Raptor Nation is proud to sponsor Team 175 as desert-racing champion Kristen Matlock and ten-time Rebelle competitor Melissa Clark combine speed, strategy, experience, and trust in a bone-stock Bronco Raptor.

By Tony Cavalli

“If we go 100 miles per hour in the wrong direction, then we’re done.” With that one sentence, Kristen Matlock captured what makes the Rebelle Rally unlike almost anything else in off-road motorsports. The Rebelle covers roughly 2,500 kilometers across the deserts of Nevada and California, but it is not won by the team with the heaviest right foot.

Competitors surrender their phones and GPS devices and rely instead on old-school navigation methods: paper maps, compasses, roadbooks, terrain interpretation, mathematics and, most importantly, one another. Across eight days of competition, speed matters only when paired with precision. For Team 175, that means one of desert racing’s fastest and most accomplished drivers must place complete trust in the woman reading the map beside her.

That partnership is Built Wild: driver Kristen Matlock, navigator Melissa Clark, and their third teammate, a bone-stock 2025 Ford Bronco Raptor named “Savannah.” Melissa has completed every Rebelle Rally held to date, earning 5 podium finishes: 3 Gold and 2 Silver. Kristen returns for her second Rebelle after earning Rookie of the Year during her 2024 debut.

One brings a decade of experience in the event’s complex language of maps, compass headings, checkpoints, and calculated risk. The other brings more than two decades of racing experience and an instinct for moving through unforgiving terrain with remarkable speed and control. Raptor Nation is honored to sponsor them as Team 175 takes on the 2026 Rebelle Rally.

Watch the Built Wild Interview

Hear Kristen and Melissa talk training, trust, and the road to the 2026 Rebelle in their full interview with Raptor Nation.

The Driver

Kristen has raced for 21 years, first on ATVs and then in UTVs, including more than a decade with Polaris RZR. Known in desert-racing circles as the “Iron Woman,” she has built her reputation in long, punishing events where speed, physical endurance, vehicle preservation, and determination decide the outcome. She also made history as the first woman to solo the Baja 1000 in a four-wheel off-road vehicle.

Yet the Rebelle asks her to resist one of a racer’s deepest instincts. She cannot simply see open desert and attack it. She has to wait, listen, and be willing to stop while Melissa calculates their position. Kristen admits that the transition requires patience: driving faster means nothing when the direction is wrong.

The Navigator

Melissa’s path is equally unexpected. Before her life revolved around Broncos, off-road guiding, and the Rebelle, she built a career as a registered nurse and later worked in clinical education and the medical-device industry. Her earliest Rebelle campaigns were privateer efforts, funded through persistence, relationships, and a belief that she could compete at a high level.

That opportunity eventually led to Ford and an assignment in a Bronco Sport that initially looked small compared with the rock-crawling vehicles she knew. Then the vehicle exceeded her expectations and Melissa won the class.

Ten Rebelles later, the event has become so embedded in her life that she jokes, “Some people think about Christmas coming. I think about Rebelle coming.” But one piece of unfinished business remains: she has won Gold in X-Cross and Silver in 4×4, but she is still pursuing her first Gold in the 4×4 class.

 
Team 175 Bronco Raptor on the trail

Building the Partnership

Built Wild began taking shape after last year’s rally, when Melissa decided she wanted to return to the navigator’s seat. She called Kristen with two possibilities: Melissa might step away and recommend Kristen for a Ford Racing opportunity or she might return as Kristen’s navigator. The second possibility quickly became the more compelling one.

They tested their chemistry at King of the Hammers and discovered that their greatest advantage might also require their greatest discipline. Melissa openly acknowledges her tendency to reach beyond her own role and help drive from the passenger seat. Kristen, meanwhile, needs clear and timely information without outpacing the navigator’s ability to calculate and communicate.

Their agreement is simple in principle and difficult in practice: Melissa determines where they need to go; Kristen determines the best way to get them there.

Training to Lose

That trust is being built through long hours of deliberate practice and with the support of two husbands who understand how much preparation happens long before the starting line. Melissa spends approximately 10 to 15 hours each week plotting coordinates, timing herself, checking her accuracy, and refining how quickly she can turn raw rally information into useful direction.

During field training, her husband, Brian Clark, helps design and set mock checkpoints, stage simulated courses, and manage the logistics that allow Team 175 to train as though points are already on the line. At Kristen’s race shop, her husband and longtime racing partner, Wayne Matlock, works alongside her to prepare the Bronco Raptor, test its systems, organize the equipment, and ensure the vehicle is ready for the demands ahead. Together, Brian and Wayne provide an essential support structure for the two women who will carry the competitive responsibility once the rally begins.

Mistakes during those training days are not hidden or treated as failures; they are the purpose of the work. As Melissa and Kristen explained during their Raptor Nation interview, “You don’t need to win training. You need to lose training.” Every wrong turn made now is one they can learn to prevent or recover from when points are actually at stake.

The difficulty extends far beyond plotting points. A competition day may account for 10 to 12 hours, but preparation, camp breakdown, vehicle inspection, meals, repairs, and planning can stretch the team’s workload to 16 or even 18 hours. Melissa describes Day Four as a breaking point for teams that have not protected their hydration, rest, communication, and emotional discipline.

Fatigue magnifies small mistakes. Frustration tests relationships. A missed checkpoint cannot be recovered through anger, and a hard day cannot be allowed to sabotage the next one. The winning team must know when to chase additional points, when to abandon a risky checkpoint, and how to remain calm enough to make another good decision.

“There’s a small ‘c’ in commit and a capital ‘C’ in Commit. Once you make the commitment, you can figure out the rest.”

— Melissa Clark

Savannah, Bone Stock

Savannah, their bone-stock Bronco Raptor, will be asked to carry that partnership through washboard roads, rocks, dunes, long transits, and terrain the competitors will not see in advance. Competing under the Bone Stock designation is more than a branding exercise. It is an opportunity to demonstrate what a production vehicle can withstand with minimal changes.

Melissa points to the Bronco Raptor’s 37-inch tires, suspension, independent front end, available stabilizer-bar disconnect and, perhaps most importantly over multiple days of competition, its comfort. Kristen came from purpose-built racing machines expecting the larger Bronco to feel more cumbersome and punishing. Instead, she found a vehicle capable of crawling carefully through technical terrain or moving efficiently across rough desert while protecting its occupants from some of the fatigue that accumulates hour after hour.

 
Savannah, the Team 175 bone-stock Bronco Raptor

Throw Your Hat Over the Fence

But the most important part of Built Wild may have little to do with trophies, maps, or vehicles. At the end of their Raptor Nation interview, Kristen’s advice to women considering a challenge of their own was direct: “Believe in yourself.” Melissa shared a lesson from her father: “Throw your hat over the fence, then figure out how to go get it.”

Her point was that there is a difference between wanting something and committing to it. Skills can be learned. Support can be found. Training can begin. However, confidence often arrives after the commitment, not before it.

Kristen’s own career reinforces that message. She entered a deeply male-dominated racing world, discovered her ability one event at a time, and eventually began seeing other women move from the sidelines because they had watched her compete.

That is why Raptor Nation is proud to stand behind Team 175. Built Wild is not simply a pairing of an elite driver and an elite navigator. It is a story about two accomplished women remaining willing to learn, adapt, accept hard feedback, and trust another person with part of the outcome.

Kristen must let speed trust the map. Melissa must let experience trust the driver. Both must trust the preparation they have completed together.

When the 2026 Rebelle Rally begins in Las Vegas on October 7 and heads toward its finish in California’s Imperial Sand Dunes, Raptor Nation will be following Savannah and cheering for the team inside, not only because of what a podium would mean, but because of what their journey may inspire someone else to begin.

Watch the Full Interview

Want to hear it from Kristen and Melissa directly? Watch the full Built Wild interview on the Raptor Nation YouTube channel. [LINK TO VIDEO]