She Built Rebelle — Then Can’t Race It
Emily Off-Road joins the Jeep Talk Show to talk about founding the Rebel Rally, why a long women’s-only endurance event had to be bold and raw, and how course design, strategy, and firsthand competition shape every mile. She explains the third-day breaking point, why she skipped a saturated men’s racing space, and how rented stock Wranglers helped prove unmodified Jeeps can succeed. Hear about her Morocco CARTA run, mini expeditions, the Trinity Road Rally, and why a Jeep Rubicon still wins the campfire “do-it-all” vote.
Timestamps
Key Highlights
- Why three days is the real test and the moment you learn the most about yourself
- Building a strategy-based storytelling rally instead of another speed race
- Designing checkpoints, brain breaks, and “epic reveal” mountain passes
- Competing in Morocco and running her own course as a driver with no notes
- Stock Wranglers, rock sliders only, and the campfire pick: Jeep Rubicon
If you liked this conversation, drop a comment: would you run Rebel Rally in a bone-stock Jeep? Like the video, subscribe so you don’t miss the next interview, and visit RebelRally.com plus Emily Off-Road on Instagram and YouTube.
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Rock Sliders for Jeep Wrangler
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Off-Road Navigation & GPS
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Episode Transcript
[00:12:44:26 – 00:13:09:10]
this was serious, you know, to be taken seriously. And anything, and also what I have found is in endurance, anybody can do anything for three days. You know, it’s about that point where, okay, I can do it. It’s three days and about the third day you’re like, oh my gosh, I want out of this, like let me out. But that’s about the moment that you start to learn the most about yourself. It’s when you’re fatigued, it’s when you’re,
[00:13:10:25 – 00:15:14:07]
you’ve made a couple of mistakes, you want to kill your teammate, you know, your vehicle’s kind of, maybe you’ve pushed it to the ragged edge and that’s the moment of truth. And so I knew it needed to be long. I knew it needed to be longer. And then I also knew that people would think of it as like that little women’s car rally. I, you know, we wanted it to be something that shocked people and surprised people and was in the leagues of some of the great international car rallies, but right here on US soil. And we didn’t see that, you know, we didn’t see that happening here. And, you know, a number of people told me that that couldn’t happen. You know, there’s no way we’d pull it off. And so I kind of like a challenge. You know, the hardest part was figuring out the permitting and the funding of it to get it off the ground in a way that would be sustainable and it could keep going. So it was, you know, it was a challenge, but I kind of felt, to tell you the truth, I felt like there was no other alternative. It had to be big. It had to be bold. It had to be real raw and tough and surprised people. Just no idea. I don’t think anything else even entered into my mind. Okay. So you mentioned the women’s side of this thing. And I think that the easy way to go because that’s where the eyeballs generally go. And you correct me on any of the stuff, this is my opinion. Go with the men. Men do crazy, stupid stuff, which is great for the camera. It’s old gee whiz and it’s amazing to the audience. You weren’t concerned about going the, what I think would be the easy way and having men do this or a mixture of men and women. I mean, a woman’s only thing I think is more challenging, especially from the standpoint of what we’re seeing in women’s only sports because they’re having a tough time getting the eyeballs.
[00:15:16:08 – 00:15:23:01]
Well, I really wasn’t concerned. I wasn’t here to make another event.
[00:15:24:13 – 00:15:58:29]
And there are a lot of really great events. There are a lot of great opportunities. There are a lot of great races. And I just, I didn’t want to necessarily be a promoter. I was fine to be a promoter. And I worked hard on King of the Hammers and helping build King of the Hammers with Dave Cole. And I really felt like the guys, they’re covered. They have a lot of great things. Oh no, I agree with you. It’s me going another direction and that’s a good idea, but it’s gotta be scary from the standpoint of it’s a different formula.
[00:16:00:05 – 00:16:29:09]
Yeah, it is a different formula, but it’s also something that hadn’t been really done here. And so I felt like, I didn’t want to enter a saturated space. And also, we’re in production and sports marketing. We knew that there was an opportunity and we knew that to us, it wasn’t about quantity of eyeballs. It was about quality of eyeballs. We were not as concerned about the masses,
[00:16:30:14 – 00:16:33:00]
knowing the rebel and just being,
[00:16:34:19 – 00:16:48:18]
it’s a cerebral game. It is not a race for speed. And it’s, so how do you portray that? Well, there are great stories in the rebel. And so it is definitely a storytelling event, but in terms of just,
[00:16:50:10 – 00:16:57:04]
it’s a strategy based event. It’s very much strategy and the strategy is hard and it’s become harder.
[00:43:59:08 – 00:46:35:25]
Yeah. But you’re enjoying this, right? I mean, you’re seeing quite a bit of success. You’re getting people out there. They’re still signing up. So you have to be very proud of what you’ve accomplished, you and your team. Yeah. And you know, people tell me, oh, you shouldn’t be out designing the course. You know, you should let somebody else do that. Like I’m like, I love the game. You know, I love thinking about, oh gosh, after they do this section, you know, it’s really tough driving. The driver needs a break and needs some really just fun driving. And the navigator here, it’s been really hard navigationally. Now the navigator just needs a brain break. You know, now their car, everybody needs a break. They they’ve got to get on some pavement, get down the road, you know, like designing that course. If, if I were just dealing with insurance and funding and, you know, um, and policy, I wouldn’t do this. You know, that it is so fun to design a course and it all is so fun to go, I’m going to put a blue checkpoint right here because they’re going to have to get out of their car and they’re going to have to look at this epic reveal on this huge mountain pass and it, they’re not going to see anyone else except for a rebel competitor for two days. And they’re going to come up to this pass and their mind is going to be blown. I mean, that gets me fired up. Like I, I am not done. You know, I am. I like saying here on the show that having a Jeep is like having superpowers because you can go places that nobody else can go and you can see things that nobody else can see unless they have a way of getting out there or being flown out there. So, uh, and it’s very much the, uh, the trip. It’s not just these spots that you look and see, it’s how you got there, what you went through to get there. So all this, this is one of the reasons why I think a lot of people don’t understand off-roading. It’s not just about, you know, having a bumpy ride and doing dangerous things. It’s not overly dangerous, but it is dangerous. So it’s the adventure. And I did want to ask you about this cause I thought about this earlier. Uh, you have, you’ve created this event. It’s, it’s a very successful event. It’s doing very well. Um, but you’re a competitor and you’re not competing. You’re, you’re doing this without competing. Does that bother you? I mean, you get to go and you create and do things. That’s, that’s one aspect of it, but you’re not competing. Does that just really bother you that you’re not a competitor?
[00:46:37:09 – 00:48:08:00]
Yes. Uh, Chrissy and I say we created the rally. We wanted to compete in and we can’t do it. Yeah, it actually does a little bit. Um, 2019, um, I went over and competed in the CARTA rally in Morocco, which I love. Um, and I just needed, you know, I didn’t really even tell anybody. Um, I took a, one of our interns who is a great, you know, young, uh, engineer and I trained her how to navigate. And, um, we went and did this, you know, seven day, you know, uh, kind of super remote rally and it was just, it was just what I needed. You know, and I have to tell you that I’m, I’m in that mode again. Um, I, I really need it. Uh, I think it keeps my brain a little settled and it kind of feeds that competitive drive. Um, but what I’ve done, um, a number of years is I’ve, I’ve kind of planned some kind of mini expeditions and I’ve kind of taken a, you know, select group of people that I know that I can trust and that they’re safe. And I’ve kind of planned this kind of fun international route. And so that helps me, but the competition side I like because it really tells me. How well I’ve prepared for something. And I would think that would think competing helps you when you’re designing of this event, because you see things, you, maybe things that you’ve forgotten, you can see things that this is all, this will make this better. Because I learned this myself firsthand.
[00:48:09:01 – 00:48:48:18]
Yeah, absolutely. Don’t mind the loud train going by. You probably heard that. No, I didn’t. Okay, good. Um, yeah, it’s really important because you need to know what it feels like to be a competitor. And there’s one day on the rally this year that, um, our course director designed that was very interesting and it’s really good. And we had kind of incorporated some of those pieces into, I started a road rally called Trinity road rally. And it’s a four day rally. And then it, it’s incredible driving and, but it also always ends on a famous track. And, um, we incorporated it there, but Jimmy made me go out and run this a day of the rally and it’s long.
[00:48:49:20 – 00:49:54:28]
And do it as a competitor with no information. And it had so much fun and it, you know, we try to do that, um, with each other and do it in a way that we understand what that challenge is going to feel like. So, you know, when people, you know, think, Oh, well, we just set these GPS points from, you know, from the sky from Google earth. Well, no, I drove to every one of them. You know, I time myself, I, you know, ran it in two wheel drive. I, you know, like I looked at the different scenarios, but there’s nothing like competing. I’m pretty excited because Nora rally, um, uh, not Nora Sonora rally just announced that they’re going to do a three day format and I think they’re going to do some things that allow more, uh, stock, uh, vehicles. Um, so that’s down in the Sonora desert in Mexico. I’m pretty excited that they’re doing that. Um, but don’t be surprised if in the next, um, year, year and a half, um, I like send you a little note and say, okay, here, here’s where I’m headed.
[00:49:56:01 – 00:50:08:26]
We’re a little dose of competition. Oh, very nice. All right. So we have to wrap up. I’m sorry to say a very interesting conversation. Um, but, uh, the, the, I’ve got two things left for you. One is what are you going to be driving today?
[00:50:10:13 – 00:50:20:08]
Um, I’m actually going to be in someone else’s, uh, Toyota Tacoma. Oh, pass the, the, all the correct answer was Jeep. I, it’s true.
[00:50:22:00 – 00:51:50:09]
Fabrication, um, is a suspension partner and along with, you know, Bill Stein is a suspension partner as well. So I’m going out and meeting somebody that I absolutely trust in dunes. Um, so we’re going to run the dune course today. Um, hopefully I think this is, I don’t know when this is airing, so nobody’s finding anything out too soon. Um, going, um, yeah, so that’s what I’m going to be in, but I can tell you that, um, you know, in fact, when we started, when I started the rally, Rod Hall and I, I used to rent a fleet of Jeep vehicles, Jeep Wranglers, um, for a, the, uh, light truck tire program. And we had them, you know, like between 14 plus weeks out of the year and Rod, um, and I would take off and we would just drive these stock rented Wranglers to run the course. And that was the whole point was that I wanted someone to be able to take a unmodified Jeep Wrangler and be able to be very successful on this course. And that was, you know, it literally rented Jeeps were how I set this course. We say repeatedly, we say repeatedly, you do not have to modify a Jeep. The only thing that I would recommend is some sort of rock slider because you don’t want to take damage on the rockers or the bottom of the doors. But other than that, just take them out there and run. So did Avis know you were taking these things off road?
[00:51:51:13 – 00:52:39:28]
Yeah, I actually, they did. And we had a enterprise and they were fantastic to work with. Oh, that’s good. They knew, they knew, but we were good customers. Um, but you know, we, I was sitting around a campfire. There’s probably some things that are nice to close on. I was sitting around a campfire with a number of experts and it was, um, last year, and I said, okay, if you were going to pick one vehicle that you were going to buy from a dealer, not overly modern, you know, not a very special edition. Um, because you needed it to be a do all, be all your expedition vehicle, like no mods, what would it be? And every single person sitting around that campfire said a Jeep Rubicon.
[00:52:41:04 – 00:54:03:24]
Um, Jeep Rubicon. Yeah. Yeah. I can see why Ford’s trying to copy them with the Bronco. Uh, God bless them. Um, all right. So let’s wrap up with this. Uh, you know how the kids love the social media. We’ve mentioned rebel rally.com. Where else can they follow you guys or you personally on the social media stuff? Yeah. Well, um, rebel rally.com on everything. So on, um, Instagram, Facebook, um, also on YouTube. And I would subscribe to our YouTube because we will have a live broadcast. Um, starting on the live broadcast will start on October 8th. And we will also have a first show that will set up and really explain the rebel, how to watch it, the format, all the information. Um, if you sign up on YouTube, anytime we go live, it will send you a notification that we are live. I would also tell people to sign up for our newsletter because we have great opportunities from our partners. We have the rebel ultimate giveaway, which is great. I mean, talk about, you know, the ability to win great items. Um, and, uh, oh, maybe coming soon could be tick tock, but, um, to be announced, but it will always be right. We’re of the age where we have to call it tick tack. That way it shows that we don’t know what the hell
[00:54:03:24 – 00:54:07:22]
we’re talking about. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
[00:54:08:26 – 00:54:54:16]
And then, um, I’m out on Emily off road. Um, and you know, the, um, I don’t post all the time because, you know, it’s secret where I go, you know, I spend so many days, um, off road, you know, I, I just a tremendous number of days and it’s kind of fun because I don’t get to tell anybody where I am, um, or you might see me post pictures of like rocks and trees and clouds, and then everybody goes into guessing, you know, like, where’s the course going? So yeah. All right, Emily, I’m sorry. I know we need to go cause you have a hard time out. Uh, it was so much fun talking to you. We’ll have to get you back on again. It doesn’t have to be six months. It could be whenever you feel like coming on. Cause we do an interview. Uh, we posted an interview every week. So love to have you back on.
[00:54:55:18 – 00:54:59:05]
All right. Hey, thanks so much. Thank you. Be out
[00:55:00:29 – 00:55:02:26]
You’re my friend, you’re my new friend.
[00:55:02:26 – 00:56:48:09]
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