California’s Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area is not a place for the faint of heart.
At its best, the Imperial Sand Dunes are 40 miles worth of difficult and hilly velvet sand in a swath of earth averaging five miles wide. Scenic and dangerous all at the same time. At its best.
Then along come days like last Friday, when the wind begins to howl and all 40 miles worth of that sand blows up and around like some kind of debris-infused nightmare. Blotting out the sun and making navigation, not to mention precise navigation, nearly impossible.
But if Cora Jokinen and Melissa Fischer, racing as team Torq-Masters, wanted to improve on last year’s Rebelle Rally fifth place finish, that’s just what they would need to do to catch those higher on the leaderboard.
And improve they did.
Jokinen and Fischer, in their 2005 Wrangler Unlimited, plowed through the dunes and windy weather Friday, accumulating 195 of a possible 217 points on that challenging final day – powering to a third place stage finish which boosted them to an overall fourth place spot in the final standings.
In all, team Torq-Masters, partially sponsored by Quadratec, collected 1150 points for the seven-day Rebelle Rally, which was 91 percent of the total points available. Kaleigh Hotchkiss and Teralin Petereit, competing in a 1999 Wrangler TJ, picked up 199 points on the final day and snared the overall top spot with 1177 points. Hotchkiss has now won both years of the Rebelle Rally, teaming with Charlene Bower for last year's victory.
The top five Rebelle Rally finishing teams were super competitive, with only 34 points separating first and fifth place. In fact, only two points stood between first and the second place squad of Nina Barlow and Chris Mayne.
Jokinen and Fischer entered the final racing day in fifth place with 955 points, thanks to solid second place finishes on Wednesday and Thursday, and trailed Hotchkiss and Petereit by 23 points.
Despite the sandstorm conditions Friday, the top teams all matched each other point for point most of the day, and hit nearly every checkpoint. None of the teams were penalized points for the day, which was exceptional considering the weather, however conditions did cause teams to revise route planning as the day went on and make strategic decisions on which points to hit, and which to miss. Both Hotchkiss/Petereit and Barlow/Mayne landed one extra blue checkpoint for six points, while Jokinen/Fischer got two points back on a black checkpoint. But besides that, no one was able to pull away as the teams all finished nearly where they started for the day.
Rebelle Rally teams are issued points, in part, during the seven days by navigating to green (easy), blue (medium) and black (hard) checkpoints. What makes this special is none of the teams can use technology like smartphones or other gps devices. They can only use maps and a compass to find their way along. When they reach what they believe is a checkpoint, teams activate a tracker which logs their location.
The Rebelle Rally is a unique and demanding all-woman seven-day event based on the elements of headings, hidden checkpoints, time, and distance using maps, compass and roadbook. It is part navigation, part driving, and all excitement.
