2025 Rebelle Rally Field Update: DAY 3 Presented by BILSTEIN
October 13, 2025 (Blair Junction, Nevada)
Teams fueled up on-site and departed from Belmont, Nevada in the morning for Day 3 Presented by BILSTEIN to complete the first Marathon Stage of the 2025 Rebelle Rally. After climbing Barley Creek Summit, competitors descended into Stone Cabin Valley. This area is rich with stunning views and wildlife, like wild horses, bighorn sheep, and mountain lions–one team even reported a sighting of one of the big cats as they drove the trail toward camp last night.
Overall, the difficulty rating for today’s competition was a 3 out of 5. The later portion of the day pushed 4×4 teams to select the X route or regular route. In this case, navigators faced more difficult challenges on the X route and drivers had to carefully pick up lines on faint trails. Rounding out the day, teams explored the Monte Cristo Mountains and skirted the edges of the notorious silt beds of Millers, Nevada likely born from ancient lake beds from the Pliocene Age seeded with siltstone, claystone, and marl deposits. Over roughly 180 miles (290 kilometers) and ten hours, the teams made their way back to base camp 1.
One checkpoint was particularly tricky, confounding even one of the top X-Cross® competitors. Veterans sometimes try to outthink where the checkpoint will be, and in this case, the checkpoint was in a place they wouldn’t expect. Part of that equation was a wide-open valley where it is easy to get off heading and make mistakes. A sand wash also tripped up a fair number of competitors and they ended up wasting time that cost them several points.
A sneaky rock took out multiple tires, including the 37-inch shoes on the Jeep driven by Team 112 (Jessi Puffenbarger and Jessica Heeg). Toyota Team 183 (Samantha Barber and Kaitlyn Cherniuk) caught an unlucky break, blowing two tires at the same time. As the course gets more difficult, teams will have to figure out how to manage equipment, time, and fatigue.
Great Quotes From the Day
- Chief Mechanic Nick Cimmarusti: “I think every stage of the rally has its own toughness. Generally, when we’re up north like this, we get nice, smooth roads that kind of roll you into feeling like you can go faster. Then you’ll go around the corner, there will be a g-out, a rock in the road, or a water crossing and it surprises you. Typically if we get down towards areas like Johnson Valley or Razor OHV it’s a different kind of terrain – a lot more rocks, more jagged rocks, and you need better tire placement. Then, when we get further down into the course, we get a lot of heat, and we get temperature problems with both competitors and their vehicles. Every section of the course generally has its own difficulties.”
- Team 141, Melissa Vander Wilt: “It’s been up and down, up and down since yesterday. There’s been tears. We were talking yesterday about the stages of grief. We were like, which stage are we in right now? Anger or denial? What’s going on here? It’s been up and down, but we’re just super happy to be competing again.”
- Team 184, Natalie McPherson: “I was with a partner last year that I’m friends with. I was friends with her for a long time beforehand, and still am. And I saw that, even when you’re friends, how disastrous it could be. So I had no expectations at all whatsoever. Anything goes this year, and I’m just happy that I’m off road and at the rally.”
- Team 178, Sue Runnells: “I had a lot of dust in my new brakes, so I felt like I would be taking better care of my vehicle if I just blew the dust out so we can start fresh in the morning. And I needed to learn how to put my new Scrubblade wipers on my truck because I’ve never changed my windshield wipers before. It’s not hard once you know how. But the instructions were a QR code, which of course, we cannot scan because we don’t have phones. Once it was explained to me, it was pretty intuitive.”
- Team 128, Susan Pieper: “We feel like we had two really good days. All this is about is keeping it together and collecting CPs and keeping your vehicle moving at pace. We did that for the last two days.”
Spotlight: Women Who Wrench
Brittony Marenco and Lisa DeLuca (Team 163) met when DeLuca brought her 2014 Toyota Tacoma to the fabrication shop owned by Marenco and her husband Eric. They started meeting up at trail runs and bonded over their love for trucks and off-roading. Then they met Nicole Pitell-Vaughan from TOTAL CHAOS Fabrication at Overland Expo several years ago, and they were intrigued by the idea of the Rebelle Rally but it wasn’t the right time.
In the meantime, DeLuca started spending a lot of time on the Tacoma World forums online. DeLuca and her husband attended as many meetups and trail runs they could when they first bought their Tacoma; as many as 40 in the first few years, she says. At some of those meetups, Tacoma owners would get together for wrenching days, and DeLuca says she learned a lot from other owners with knowledge to share. There’s a theme here: Marenco met her husband at a Tacoma World camping trip.
Fast-forward to 2025, and the two finally got to pair up for the 10th anniversary edition of the rally. DeLuca even installed a TOTAL CHAOS long travel suspension on her Tacoma and Marenco fabricated the lightweight, custom rear bumper; a Relentless Fabrication front bumper; rock sliders; and a custom dual spare tire holder in the bed that also holds their jack.
DeLuca had a connection to another Toyota team this week. The transmission from Team 141 (Melissa Vander Wilt and Rochelle Bovee)’s 1991 Toyota Land Cruiser failed on Day 1, and the Rebelle community came together to help them find a replacement. Chief Mechanic Nick Cimmarusti and his team sourced the one they needed, and DeLuca’s husband volunteered to shuttle the transmission for the Stockton, California to Reno, Nevada where it could be handed off to the next person. Team 141 was able to get their new-to-them transmission installed and get back on course today.
Day 3 Results
Forty-six rookies are competing in 2025, but only the highest-scoring team in both classes comprising two first-time Rebelles is eligible for the Rookie of the Year designation. Only one team in the X-Cross® segment is a contender for this award: Kimberly Carte and Eva De Los Santos (Team 203), driving for Iridium in a 2023 Ford Bronco Sport with BILSTEIN shocks. In the 4×4 class, keep your eyes on Team 117; Tina Chang and Jill McAdoo have already shown an impressive understanding of the game with a 17th-place finish on the very first enduro, and they continue to fight for a top spot in the Rookie category.
In the 4×4 class, Team 128 (Susan Pieper and Elise Young) holds onto the top spot in a 2025 Warner INEOS Grenadier with a total of 604 points. Nena Barlow and Teralin Petereit (Team 129) are close behind with 603 points in a 2025 Jeep Gladiator. Team 122 (Tobi Hlavnicka and Caralina Carlson) have guided their 2023 Ford Bronco Raptor to a total of 600 points so far, which puts them in third place.
Subaru is having a great day in the X-Cross class. Last year’s champions Carey Lando and Andrea Shaffer (Team 200) remain at the top in their 2025 Subaru Forester Hybrid Touring. Emme Hall and Kendra Miller (Team 210) are in second in a 2025 Subaru Crosstrek, and third place is currently rookie team Kathleen Gardner and Jordan Keeth (Team 211) in a 2021 Subaru Crosstrek.
Debuting as a bronze partner for 2025, BILSTEIN is no stranger to the rigorous demands of the Rebelle Rally and what a difference it makes to have great shocks. BILSTEIN produces around 13 million shock absorbers every year, perfecting the right fit for every situation off- and on-road. This year, 9 teams are using BILSTEIN shocks on their rally vehicles for a more comfortable ride over each 10-hour day. That includes one of the oldest vehicles in competition: Team 113 (Marie and Jenn)’s 2001 Land Rover Discovery II.
Learn more about BILSTEIN and its benchmark-setting high-performance parts, visit bilstein.com/en-us/.
Ways to Follow the 2025 Rebelle Rally
Fans can follow the Rebelle Rally live through the Rebelle Rally LIVE Webcast Presented by Toyota, starting Friday, October 10th. Daily broadcasts will be available via rebellerally.com, YouTube, and Facebook, featuring morning competition day previews, scoring updates, and evening recap shows. For real-time updates, live tracking, scores, daily recaps, team bios, and more, visit the rally’s official website and connect with the community on social media @rebellerally on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
