2025 Rebelle Rally Field Update: DAY 5 Presented by Stryten Energy
October 14, 2025 (Ridgecrest, California)
- Starting line weather (Ridgecrest, CA): cloudy and 51° F, with 14 mph winds
- Time Limit: 10 Hours
- Distance: 150 miles / 242 km
- Difficulty: 4.5 out of 5
- Finish line weather (Ridgecrest, CA): cloudy and 51° F, but feels like 38° F with 15 mph winds
Ridgecrest, California sits on the Southeastern end of the Sierras and is known for its diversity of terrain, excellent designated trails and open off-highway vehicle (OHV) area of Spangler Hills. Day 5 Presented by Stryten Energy included more difficult navigation in a bowtie configuration and two distinct loops. The area was hit hard with extreme storms just before the rally, requiring some road and route removals but teams should expect sharp cuts, exposed bedrock, and deep ditches.
The West Loop begins with a 30 minute transit to Dove Springs where an X and regular decision will be made to descend into Jawbone Canyon. All teams will then ascend Butterbrecht to Kelso Valley then drop into the open OHV area for Dove Springs for a Jimmy Lewis-devised precision enduro, during which teams will follow a roadbook and click at appropriate tight bullseyes for points. Competitors get to choose one of two paths: one roadbook is designed for driving difficulty and the other for challenging navigation. From there, teams looped back to Base Camp.
The East loop takes place in Spangler OHV starting with an on time enduro challenge then approximately 10 out of order checkpoints that take teams to the backside of Trona Pinnacles and down to Teagle Wash. This area pushes teams to use dead reckoning, a navigation skill that relies on distance and headings, not merely reading features on a map.
At the morning briefing, Rebelle Rally Founder and Director Emily Miller warned the teams to avoid using the paved roads as handrails, because it would eat up precious time and take them off-heading. The difficulty of navigating this rocky and slow terrain was amped up significantly by a constant barrage of rain that created slippery slopes and washouts.
During the Rebelle Rally Live Show presented by Toyota, Director of Scoring and Head Rally Judge Chrissie Beavis said the bowtie configuration was already confusing and time consuming.
“I know Emily said the difficulty level today would be a 4.5 out of 5, but I say it’s a 6 out of 5 in this weather,” she said.
The past four days have been easy by design, said Rebelle Rally Founder and Director Emily Miller, which is why today’s stage was a shock.
“Today was meant to be challenging,” Miller said. “Throw in the elements, and it was extra hard and shook things up. When you get into a place like this and you have that many points that are out of order, it’s hard to make decisions. You have to make them as a team.”
Great Quotes From the Day
- Team 145, Liza Tough: “It’s the 10th year and I always say I don’t know if I’m going to come back, but I might keep coming back just because I love it so much. It’s the community. It’s seeing these places that I would never see otherwise. So for me, it’s the ultimate adventure. Even in struggles, it’s still great to unplug and get away from everything, and be in nature and see things that you would never see.”
- Team 122, Tobi Hlavnicka: “I’m driving a ‘23 Ford Bronco Raptor. It’s actually my daily driver, which is a blessing and a curse because I really know my vehicle well, but it also means that it’s gotten a lot of mileage in the last few years. If I were to have mechanical difficulties, I could at least hopefully diagnose it. At the rally, you have to know what’s going on in the vehicle; even if I don’t know exactly how to fix it, I at least can direct them to what I think the problem is.”
- Team 155, Jenna Fribley: “You have to have goals, but you also have to be flexible with those goals. And you are your own worst enemy in terms of keeping your head in it. If you let yourselves wither emotionally, it really affects you. So you somehow just have to take a deep breath and do whatever you need to do and pull up your big girl pants and reset.
- Team 198, Kristian Rene: “We keep timing out on our checkpoints, and the need to be precise and quick. Not just quick, but insanely quick. When you go back to the real world, you have so much time. It doesn’t really matter how urgent anything is because you have more than four minutes to manage it, and it all becomes so manageable. The processing speed that’s required doesn’t exist in any other aspect of your life, and it’s not like we’re basic people out here. We have people who are making life and death decisions, and you still have more time to make most of those decisions than we have in this game. Every turn, every meter, by the minute, is wild.”
- Team 139, Alex Gilman: “Laugh when you can, breathe when you can, snack when you can. Toward the end of today we missed a green checkpoint and that shattered us for a bit. You have to save a minute to take a breath, pick yourself back up, and shake it off.”
Spotlight: Mental Toughness
Consider this: the NY marathon is the biggest one of its kind in the U.S., with 54,000 finishers at the 2024 race alone. Multiply that by five and you have the Badwater 135, a brutal 135-mile ultramarathon. Not only is that superhuman mileage, but the course is run in one of the hottest places on Earth: Death Valley in California. It’s an invitation-only race, limited to 100 entrants each year. Only the toughest of the tough can handle it, and to repeat an oft-repeated mantra preferred by Rebelle Rally Founder and Director Emily Miller, “If it were easy, everyone would do it.”
Similarly, the Rebelle Rally represents off-road adventure motorsports to the extreme. It’s not one day, it’s eight. It’s 5 a.m. wake-ups for eight days in a row. It’s rain, heat, freezing temperatures, and 10-hour days. It’s setting up tents, sleeping mats, and filling up water bottles. On top of all of that, it’s stepping away from all technology and getting immersed in topographical maps, rulers, analog calculators, and compasses. Math, physics, strategy, grit, and tenacity, all wrapped into one intense rally.
Team 199’s Melissa Clark says she likes to train “to failure” as one would in a gym.
“We go out and do things that we think would be even harder or different than what Emily would put out there, and see if we can figure it out,” Clark said. “I have rally navigators, so I make these ridiculous enduros, and we go out and set courses in Johnson Valley, in different places. Sometimes we’ll do Emily’s courses backwards just for fun and see how that works. A lot of training, a lot of practice. It’s constant. You can’t stop. If you do, you’ll get rusty.”
Jenna Fribey (Team 155) believes it’s important to have goals, but it’s critical to be flexible with those goals.
“You are your own worst enemy in terms of keeping your head in the game,” Fribley said. “If you let yourselves wither emotionally, it really affects you. So you somehow just have to take a deep breath and do whatever you need to do and pull up your big girl pants and reset. “
Day 5 Results
While Subaru vehicles continue to hold onto first and third place in the X-Cross™ class, team 203 is scrappily edging into the podium realm and currently occupying second place. Rebecca Donaghe and Rebecca Dalski (Team 205) are piloting a 2024 BMW X5 40i xDrive, which makes sense since Dalski is a Product Manager for BMW’s X5, X6, X7 and M vehicles and knows the vehicle very well. Meanwhile, Team 200 (Carey Lando and Andrea Shaffer) and Team 211 (Kathleen Gardner and Jordan Keeth) retain potential podium spots while Team 210 (Emme Hall and Kendra Miller) slip into fourth with an extremely thin margin.
On the 4×4 side, there is a royal battle brewing for podium spots. Team 129 (Nena Barlow and Teralin Petereit in a 2025 Jeep Gladiator) remain at the top with a total of 1065 total points. Team 128 (Susan Pieper and Elise Young) is chasing first place in a 2025 Warner INEOS Grenadier. For the first time, Team 131’s Karisa Haydon and Trista Smith pushed into third with a stellar stage score today. Don’t count out Team 188 with Laura Wanless and Penny Dale piloting a 2025 Ford Bronco Raptor, Shelby Hall and Rori Lewis (Team 150 in a 2023 Ford Bronco Raptor), or Team 122 (Tobi Hlavnicka and Caralina Carlson) in their 2023 Ford Bronco Raptor.
Rookie Team 117 (Tina Chang and Jill McAdoo) continue to stick to the top third of the pack with a solid lead over the other all-rookie teams in their 2017 Jeep Wrangler.
Making its debut as a stage sponsor, Stryten Energy is presenting Day 5 at the 2025 Rebelle Rally. Not only does Stryten build advanced battery solutions that support our country’s energy independence, but it’s also one of the few domestic, vertically integrated battery manufacturers in the U.S. With a history of electric and electrified vehicles competing in the rally, Stryten’s technology is an intuitive connection to this event. The Rebelle Rally is a celebration of perseverance, innovation and the challenger spirit—values that are at the core of Stryten Energy.
The company is also sponsoring Team 161 Jully Hirt and Amanda Elve, powering their 2022 Jeep Gladiator with an advanced Enhanced Flooded Battery. This Stryten Energy technology is designed to deliver superior performance, durability and reliability, especially in high heat conditions.
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.
