Skanky Vamp
Sniffin' the Slayer
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2008
- Messages
- 26,460
The Rebelle Rally is this weekend. I've gone on about it before, but here's a nice article written about "one of the toughest off-road rallies in the world" if anyone else is interested.
On their website they even have live tracking so you can follow along in real time.
reposted from jalopnik
You’re in the middle of the California desert. The GPS on your SUV has been disabled. There’s a 200,000-meter scale map in your co-driver’s lap on which she’s plotted a location the size of a pinhead with a tiny plastic ruler. You’ve both got a compass, but because you’re the driver you may not even know how to use it. Find that spot. Then do it 153-odd more times more accurately than 64 other teams over the span of a week.
Unlike the Dakar this isn’t about gunning balls out across the Sahara. It’s not a slap a roll cage in a modded AWD sedan and fling the car across hill and dale. There are no lightweight buggies with 37-inch tires making easy work of colossal sand dunes. You’re driving stock or close to stock vehicles. They’re big and heavy and require a driver’s precise throttle foot and masterful use of the transmission. The Rebelle Rally is about measured accuracy, and, like a wicked sangria, you don’t know it’s pummeled you until it’s too late.
Oh, and it’s only open to women.
That’s not to say that all competitors are novices. Not by a long shot. There are plenty of teams vying for the W, and those are all seasoned veterans. They’ve shown up four, five, some original Rebelles eight times now since the first contest took place in 2016. These women know how to play the game and they slay. They pace every second of their day, wasting no time. They run to checkpoints, don’t stop for anything frivolous like eating, and nail with pinpoint accuracy the handful of time, speed, distance challenges worth points that can bolster a teams’ scores or plummet them below the top ten if they miss a couple of time controls. For ten hours plus a day these ladies remain laser focused on the task of driving over 1600 miles on some of California and Nevada’s most unforgiving terrain. Or, while bouncing over said unforgiving terrain, they’ve got their head in a map trying to see which mountain peak or saddle that wiggly line on their map might represent as if they’re doing it from space.
On their website they even have live tracking so you can follow along in real time.
reposted from jalopnik
You’re in the middle of the California desert. The GPS on your SUV has been disabled. There’s a 200,000-meter scale map in your co-driver’s lap on which she’s plotted a location the size of a pinhead with a tiny plastic ruler. You’ve both got a compass, but because you’re the driver you may not even know how to use it. Find that spot. Then do it 153-odd more times more accurately than 64 other teams over the span of a week.
What is the Rebelle Rally exactly?
The Rebelle Rally is the longest map and compass off-road navigation rally in the United States. Each morning at 6AM you get a sheet of 20-30 latitude and longitude coordinates. You plot those points on a map and spend the rest of your day trying to find them. They are of varying degrees of difficulty. Like ski slopes, greens are the easiest, marked by a big green flag. These are mandatory. Don’t collect one and your day sucks. Blues are a bit harder. They’re up a more technical path on the peak of a mountain or in a severely rutted dry riverbed and marked by either a small flag or a blue post. These are optional. The Black checkpoints, also not obligatory, are not marked. Try and figure out where they are then click the satellite tracker each team gets to mark their location on the planet and be on your way. Each time your team of two click that tracker on a checkpoint the signal travels up into the heavens and back down into the sophisticated scoring software created by rally organizers. The team with the most points at the end of the week wins. Sounds easy enough.Who can compete?
The Rebelle Rally does not require you be a professional rally driver or co-driver to compete. Basic navigation and off-road driving skills are all you need to sign up. Well, that and your entry fee of about $14,500. You could drive a 4x4 truck or SUV or simply the all-wheel drive crossover you take your kids to ballet in if you want. You don’t need some overbuilt, jacked-to-the-heavens off-road bro-dozer. Though I might recommend an aftermarket skid plate to protect your grocery getter’s underbelly. You’ll also need some moxie. A bravado that says you can do something that terrifies you and isn’t like anything you’ve done before.Unlike the Dakar this isn’t about gunning balls out across the Sahara. It’s not a slap a roll cage in a modded AWD sedan and fling the car across hill and dale. There are no lightweight buggies with 37-inch tires making easy work of colossal sand dunes. You’re driving stock or close to stock vehicles. They’re big and heavy and require a driver’s precise throttle foot and masterful use of the transmission. The Rebelle Rally is about measured accuracy, and, like a wicked sangria, you don’t know it’s pummeled you until it’s too late.
Oh, and it’s only open to women.
That’s not to say that all competitors are novices. Not by a long shot. There are plenty of teams vying for the W, and those are all seasoned veterans. They’ve shown up four, five, some original Rebelles eight times now since the first contest took place in 2016. These women know how to play the game and they slay. They pace every second of their day, wasting no time. They run to checkpoints, don’t stop for anything frivolous like eating, and nail with pinpoint accuracy the handful of time, speed, distance challenges worth points that can bolster a teams’ scores or plummet them below the top ten if they miss a couple of time controls. For ten hours plus a day these ladies remain laser focused on the task of driving over 1600 miles on some of California and Nevada’s most unforgiving terrain. Or, while bouncing over said unforgiving terrain, they’ve got their head in a map trying to see which mountain peak or saddle that wiggly line on their map might represent as if they’re doing it from space.