Team Velocity Does It Again!
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Car
Ford Ranger
The Ford Ranger Raptor is a special version of the Ford Ranger truck designed to go off-road better and look cooler, with stronger parts and different lights.
Term
daytime running lights
Daytime running lights are lights on a car that turn on automatically during the day so other drivers can see you better and avoid accidents.
Company
Baja Designs
Baja Designs makes special bright lights that you can add to trucks to help see better when driving off-road or in dark places.
Car
Ford F150
The Ford F-150 Raptor is a tough truck made to drive on rough dirt roads and trails. It has special parts that help it go fast and handle bumpy ground.
Part
fog lights
Fog lights are special lights on a car that help you see better when it's foggy or rainy outside.
Concept
Le Mans
Le Mans is a very long car race that lasts a whole day. Drivers and cars have to be very strong to keep going without stopping.
Term
running start
At the beginning of the race, drivers used to run to their cars to start driving fast right away.
Concept
Rebel Rally
Rebel Rally is a race where people drive fast on rough dirt roads and trails. It's a tough competition that shows how good the drivers and their cars are on bumpy paths.
Car
Ford Bronco
The Ford Bronco is a tough and fun car made for driving on rough roads and trails. People like it because it can handle difficult places where normal cars can't go. When they say 'baby Bronco,' they mean a smaller version that can still be a bit scary to drive off-road.
Concept
hill climb
A hill climb is when a car tries to drive up a very steep hill. It shows how strong the car is and how good the driver is at controlling it.
Company
DirtFish
DirtFish is a place where people learn how to drive rally cars better by practicing on special courses.
Term
zero offset
Zero offset means the wheels stick out straight from the car without being pushed in or out. This can cause the tires to kick up rocks or dirt onto the car.
Term
paint protection
Paint protection is like a clear cover put on a car's paint to stop it from getting scratched or chipped by rocks and dirt.
Term
stone shield
Stone shield is a clear, tough sticker put on parts of a truck or car to stop rocks and dirt from scratching or damaging the paint.
Term
V8
A V8 engine has eight cylinders shaped like a V. This design helps the engine make a lot of power and is often used in fast or big cars and trucks.
Car
Ford Bronco Raptor
The Bronco Raptor is a tough and powerful version of the Bronco SUV made by Ford, built to handle rough off-road driving.
Term
supercharged engine
A supercharged engine is a type of engine that pushes extra air inside to make the car go faster and be stronger.
Term
turbocharger
A turbocharger is a part that helps the engine get more air so the car can go faster and use fuel better.
Car
Ford Maverick
The Ford Maverick is a small truck that is easy to drive and good on gas. It's great for people who want a truck but don’t need a big one. The 'Maverick 300' is a new version that shows it can do a lot of different jobs.
Brand
Ford Racing
Ford Racing is a part of the Ford company that works on making cars faster and better for racing and performance.
Car
Ford F-150 Raptor
The Ford Raptor is a special version of a Ford truck made to drive really well off-road and in tough places.
Term
chicken corners
Chicken Corners is a tricky part of a famous race track in Germany where the road has sharp turns that are hard to drive fast through.
Concept
rock crawling
Rock crawling means driving a vehicle slowly over big rocks and rough ground. It’s like a special kind of off-road driving that needs careful control.
Concept
stage win
In rally racing, the race is split into parts called stages. Winning one of these parts is called a stage win, and it's a big deal because it means you were the fastest in that section.
Concept
rally racing
Rally racing is a type of car race where drivers race on different kinds of roads like dirt and sand. They have to be very good at driving and finding their way through different parts of the race.
Concept
Dakar
Dakar is a very tough race where drivers go through deserts and big sand dunes. It can feel lonely and hard because of the rough conditions.
Company
Rally Innovations
Rally Innovations makes special gadgets that help drivers in rally races know where they are and how fast they are going.
Car
Ford Broncos Sport
The Ford Bronco Sport is a smaller SUV that can go off-road but is also good for regular driving. It has special parts underneath to protect it when driving on rough roads. This makes it a good choice for people who want adventure but also a comfy ride.
Term
suspension
Suspension is what helps your car ride smoothly over bumps and keeps the wheels on the road.
Term
drive modes
Drive modes let you change how your car drives, like making it sportier or smoother depending on the road or your mood.
LIVE
Welcome to the Ebonz Podcast. I'm Dan. I'm Nick. It's raining. It is raining. It's cold. It's dark.
How's those lights? Oh, this is, you know, it's funny. My lovely wife once asked me, she goes,
how often do you use the stuff on your truck? And I was like, more than most people. But like,
when it gets dark and nasty like this, the Baja lights definitely come in.
I was referring to your other lights. Oh, we got that done.
Thank you. So I mean, now, if you don't know, I was a little obsessive compulsive.
The Ranger Raptor came with daytime running lights that are white, which drives me nuts
because all the other Raptors have orange. And Dan and I had to, well, what we thought was going
to be a complicated thing as far as pull the headlight out because somebody stripped a bolt.
I'm going to blame Brian Dallas, even though he was, he was there. But we, I mean, we pull,
we stripped the front bumper and took the light out of that thing in less than 30 minutes.
Yeah, it was pretty quick. It was pretty easy. So cheers to Ford for,
I don't think they meant to do that. Have your spare part somewhere over here.
We don't know. I don't know where that went. It's one small grommet that we didn't put back in it.
I love it. I, Kate caught me in the garage just turning on the truck and so they'd come on.
So, but it, I don't know why that's, and it's funny because I was talking to somebody about it.
I went to Safeways and, and I said, it's funny because it's something I can't see
when I'm driving the truck, except when I pull up to somebody and they're
reflecting in it. But then, and then I kind of giggle like a school child.
But yeah, I like that. It sets it apart from the other trucks.
I do too. I mean, I just, and I understand it's the yellow lights and the marker light,
the marker lights I put it into and they all match, everything matches because, you know,
it has to be matchy, matchy while I'm off road. Right.
But yeah, so it looks good. Thank you. No problem.
But I was talking about, because it's so gloomy and nasty, I've been using my Baja
lights coming, you know, in and out of here, but which really make people mad
if you don't turn them off quickly. So yeah.
Oh yeah. I've noticed that too. So I have, because I have the Baja Designs kit
on my F-150 Raptor and it's in the factory locations, but it's also wired
to the factory fog switch. Yeah.
And so I have Baja Designs Fog with their S2 Pros, so they might as well be second headlights.
Yeah. So I'm like, oh crap, gotta turn this off.
Sorry for blinding you, sir. Yeah, sorry about that.
Yeah. But it is nice because it lights up the road so well you can really
see the person flipping you off. So. Oh yeah, that is helpful.
Yeah, it's nice. Yeah. Nice.
All right. We have some special guests this week, so we're gonna jump right in
pretty quick. But first we're gonna do, of course,
our Carter Automotive Group tip of the week. This one, shout out to Porsche,
since we gave them a bunch of hell last week and they're almost bankrupt.
They're not really. They'll be okay. They're Porsche, but they are 99% in the
whole, which is kind of funny. But I mean, the whole group is having issues.
Volkswagen can't find chips. The tariffs are killing them. There was a big thing about it
this week. Yeah. It's been a rough week for V-Dub.
For Vaj. Good God.
Which stands for Volkswagen Automotive Group. That is their official 3-cylinder.
Okay. Yeah.
3-cylinder diesel.
Cars are on my brain. Yeah.
No, Volkswagen Automotive Group is VHG. It's a rough time for them.
So what I want to talk about though is why Porsche Ignitions are on the left.
And car people most, most car people I think actually know this one,
but there's a lot of people that don't. Why is Ignition on the left?
Why is there a fake key on the left than the new ones?
Why has it always been there?
I'll respect the Le Mans pre-1970.
Pre, I think 60, yeah, pre-70. I think 70 was the last year for it.
Because it's on the outside even if it's a right-hand drive car, right?
Correct. Okay.
Yeah. And it's, the reason is, is when you had to do a running start to Le Mans,
which meant all of your drivers were standing on the side of the track,
and they had to run to their cars, hop in and turn them on.
This gave them one hand on the shifter, one hand on the Ignition,
and they could start it up with the left while putting the shifter into gear with the right,
and it saved them like about a second.
Also, it didn't take them long to put on the seatbelts because they didn't.
Right.
Because most of them wanted to be thrown from the car if something happened.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah. So back in the day that's that in Porsche as carried that tradition forward to all
their cars as an homage to Le Mans.
And that's why when you get in a sob and you have to put the key next to the emergency brake,
you can't, it's much harder. They want you to slow down because of the sob.
Yeah.
Yeah. So kind of a fun little, a little piece of automotive history there.
They eliminated the running start to Le Mans after people almost got ran over multiple times.
Yeah.
I think Ix was like famously slowly like sauntered to his car and then still won Le Mans.
Well, there's people that were Le Mans were smoking while fueling their cars.
They would drink.
Yes.
I mean, it's, yeah.
Different times.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So anyway, that's why, but that's our little Carter automotive group tip of the week.
Bringing back some amazing guests this week, Trista Smith, Chris Hayden,
podiumed again at Rebel Rally 2025.
We are so proud of them.
We talked about them last week.
We didn't know they were going to show up this week.
So surprise.
Yeah.
So welcome back team Velocity.
Nice to see you both.
Thank you.
Happy to be here.
So stoked.
Thanks for having us again.
Always great to have you.
Ford Performance Athletes.
That's right.
Yes.
Took on the Rebel Rally this year in a Ranger Raptor,
which could not be more proud of myself, took second place, rocked it.
And I do want to talk about this later.
I did not know that there was a fashion part of the rally.
We're at the end of the day, we're going to talk about those amazing dresses at the ball,
which I didn't know you guys did, but talk to us about how it finished.
Like we talked to you like halfway through.
We had a very brief interview and we kind of knew.
I think I don't know how happy the person was and the fact that I was telling you
guys information of where you were in the rally.
But my bad.
They were great.
They handled it like troopers.
I mean, we knew it's so great talking to you now.
Because yes, in the moment, we're so blind of what's going on.
We knew we had a good day.
We were very excited.
And we, oh, Chris, we hadn't had a great day yet.
Did I why I'd miss us that day on our way to Ridgecrest?
It was, we talked to you guys on Wednesday night, Tuesday night.
Before the rain.
Yes.
Yes.
No, it was on Monday.
It was Monday night.
Yeah.
And so we talked to you after the end of day four,
which all of our days were good days.
Our losses are very minimal.
But the next day ended up being absolutely epic.
Rain never seen on rebel course before.
We had absolute Pacific Northwest conditions for our stage the next day,
which we ended up playing scene second for the next day stage.
And I was really excited to be in Ridgecrest.
But the amazing part of the course was that it was run in a way
it was never ran before.
So it was new to all of us and the checkpoints were new
and we just really got to do our job well, which was really fun.
Yeah, it's, it was, yeah, like Trista said, it's pretty,
pretty awesome feeling like, you know, a lot of times you're like,
man, all these people have done this rally so many times,
like way more than us.
They have all this experience.
But when we're all level, when the playing field is level,
that's really where we can shine.
Because everyone is seeing it for the first time
and we had a lot of stages in this rally like that.
That was like one of the goals of Emily Miller
was to make this rally as challenging as possible
and as new as possible.
So it kind of leveled that experience field for everyone
versus just ability for, yeah.
Yeah, and we've talked about this in the past.
The, I mean, sometimes you guys go, like you were just saying,
you go down same, the same routes or same areas,
but the route is different every year.
You don't know it until the day.
That's the whole point of it,
to show off your driving and your navigation skills.
And just to clarify, if we have new listeners,
they are driving a vehicle, no GPS.
I mean, they're, you know, practically out there with,
you know, trying to play by the stars and yeah.
Yeah, pretty much.
Yeah.
What was it like navigating in the sudden change of weather
in the desert?
Because rain in the desert is no joke.
I think we will think, oh, that's pretty.
And then they drive through it.
I've had the displeasure a couple of times
and I've been like, oh crap, this is serious
because it doesn't drain.
It just goes all over everything.
Yeah.
It was, it was serious.
I had someone shortly after the rebel.
I can't remember, Chris, when somebody,
oh, maybe it was that dinner.
It was dinner that night.
And I think one of the staff people were like,
how was navigating?
How was using your compass today?
And I was like, oh, that thought oddly enough,
hadn't actively occurred to me that day
because we have done, we're a Pacific Northwest team.
We've trained in Washington.
We've trained in Alaska.
We've trained in Canada.
If I'm blind,
it's usually because we're in trees.
And so I'm just able to use the compass data
to say what direction we need to keep working towards.
So all of that weather coming in all of a sudden,
a lot of navigators felt very blind.
We were in the clouds.
We had massive rainfall.
Our winch, we had a teammate lose a windshield wiper,
just stuff where visibility was really down,
which made it really hard to figure out where to go.
But that was actually something
that hadn't occurred to me during the day
because we're kind of used to working in a forest.
We're used to not having huge sightlines.
But I knew right away,
the day was going to be interesting
when Chris, I got out of the car,
I think for the first time,
she almost fell just standing on the mud
because it is just like slick,
fills your shoes, fills the tires.
So Chris, I know your experience
was a little different as a driver that day
than normally it is.
We've been on, you know, the Avonsof road course
and been in, you know,
halfway up our door in water and mud,
but never so much on the rebel before.
Yeah, desert mud is different.
It's silt, it turns into slip,
really slippery, like slip,
if you think of pottery,
like the slip that you use
to stick your pottery together,
it's like that.
So the slippery part was a little interesting,
but I really appreciated the water in the ruts
because it kind of cushioned those ruts,
like it would make it so,
like you didn't just font them out
or you didn't hit something,
you had a little bit of a splash zone,
which made it fun as well.
I liked the day, it was challenging.
We did go back to a course
that we had run our rookie year
and it was very challenging in the baby Bronco
and really like nerve wracking and scary for us
and we timed it out of some checkpoints.
So this year, going back to that exact same spot
was really empowering
because we knew that we could tackle it
and it really showed how much we've grown
in the last four years,
really just elevating our game
to be able to, oh, that hill climb,
no big deal.
Like, no, up there, yeah, we're going.
And the first year we were like,
nope, we are going around that.
You're like, yeah, throttle, we got this.
No problem.
That's funny.
Did you guys encounter any things
that haven't happened before?
Obviously, you're talking about
the differences between the Ranger Raptor
and when you guys started with the baby Bronco.
But I mean, anything new this year
that you weren't prepared for?
Because you guys are, like I said,
you guys prepare like I've known before.
I mean, I forgot how many miles you told me,
you told me you put in before each rally,
but anything new?
Well, we've never had our tent fully flood before.
So that was a new one.
So after that stage end,
we came back and our tent was just actively holding water.
So like our sandals were floating
and our mattress pads.
So we had conditions stuff
that we've never experienced before.
I will say, like Carissa that day's,
well, we have a couple of days
that are super special on the Rebel.
That is one of them.
At Carissa's underplane,
her driving a little bit
and how serious our descents were
that we needed to make that day
on very slick conditions,
very reddit conditions,
easy to lose control,
have to let your vehicle go faster than you want,
easy to buck us hard or roll us.
So she did a really phenomenal job
in those conditions.
We saw a lot of people not doing what we needed to do
to get full points that day.
She did really, really, really great.
So the Ranger was, I don't know,
I'm just this passenger princess in the Ranger.
It is such a gentle ride for me.
The fact I can adjust my seatbelt
for the first time ever,
the Bronco always has been really rough on my neck
to not be able to adjust the seatbelt, silly stuff.
It's just been a pleasure to be in that vehicle
for this kind of an event.
We did one new thing that hadn't happened before.
We did have the highest descent.
So we climbed to the highest elevation in the rally
and we did put our tires on some snow.
Which is very exciting.
In the middle of the rally to touch some snow
and then go back down the mountain
and be back in the desert immediately.
But other than that,
and then what Trista just mentioned,
I think just knowing that there were new checkpoints,
especially in the sand dunes,
was really new
because every year she has had a couple checkpoints
that are exactly the same
and people don't even navigate to them necessarily.
They just know where they are
and they drive to them and they get them
and they're out.
This year, those checkpoints were not
where they should be
and she made people really work to get those
and that was new and challenging for us
and exciting for us at the same time
because we were able to go in and get those,
which was awesome.
Yeah, new challenges, new vehicle,
new driving conditions.
I mean, that sounds like it's good for everybody
but just to get second place to podium
in such a big rally that's that challenging
is a big accomplishment.
How, I've been wanting to ask,
I think I was thinking about questions earlier today,
how does Ford react?
I mean, when you're second place,
you've got their Ranger Raptor,
it's their, I guess it's sort of their latest Raptor baby.
It's been winning all kinds of stuff everywhere,
Bob, people are loving it.
It's a great showing for Ford.
What is that like from the Ford reaction
when you guys are doing so well
and their investment has paid off?
Let's put it that way.
So what's that like from Ford?
It's amazing.
They're so stoked for us.
They're so stoked for the program.
And they invested a lot of us
and we invested a lot in them this year,
just to making sure that our caliber of performance
was up there with the highest competitor
was kind of our goal.
We captured that.
And yeah, they're really excited.
Good.
Yeah, it's really fun.
We came across a finish line
kind of like talking to you,
but when we came across the finish line,
we were multiple days blind.
We had no idea what had happened.
Finish line was day eight.
We had scores from day six going into day seven
and that was it.
So we had our placing from day six
up until the finish line
be our only information that we had.
And so when we crossed the finish line,
we had our official Ford crew there.
We had our husbands there and they're like,
what can we say?
What can we tell them?
But it seems we kind of clicked the finish line.
They started like telling us what had happened
that we had won Sandoon stage the day before.
That was official already locked in
that we were in second place.
We didn't know that we were in second place.
We knew we were fighting.
We knew we were fighting to really have an honest
to goodness effort to be worthy of the podium.
And so we were just putting everything out there,
but we don't know how our competitors did.
And we know that we're doing well.
We know where we're triaging some points
where we have some attrition.
But we don't we just assume
Chris and I assume and she tells me,
I kind of do this mental math when I see people not
where I think they should be or all this stuff.
And she's like, our competitors are so good.
Our teammates are so good.
We're just assuming they have a perfect day.
We're just assuming they're out there just slaying
every checkpoint, getting max points,
full points on everything to keep us like pushing.
So we were just pushing so hard,
which is crazy to do in the sand.
It's something Emily Miller did to us last year
that's uniquely special as give your all on a sand dune stage,
all your energy, all your keep yourself safe.
All this energy and attention is going into a sand stage.
And then we still have a whole finish line stage
to get to cross that line.
And it's really hard to have the power
and like mental acuity to do it again
after you've spent so much of that the day before.
But it really paid off.
And we just really focused on everybody's having a perfect day.
So we need to be like as perfect as possible.
But we had no idea where we stood.
We knew we left in...
What did we leave?
Chris, were we fourth?
Yeah, we were fourth.
So our off the line for day seven sand dunes
and day eight finish line,
we were fourth off the line both days.
So we had no information on how things had changed.
We didn't know that after we didn't know
we had won the sand dunes stage.
We knew we had a good sand in stage,
but we didn't know that.
So we didn't know that that had pushed us into second.
And now we were going to just have this point for point,
checkpoint for checkpoint,
duke out all day for second.
And it ended up coming down to our last checkpoint
that locked us in for that placing on the podium.
So super exciting rally.
Very cool.
Michael Smith just joined us in the studio.
He's saying hello.
Yvonne's off-road in search and rescue.
Of course, he knows Chris and Trista well.
So...
He was part of their training program.
That's true.
He set up the course
at Dirtfish.
And yeah.
So yeah, random as it is.
So we're just talking to the ladies
about their second place finish in the Rebell rally.
Awesome.
Yes.
So yeah.
I would say one more thing about Ford's support
that's really cool is that
the Rebell itself is at one single race.
But as far as Ford off-road is like this huge network now
and growing every year.
And it was super special and awesome
to see the responses from our fellow off-road competitors
as far as like red level reaching out
and some of the main guys that you see
way more publicly reaching out
and just congratulating us,
which is so special and really cool
because they are understanding
how much effort we put in
and what this race is about or rally is about.
So that was really, really neat to see the other off-road guys
kind of reaching out and congratulating us as well.
That is really cool.
It's been so amazing.
And it's so cool like everything that's happened
at the finish line at the Gala this year.
But I'm the one that's saying at first
of like, oh, we can be better.
We learned some things this year.
Let's talk.
I have some scoring data I want to go over.
And they don't even have to initiate
that conversation with us.
I'm already like, I'm already there.
So it's really fun that I think
they just get to enjoy and celebrate us,
which is such an honor
because we always want to be doing our best out there.
Nice.
So, I mean, this is a question, obviously, I have to ask.
You've been in the baby Bronco.
You've been in the big Bronco.
You've been in the Ranger Raptor.
What would you like to be in next year?
Yeah, Raptor.
Oh, I didn't even think about that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If these girls are proper Raptor.
Absolutely.
Listen to us.
We know.
Yeah.
We deserve it.
Oh, we agree.
Yes.
Yeah.
I'd be down.
I'd be down.
Honestly, like I want to, you know,
we got to do it again in the Ranger Raptor.
I mean, the Raptor are, I'm down like 100%.
I'm down for anything.
But we do love that truck.
Like the, I don't know,
the Ranger Raptor is really perfect.
Like it's just really great.
Makes me sad that I don't personally own one.
And yeah, it's fantastic.
Yet.
We like it.
I know.
It is such a, every time we hop in it,
Carissa couldn't, Ford had to take the Ranger from us temporarily.
So we had to load it on a car hauler
and even just talking about it, I get like,
we should see her back again in the spring.
But that truck, I hop in
and it's just everything that you're saying.
It's a crappy weather day.
It is windy.
I can't see anything because it's early in the morning.
And I hop in that truck
and my steering wheel starts heating up
and the seat, I'm button number two
because Carissa of course is number one.
And I have all of our lights on it.
It's seven in the morning.
No one cares.
I got my lights on.
I'm great.
We're good.
The truck is just this perfect size.
And I often think about like,
because we're running it truly stock stock stock.
And so we don't have it lifted.
We don't have anything.
And it is just so balanced.
I was so just consistently impressed with its,
I thought we were going to lose something
with a lower profile.
I thought we were going to lose something
having a truck bed hanging out,
changing our angles a little bit.
And we didn't lose anything.
We gained so much course speed.
We could do things at a rate that I didn't know
we could possibly do before.
And that truck just felt so balanced in the sand.
I think that low profile or low profile
is not like it's like, but it's not lifted.
It's not what you think it's stock.
And it just is so well balanced.
And it just clears everything that we need it to clear.
Well, when one of you eventually gets one,
I highly recommend some s-tech on the rear bed sides.
Yep.
Not that Nick knows anything about that,
but yeah, a little paint protection.
When he goes zero offset,
it tends to throw some rocks in the back.
Yeah.
Well, even on my iPhone 50 Raptor without the offset,
s-tech paint protection on the bed sides.
Ford listened to us.
If we had one piece of feedback to give to Ford,
it would be take a note from Porsche in the early 70s
and get some paint protection, some stone shield
on those bed sides, because they look awesome,
but man, do they take a beating.
I think we should combine your idea and my idea,
and Ford should make a Ranger Raptor R,
and then they can debut it.
Yes.
I think that's the way it is.
You know, because that's what the Ford,
that's what the Ranger Raptor needs is more horsepower.
A V8.
Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Actually, it would just be fine if they just did.
This is where, so having the Bronco,
this is based on the same engine and all that.
If you were going to do a Bronco Raptor R or Ranger Raptor R,
I wouldn't want to introduce the weight
and width issues of that giant,
you know, supercharged engine.
And I love that engine.
I really do.
But in those vehicles,
I think the proper answer is just a bigger turbo setup
with faster spool.
Like, it doesn't need a lot.
Just another 100 horsepower.
We know it can do it.
They introduced the Maverick 300 today.
Exactly.
Ford's kicking ass.
I mean, that new Maverick, it's Seema, by the way.
That's awesome.
Maverick 300 T is what they're calling it.
Which, yeah.
Big fan of the Maverick as well.
But, you know.
I don't think that'd be real good on the rally.
But no.
It would be really fun on a road rally, though.
Oh, hell yeah.
For the wing.
Yeah, exactly.
Pastrana style.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
So, I mean, it sounds like,
and I always never know how to ask these questions.
You guys are doing it next year.
God, I hope so.
All right.
If Ford has a program, we will be there.
Well, we'll be there no matter what, I'd be honest.
But, yeah.
If this program continues with Ford,
I'm assuming we will be right back in it.
Awesome.
As I hope those talks have already started,
because you've obviously proven yourselves countless,
you know, four times now.
Well, the thing is, you know,
they're very good at keeping secrets.
Like, we talk to them three or four times a year,
and then all of a sudden they'll come back and be like,
oh, they told us nothing about the Ranger Raptor.
And I was like, hmm.
Which obviously, because we had talked about it,
because when I got mine, they were like,
oh, they even commented.
They're like, that's so cool.
Hope we get to drive one.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was less about us being coy
and more about we bought our tickets the day
before our Ranger was able to be picked up.
So, as soon as we got like, you have a truck,
it's here, let's do this.
We were like booking a flight for the next day and out.
Sure.
We never know exactly how the,
well, like, because we, Carissa and I were a team
that we already had a vehicle that was really working for us.
We were, we had the wild track.
It was in our possession.
So, as far as like, when they have teams
and they're getting vehicles and moving something around,
we were kind of not one that was like high need,
except we did voice that we really could use
something like an improved suspension system.
So, really that put us to Raptor.
And then they decided they were doing
the 15 years of Raptor campaign anyways,
and then all teams were going to Raptor model.
So it ended up just being like perfect for us.
But yeah, we got that.
I was just looking today because I was looking
at my receipts from this year and it was like,
we booked our tickets like May 30th to fly,
to be there on like June 1st.
I mean, nice.
Now that you're part of, it's not for performance,
it's Ford Racing.
But now that you're part of the Raptor team,
does that mean you get to hang out with Daniel Ricardo?
I mean, he's the new sponsor, right?
Or the new, he's their guy now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you never know.
If we make it to the Ford Racing launch event,
I'm sure we'll be shoulder to shoulder.
Good, as you should be.
Yeah.
As you should be.
Certainly are in the place.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Talk to me about this gala and the dresses
and the awesome haircut, everything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So after the Rebell, there is a gala where they do,
where they present you with awards
and it's a big ceremony.
They also play the videos that they've been working
on the entire rally to show off what we've been doing
the last 10 days.
And the videos are amazing.
If you haven't gone and seen a Rebell promo video
every year, they're just epic.
And yeah, you get to basically the dress code
is where what makes you feel like a million bucks.
And every year Tristan and I have bought a dress
or blah, blah, blah.
Like we haven't really gone in on it,
but this year we were all in and we commissioned
a local fashion designer, Dan McLean, to create dresses for us.
And she dove into the project, was super excited,
and we wanted to kind of blend the local terrain
of the desert and the plants and things
that like remind us of the Rebell,
because that's all we're doing out there
is looking at the terrain.
And in the plants and the rocks,
and we're a big fan of rocks.
And so we made all these,
like we made this basically like mood board for Dan.
So like this is what we want.
And then we also added coordinates.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
I'm just pulling it.
I'm pulling it.
Yeah, I'm looking at the video.
I'm pulling up the video because it's been a while.
So yeah, okay.
I mean, I mean, first, when I first saw it,
I thought we were dealing with like vikings.
I mean, with the braids and the air.
And I mean, we're conquering the desert.
I have really thick hair.
And nobody knows that my whole under head,
like underside of my head is shaved.
So, yeah, I just thought it'd be fun to braid it up
and had our fellow teammate and competitor,
Rory Lewis, do my hair.
She's on the side.
She's the hairstylist on the side.
So.
Ah, okay.
Very nice.
What was the coordinates again?
So you understand?
Yeah, you want to talk about our coordinates?
Oh, the coordinates.
The coordinates are special.
I, it was super fun.
As I created with Carissa's partnership,
just a list of places.
So I was like, hey, Carissa,
let's create a list of places that are special to us.
And I created a list and just sent it over to Dan,
and she got to pick what she put on there.
So when I picked up the dresses,
I could kind of tell,
because I'm like, oh, this is a little ease.
This is pretty south.
This is really south.
This is, and so on my dress,
I have two that are significant for me.
One is my first wide miss of the 2024 rally.
First click, that was a negative 10 point.
And it was significant about that.
It was an error and a weird thing I'd never done before.
I had written, we need to go exactly 1.3 kilometers.
And I told Carissa to go 1.8.
So when we clicked exactly where I thought we needed to click,
well, first we got out of the car
and there was a dead badger,
100% just dead face up in the road.
And we're like, man, that's a weird checkpoint.
That's a good sign.
That means we need to turn here.
And so we went for it and I'm doing the math
and I'm like, we are exactly 500 meters off.
Like, exactly.
So I figured out our error,
but that's the significant one is the dead badger click
on one side.
The other side, oh gosh, what's my other side?
Oh, Oldsmobile Hill in Glamis.
So famous hill climb in Glamis.
Great view from up there.
So those are my two coordinates.
Carissa, do you want to share yours?
I had our very first base camp in Belmont, Nevada.
And then I also had Alabama Hills,
which is a special rocky area in California,
off of Sierra.
This is also very fun that we had never been to before
until our very first year of the Rebellion.
So just kind of fun special coordinates that added,
well, fun to the dress.
Well, the dress itself was super fun, but yeah.
You guys look amazing.
It was all perfect.
The stars aligned.
We decided to make this giant commitment.
We also made it to the dresses
and we made this giant commitment
to our training schedule this year
and how we were going to do it,
which really was to a level that we had never done before.
And it all just paid off.
And I don't think Carissa has sold how much we like rocks.
So Carissa sometimes has to, on course, finish line day.
We found ourselves in this area
that it kind of looked like a geode had just exploded.
But I'm like, yeah, the ground's shiny.
I'm busy. I've got stuff to do.
Carissa secretly picks up rocks and puts them in the truck.
But then we were on like this kind of like
squared edges, rock, baby head, nests for a long time.
And I could just hear the rocks wiggling
against her water bottle in the background.
And she's like, yeah, I picked up more rocks.
So she'll pick up obsidian or anything sparkly
and stuff as we go by.
And sometimes our desert trains
is just the most amazing thing.
So the dresses showcased those amazing blobby
Alabama Hills rocks.
It showed case some of the other stuff
that we kind of see like the goblin knobs.
And then we just love the funky desert plants.
So Dan did an amazing job of putting that all together for us.
Very cool. It was amazing.
Yeah. Kate does that.
Rocks just appear in my truck.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't know if that too.
Yeah. It's like, oh, but where'd we get?
And then I go, where'd you get this?
She goes, I don't know.
Yeah.
Then it ends up in the house.
Oh, yeah. Kids.
Yeah. Michael says try having kids.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah. We were out of that.
We're going to start out on chicken corners.
I was out with Shauna and we were, it was getting dark.
And of course, that's not fun to navigate, by the way.
Rock crawling in the dark is not great,
even when it's really mild and in the F-150.
And I'm like, what are you doing?
She's like, I'm looking at rocks.
We have to go get in the truck.
That's amazing.
Okay. So I mean, next year, you guys are going to be there.
This is, is this your best finish?
Oh, yeah.
Yes. Yes.
Okay. Yes.
All right.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah. It's a big deal.
It's a really big deal.
Our competitors are so fierce.
And yeah, it's huge.
Last year we were seventh, year before that we were sixth.
And then in the baby Bronco, we were fourth,
but we were rickies the year with a stage win.
So not only did we podium this year with second,
but then we also had a stage win in the sand dunes,
which obviously is a really big deal for us.
And just to do that in the rally in general is awesome.
That's, yeah, that's a very big accomplishment.
That's very cool.
There's less dead badgers in sand dunes.
That's true.
Yeah. Everybody knows that.
Exactly.
This year we turned before the badgers.
The badger was alive when we turned.
Lesson learned.
Absolutely.
Did you have, I meant to ask this earlier,
but did you have any scary moments in the rally
or just nervous moments in the truck?
I always get nervous.
Yeah. I mean, as much as like we train and as much as we,
you know, get better and grow as drivers and navigators,
there's still moments that, you know, the pucker moments
or the like, you know, can we still do this
or can we do this? Is this the right choice?
And there are, you know, there's create, the sand is wild.
The sand is still wild for me.
It's still intimidating for me,
but now I know that I can do it because I have done it.
So I know like, and every time I go out in the sand,
I challenge myself a little bit more to make the choices,
the difficult choices of, you know, we're literally surfing
like 200 foot dunes.
Like it's wild. It's like, you know, without taking away the speed,
I feel like we're in Dakar, you know, like it's intense
and you feel really alone out there.
And yeah, it can be really intimidating.
And that's probably my big, like, after I get off the sand,
I just need to like, I need a moment.
That's fair.
Yeah. So you're obviously better than I would be.
I've been in the dunes a few times and it's,
being out there alone is a whole other aspect to it.
The only times I've been out there, I've been out there with the people,
you know, if I get stuck at, you know, and I haven't done anything serious,
I haven't really been stuck in, you know, besides like mild little,
you know, not buried.
The answer alone would be rough. I wouldn't do it.
In the dark.
No, I wouldn't.
Absolutely.
Ironically, if I was going to go into the dunes,
I'd take, two people are here.
Yeah.
I'm them. I'd take them and make them lead.
Exactly.
Yeah.
At large.
Yeah.
Too easier that way.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I will say, I had throughout that week,
I had the follow-up on my second screen all the time
and we were watching it.
So, and it was fun to kind of see you guys.
I mean, you know, it's always fun to see people win,
but it's always even more fun to see friends win
and people that we've, you know,
when you were out beating up the baby Bronco.
I mean, I still remember trying to take off that skid plate
in the parking lot.
So, I mean, it's great memories.
And we're so proud of you guys.
Like I said, it's just been amazing.
And I, I mean, you know, keep striving, obviously.
We want you to do it, you know, first place
and then just, you know, keep doing it.
I think I remember, I had to run home.
I grabbed my power station and my cutoff wheel.
You had to cut that bolt off.
That was exciting.
That was the right place to do that
because everybody had tools and we were all like,
okay, how do we do this?
Yeah.
These girls go hard.
Was that the rally innovations one yet
or did that come later?
I think it was the stop one.
It was the second rally innovations one.
Oh, second one.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, all right.
Rally innovations was amazing.
Our first year, they were one of the few
that had stuff in the Broncos sport.
And when they saw our skid plate come across
the finish line that year, they were like,
oh my gosh, we're just going to send you a new one.
And you just put that up as like a trophy on the wall.
So they've been, they've been,
they were really, really awesome that first year.
That's awesome.
But I did want to say kind of a closing thing too,
as anybody that's, any woman that's listening
to this podcast, please, if you're interested
in any remote way, reach out to us.
We are stoked to share any information
and we are so down to get rookies on board
because without rookies, the rally would just fizzle out.
And so if anybody is interested in any way,
please reach out to us online or anything like that.
We're down.
I will plug their Instagram
as well as their website and everything else.
Just like I did in the last episode,
you can go to our show notes.
You can find Carissa and Trista and Carissa and Trista
and get ahold of them.
If you want to talk anything about
Rebel Rally or anything else, they're an awesome source.
As you can tell from listening to this podcast,
they're very hard to talk to.
They're very shy.
They don't want to share any of their fun, you know, so.
And if you want to, you know,
set up a sand dune training date with us, let us know.
We'll be down there a couple of times this year,
I'm sure of it.
It's Carissa's favorite place.
Sounds awesome.
The dunes are fun.
We're learning that they...
Not our trucks, no.
No, we need to do some training, Michael's like a mint.
We're learning that they can be fun.
It's one of those places we really joke
that we're like actually terrible off-roaders
because we're like, why do people do this?
This is, but our goals and our objectives
when they're in there are so different.
And we've had people come out to train us in the sand
and we're like, oh, we actually can't drive the sand
like that, which might be like proper,
like stay up on the fin, stay, whatever,
because we have to stay on our direction that we need to go.
So we can't just avoid what we don't want to do.
We kind of have to figure out...
Don't drive into that deep part, but I gotta go there.
But I gotta go there.
I gotta get to that dune.
So we've had to learn how to do it a little differently
and we've had amazing teammates
kind of give us their tips and tricks along the way
and it's just been quite a joy.
I mean, watching Carissa drive the dunes now,
it is now, it is a full like team sport.
I thought that me contributing was more like backseat driving
or like peanut gallery stuff,
but Carissa has to have her eyes on what's happening
in that moment that she needs me actively scouting.
So I'm like calling stuff or pointing stuff out
as she's like in motion.
And it's just become this like amazing tandem
bizarre experience that we've found ourselves in.
And we did get ourselves in stuck in like a 200 foot sand
dune like bowl.
So you pop in and you're like, well, I can't get out.
And Carissa initially didn't,
we didn't make it out on the first attempt.
We sat there facing the sky,
unsure how we're going to quite get out.
And she did failed hill climb,
got us onto the side of the bowl and like
centrifugal force launched us out.
You did the round.
Yeah.
And then she kind of had to launch us out slightly blind
in a dune to dune transition.
It was just beautiful.
It was amazing, amazing.
This is what dreams are made of.
I know.
I'm telling you right now.
Fine.
We'll go to the dunes and you could teach us.
Deal.
Deal.
Bring some cameras.
Absolutely.
That would be fun actually.
Carissa and I are learning that, you know,
we don't know how long we get to do the opportunity
to do this.
That's why we're leaning in really hard.
Let's make dresses.
Let's train and do our best.
So while we have this opportunity in front of us,
so we're realizing that we actually don't have
a lot of footage or photos of us like
doing what we do in the car.
And I would say,
Hey, you're working.
I would be so remiss if we didn't have some good photos
of her launching off of dunes or, you know,
we got to make that happen this year.
That's like a priority of mine for this year.
Yep.
You heard it, Ford.
Send them a fun truck to go take promotional photos
with launching off dunes.
Say, you know, a Raptor R would be really good at that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or Bronco Raptor.
And if they need photos, we'll go as the support crew
to help them, you know.
We don't care how long it takes.
We will sit in the dunes and take photos.
Yeah.
We'll kidnap Carl.
Absolutely.
I don't think that'd be that hard.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Carl'd do that.
We were supposed to do that with Carl.
I know.
That's what I was saying.
Yeah.
Excellent.
Well, guys, thank you for taking time and doing this.
We're always happy to see you.
Can't wait to, you know, catch up with you,
you know, in the future.
And we, I think we should do a little,
you know, go out and have some fun in the dunes
all of us.
That'd be fun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Steal a truck.
Yeah.
Sounds awesome.
Don't listen to the kids.
There's two Raptors in the driveway.
You'll be fine.
You'll borrow one of mine.
Absolutely.
We got you covered.
No problem.
We know you're qualified.
We are currently, we are currently Raptor-less.
So we have a special void in our hearts right now.
Sorry.
I blame Ford.
If you're, if, if you need a little hit,
just tell me how you can come borrow mine.
Oh, perfect.
Yeah.
Curvism might need to.
It's still pretty nice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was at the Ford dealership today
and I was like,
oh, I wonder if they'll let me sit in their Raptors.
That's when plum poor salesman comes up and goes,
have you seen one of these?
Yeah.
Let me tell you a story.
You don't even know.
I could sell this better than you could.
Let me tell you about the suspension ladies.
I know you haven't seen this before.
Oh, God.
There's multiple drive modes.
Oh, is there?
Yeah.
There's a sand mode you don't say.
You guys joke,
but I was not like an hour away
from the finish line at like the first rest area
and a guy noticed that I double looked
at his Ranger Raptor.
Because you,
wait, I don't,
you don't see a ton in the wild yet.
Yeah.
And he rolled down his window.
He was like, yeah,
got a company car and all this stuff.
And I was like, oh, yeah, dude,
that's awesome, great truck.
And he, and my husband has to be like,
yeah, she just finished like a nine day race
in that truck.
Just did like 1800 miles on that truck.
And he was like, oh, what?
And he was on the speakerphone.
He was on the speakerphone with some friend
and still rolled down his window
to talk to me about his truck.
Did you let me pick up that microphone, sir?
And I heard the guy as soon as I walked away,
I heard the guy on the phone
because I can hear the car phone for like a mile away.
And he's like, what the heck was that?
Who was that?
That lady stole somebody's truck.
All right, guys.
Well, we appreciate it.
We really do.
Yeah.
All right.
Until the next time for this episode
of the Yvonne's podcast, as always, I'm Nick
and I'm Dan and don't just get there.
Enjoy the drive.
About this episode
Dan and Nick discuss their experiences upgrading lighting on their trucks for better visibility in harsh weather, sharing humorous and practical insights. They dive into a fascinating automotive history tidbit explaining why Porsche ignitions are on the left, tied to Le Mans racing traditions. The episode features special guests Trista Smith and Chris Hayden from Team Velocity, who share their thrilling second-place finish at the Rebel Rally 2025 in a Ford Ranger Raptor. They recount navigating challenging, unprecedented rainy desert conditions without GPS, highlighting their growth and adaptability in off-road rally racing.
Original notes
Karissa Haydon and Trista Smith join us to give us all the details on their 2025 Rebelle Rally Adventure. Spoiler alert; they did AWESOME! They give us all the dirt on (ba-dum-tiss) on their 2025 Rebelle Rally adventure, how the move to the Ranger Raptor went, those amazing dresses, and why you don't turn at the dead badger. Follow Team Velocity at https://team-velocity.com
The Avants Podcast is brought to you by our friends at STEK USA and Carter Seattle!
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