Leucadian behind wheel of all-women off-road event

As a girl growing up in Crested Butte, Colo., Emily Miller loved sitting by the fireplace with her dad reading car magazines. But one thing she always wondered as she flipped through the pages was, “Where are all the women?”

Today, women still make up just a fraction of the car-racing industry, but Miller has spent much of the past 10 years trying to put a dent in that ratio.

The 51-year-old Leucadia resident is the founder of Rebelle Rally, the first women's off-road competition in the United States. Now in its third year, Rebelle fields up to 50 two-women teams in a 10-day navigational challenge across 1,200 miles of deserts and backcountry from Squaw Valley near Lake Tahoe to the Glamis Dunes in Imperial County.

Before launching Rebelle Rally in October 2016, Miller was a member of the Rod Hall Racing Team, an off-road racing instructor, a winner of the Baja 1000 off-road race and a recipient of the Women’s Automotive Alliance International’s Spirit of Leadership Award.

Yet of the 4,500 people she has coached over the past decade, only 13 percent were women. With Rebelle, she hopes to pull a lot more women behind the wheel.

“I wanted to create my dream rally for women and put it into a platform that pushes women to face their greatest strengths and weaknesses,” she said.

Among the 65-member team she assembled to produce Rebelle Rally is course director Jimmy Lewis, a world champion off-road racer whose wins include the Baja 1000 and Dubai Rally.

Lewis said he dreamed for years of creating his own U.S. rally but failed until he met Miller and together they created Rebelle’s logistically challenging course.

“When she first approached me I said, ‘you’re crazy, you’ll never be able to pull this off,’” he said. “Frankly, I’m blown away by what she's accomplished. She comes across as unassuming, but she can help you achieve your goals and do things you never thought you were capable of.”

Rebelle’s scoring system was designed by San Diego architect Chrissie Beavis, 37, a veteran rally driver who learned the sport from her parents and is proudest of her 2015 crossover class win in Morocco’s all-female Gazelle Rally.

Beavis said rallying — as opposed to racing — involves strategy, not speed, which makes it ideal for women competitors.

“It’s not wheel-to-wheel racing, which takes a lot of testosterone and you have to be willing to risk your competitor’s life,” she said. “In rallying, you’re on your own. It’s you and your teammate against the elements, which creates a camaraderie.”

Miller said men and women learn differently behind the wheel. Men are fearless and willing to crash multiple times as they test their limits. Women hold back and take it all in before cautiously moving forward. Men can be impulsive and overconfident. Women can be over-thinkers.

“Where men see failure as an obstacle to overcome, women have a fear of failure,” she said. “I teach women to redefine failure and learn from it. How you handle mistakes is a test of your character.

“Women are great at endurance and navigation, planning, focus and absolute tenacity,” she said. “They’re perfectionists, they’re caring, they work well for the good of the team and they’re multi-taskers.”

Rebelle (a mix of the words “rebel” and “belle”) was designed to capitalize on all these qualities. The goal is not to be the first to finish the 8-day course, but to amass the most points by navigating to more than 100 checkpoints spread over 2,000 kilometers in California and Nevada.

The teams, a driver and a navigator, can use only paper maps and compasses, no cellphones or GPS, to locate easy-, medium- and difficult-to-find checkpoints. The strategy involves deciding when to push their navigation and timing skills for a chance at higher points.

Beavis said she designed the scoring system to ensure that nobody falls so far behind in the beginning that they can’t make up points and be competitive as their navigation skills improve and they learn from their mistakes.

“Someone once said we’re happiest when we’re operating just outside our comfort level,” Beavis said. “I can have a day where my wheel fell off, I got stuck in the sand, I got sunburned and was so hungry, but it was amazing. When you survive and conquer challenges like that is when it’s the most fun.”

Miller said men and women learn differently behind the wheel. Men are fearless and willing to crash multiple times as they test their limits. Women hold back and take it all in before cautiously moving forward. Men can be impulsive and overconfident. Women can be over-thinkers.

“Where men see failure as an obstacle to overcome, women have a fear of failure,” she said. “I teach women to redefine failure and learn from it. How you handle mistakes is a test of your character.

“Women are great at endurance and navigation, planning, focus and absolute tenacity,” she said. “They’re perfectionists, they’re caring, they work well for the good of the team and they’re multi-taskers.”

Rebelle (a mix of the words “rebel” and “belle”) was designed to capitalize on all these qualities. The goal is not to be the first to finish the 8-day course, but to amass the most points by navigating to more than 100 checkpoints spread over 2,000 kilometers in California and Nevada.

The teams, a driver and a navigator, can use only paper maps and compasses, no cellphones or GPS, to locate easy-, medium- and difficult-to-find checkpoints. The strategy involves deciding when to push their navigation and timing skills for a chance at higher points.

Beavis said she designed the scoring system to ensure that nobody falls so far behind in the beginning that they can’t make up points and be competitive as their navigation skills improve and they learn from their mistakes.

“Someone once said we’re happiest when we’re operating just outside our comfort level,” Beavis said. “I can have a day where my wheel fell off, I got stuck in the sand, I got sunburned and was so hungry, but it was amazing. When you survive and conquer challenges like that is when it’s the most fun.”

The rally teams drive stock cars, which are off-the-lot Jeeps, trucks and SUVs modified with off-road wheels, lights and suspensions. The entry fee is $12,000 per team. Most of that money goes toward fielding the rally’s staff, fuel tanks and mobile camps and mechanics, as well as the permits required for the use of federal, state and county lands.

Competitors have included siblings, moms and daughters, best friends, veteran drivers and novices from the U.S., Canada, Senegal, France and New Zealand. Last year’s youngest competitor was 20. The oldest was a 77-year-old grandma from Santa Cruz.

Lewis said the true test of the race’s success is the high return rate of past drivers, so he changes the course and makes it more difficult every year.

“The girls sign up like it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing but they keep coming back,” he said.

Among those returnees is Jo Hannah Hoehn, general manager of Hoehn Jaguar-Land Rover in Carlsbad. She’ll return for her third Rebelle Rally in October, along with several other Hoehn Motors-sponsored employee teams.

She started driving rallies in 2013 when Miller trained her and her younger sister, Susana, for the Gazelle Rally. They’ve since done Gazelle two more times, winning third place in 2016.

“I love rally races because they’re a big puzzle,” Hoehn said. “It challenges you on every level — emotionally, physically and mentally. You’re forced into situations that bring out your best and worst sides and you learn how to be a better team member.”

She’s deeply impressed by Miller, who her father, auto dealer Bob Hoehn, calls “Mighty Max.”

“She’s an amazing powerhouse,” Jo Hannah said. “From the moment I met her I knew she’d be in my life and my family’s life for a very long time.”

Growing up in Colorado, Miller was a competitive cyclist and skier. In 2001, she was living in San Francisco, training professional athletes for competition, when her 46-year-old brother was killed in a motorcycle crash.

She closed her sports medicine clinic, sold her home and moved back to Crested Butte where she helped her widowed sister-in-law raise her three sons, then ages 6 to 13. That same year, she started Soulside Network, a sports media digital marketing company based in Reno, just as the city was transitioning from gaming into an action sports mecca.

She was in the right place and industry at the right time, and Soulside took off, building a client base that has included Red Bull, the Tony Hawk Foundation, Bethany Hamilton, Aqua Lung, ESPN Great Outdoor Games and Showtime Boxing, among others.

In 2002, she was at a car museum in Reno where she met Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Famer Rod Hall. He first hired her to promote events for his company. Then he asked her to drive for his team.

“He told me, ‘I can teach you how to drive but I can’t teach you how to be coached or how to be on a team and never give up,’ ” she said. “I’m so lucky I learned from the best.”

For several years, she was a team driver for the General Motors-supported Rod Hall Racing team and she co-managed, drove and coached for the Michelin-BFGoodrich Light Truck Tire program. She also competed in rallies in Africa, Australia and Mexico.

At a water sports event in 2008, she met her future husband Larry Giles, who’s captain of the Encinitas Lifeguard Department. They married a year later and she moved to Leucadia, where she has since focused her time on her company, off-road race training and the Rebelle Rally.

She’s now preparing for the 2018 rally, which begins on Oct. 11. She’s been approached by international sponsors to take Rebelle abroad, but for now she’s focusing on this year’s finish line.

“I think the most rewarding part of all this is to watch the transformation these women go through over the course of the experience,” Miller said. “To know the Rebelle is a catalyst for their transformation and impacts on their lives is extremely rewarding.”

Visit rebellerally.com

--Pam Kragen is a writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune