, while Kelli’s donations have included a classic West Seattle item, an Easy Street Records gift certificate). She appreciates the Rebelle organization even more because of her work as an event manager for the City of Issaquah.
Angela’s “day job” is bar manager for Ballard restaurant Copine (which supported her by donating proceeds from a menu item). She’s also mom to a 10-year-old son and says competing in Rebelle is further proof that “motherhood doesn’t end everything – you’re not ‘just’ a caregiver; I drag him to everything with me and he loves it.” That includes his visit to the starting line last year, to cheer on his mom.
Kelli takes inspiration from that, as her motherhood journey will begin shortly after the rally; when she returns, her wife will be 36 1/2 weeks pregnant.
The investment of money and time, both agree, is “worth it.” Angela points out that competitors get to meet “all these amazing women.” And it inspires each to transcend any limitations they thought they have. Kelli says even mistakes can be growth opportunities, that Rebelle “challenges you to face yourself when you’ve made a decision (that didn’t work out), to own what you’ve done, and that’s where your power comes from.”
“Physically, mentally, emotionally, every day is challenging,” agrees Angela. “You’re in it with one other person, there’s no option other than moving forward.”
And their journey starts this week. They’ll find themselves at the starting line, Angela says, as “just normal people from West Seattle who decided to say yes to this crazy thing.” And that’s the biggest lesson she’s learned: “Just say ‘yes’ to things – it might change your life. Challenge yourself! I don’t think you know what you are capable of until you put yourself in extreme situations.”
You can track this year’s Rebelle Rally through streams on this YouTube page.
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