Team Feature: Team Wild Grace - Sedona Blinson & Lyn Woodward
May 22nd, 2023
“The Rebelle Rally changes lives. If you do it right by putting your whole self out there in the desert, you’ll never be the same again.”
-Lyn Woodward
When you first meet Team Wild Grace, you realize the name fits them perfectly, a little wild, a little grace and a whole lotta Rebelle. Sedona Blinson and Lyn Woodward have embraced the entire experience that Rebelle offers to compete as a team for the past four years. While they may have started as acquaintances, they quickly became friends and later teammates.
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Sedona Blinson is a 100% Rebelle as well as an OG, competing in every Rally since its inception in 2016. As an Arizona native, she jumped into Rebelle competition headfirst and never looked back. She had followed some of the teams from the US who competed in the Gazelle in Morocco and was determined to try her hand at something like that.
As to what keeps her coming back year after year, Sedona spoke about the early challenges, “The first couple of years, it felt like I was just scratching the surface of what it meant to be a competitor in this space, and each year, I set out new personal goals to reach in order to become a better competitor and teammate.”
She also enjoys seeing other Rebelles grow and succeed during the Rally. “My favorite thing about competing in the Rebelle is watching the growth of every competitor alongside Lyn and myself. Even before the Rebelle starts, I watch as women from all over sign up to take on the Rally. They push themselves out of their comfort zones just to start the Rebelle and work hard to cross the finish line. Seven years in, I still walk away having grown more, as a competitor, teammate, and human.”
Lyn Woodward is no stranger to the automotive world and certainly not the Rebelle. She has competed the past five years but in her “regular” life, she is an automotive writer and video host for Kelly Blue Book. While she wasn’t much of an off-roader before she competed in the rally, her assignment with The Drive to cover the event as a competitor opened up a whole new world. “I’d done some training with Nena Barlow for a story with Truck Trend, but that was the extent of my experience.”
When she talks about her teammate, Lyn has nothing but praise for her navigator. “Sedona has become one of my closest friends, a sister, and a confidant. She is family to me now. From her, I’ve learned kindness, patience, and that I have no business plotting checkpoints on a map. I’m kidding but I’ve come to rely on her so much I wouldn’t ever trust myself to tell us where to go.”
Lyn summed up her years of competition for us by sharing, “My absolute favorite thing about competing in the Rebelle is the friends I’ve made. I’m on a text thread with my teammate and another team every day. I talk to Emily Miller every couple of weeks. They’re all fierce competitors I’ve learned from, and they inspire and make me laugh.”
