Rebelle Rally Starts Wednesday, Adding Utah to the Route

The 11th Rebelle Rally begins Wednesday. The women-only off-road navigation competition runs October 7 through 17 across California, Nevada and, for the first time, Utah, covering roughly 1,500 miles. There is no GPS and no phones; teams of two navigate by paper map and compass, and the rally is scored on finding checkpoints, not on speed.

Wednesday's welcome and technical inspection, at the Westin Lake Las Vegas in Henderson from 10 a.m., is open to the public and is the one chance to see the vehicles up close. The official start is Thursday morning on Pit Road at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a first for the event, but that is limited to team guests, rally guests and invited media. After that the rally goes off grid, and the organizers post live tracking and updates from October 9 through 16 rather than offering spectator access.

Several manufacturers are fielding or backing teams. Jeep is back for an 11th straight year with Team 129, Rebelle champion Nena Barlow and newcomer Hannah Felton, in a factory-stock Gladiator Mojave entered in the Bone Stock category. Toyota is again running a team from its production engineering group.

The Bone Stock class, for vehicles as they leave the dealer, is the part of the results most useful to anyone weighing a truck for desert travel.