The e-mail that could transform a young American’s career

Madelyn Tabor woke up one morning to a message that may end up changing her entire life trajectory.

“I woke up to the email and I was like, look at this! Like half awake. I was like, ‘oh my god!’” Tabor tells DirtFish.

Tabor, a regular competitor in the American Rally Association National championship’s NA4WD category in a 1999 Subaru Impreza, had elected to apply for the World Rally Championship’s Beyond Rally initiative, which aims to turbocharge the rise of aspiring female rally drivers towards global success.

A total of 15 drivers have been selected to attend a training camp at M-Sport Poland headquarters, where three candidates will be chosen to compete on this year’s Central European Rally. And one of those three will compete in next year’s Junior WRC season.

It’s a huge opportunity. And Tabor is the only candidate hailing from the United States.

“I wrote out a little script, introducing myself and why I want to go with this and why I should be selected,” she explains. “I’m very grateful for my dad for helping with that, because he was really good at writing a good speech.

“I pretty much wrote everything out beginning of July right as it was announced and I kind of sat on it for the entire month. And then right before the deadline, I refined it and recorded it and submitted it off and was like, OK, it’s done. But I pretty much had been thinking about it all July and everyone says I have a chance, but I’m like, I don’t know. Am I overthinking it? I don’t know. But then sometime in August, I received an email that I was selected and I was like, ‘oh my God!’”

Now the hard work begins. In a few weeks’ time Tabor is off to Poland to be put to the test – not only behind the wheel but also for physical ability, mental preparedness, thoroughness of rally reconnaissance and communication skills, followed by a day driving on asphalt and another on gravel.

Peter Thul, senior director at WRC Promoter, has highlighted that Central European Rally was picked as the focal point of the early stages of driver selection due to its road surface: “We are focusing primarily in the initial stages of selection – including Central European Rally – on being on Tarmac, creating an easier transition for entrants with a background in karting and circuit racing,” he explained.

On paper this appears a downside for Tabor, as the ARA series is run almost exclusively on gravel events. But the ace up Tabor’s sleeve is that she’s still done some racing on pavement on her pathway to reach rallying – and she feels confident on the few asphalt sections that feature during the ARA season.

“I started racing on Tarmac actually,” she explains. “It was a karting thing called quarter midgets. So that was all on pavement. So I have that to train for. I guess it’s not really counting but I really like the Tarmac sections at Southern Ohio. Literally every single time we’d finish those, I was like, that was so much fun! I would so do a Tarmac rally.”

Joining her on that long trip across the Atlantic to Poland will be Mark, her father. He’s been competing in US rallies every season since 1998 and is one of an incredible seven Tabor family members to be active competitors. He was the first to find out out with Madelyn that she’d been accepted to the Beyond Rally selection process.

“I was actually in the shower!” he says. “She was round the corner with her phone and said, I got the email. So I quickly got out and we read it together. We were just in disbelief I think. But also, in my mind I knew that with our family history in rally for the last three decades her being a young woman and in rally, with them trying to do with this program, I kind of knew that she was going to get in, or at least would be considered seriously. At the end of the day I was very surprised, but also in my heart knew that she had a spot in that [program].”

It’s hard not to get excited about the potential for the WRC’s female scholarship program to transform Madelyn’s career – but father Mark is trying to keep everyone grounded.

“We’re kind of looking at it one step at a time, like just to be picked and going with the 15 in the world that were accepted,” he says.

“We already know some of the people that are there, they’ve been in the DirtFish Women in Motorsport forum. What a great bridge though: from that experience over to this new thing that WRC Promoter is doing. This is an amazing opportunity. So we’re hopeful she will go all the way, but it’s one step at a time.

“She’s an adventurous soul, that’s for sure. A chip off the old block, I think is what her mother says, and I can’t deny that. She’s very tenacious and adventurous and loves a challenge. So it’s gonna be fun.”

Tabor’s focus on home soil is on the NA4 Cup, where she’s three points adrift of fellow Impreza driver Andy Didorosi in her first season at National level. But more than that, she’s buzzing knowing her presence at rallying’s highest level in America is shifting perspectives.

“I just want to show people that I can do it. And I’ve had a lot of like spectators and women, and even little girls, come up to me and they’re like, ‘that’s so cool. I didn’t know girls can do this’. And I always love having them sit in the driver’s seat and showing that they can do it and it’s possible.

“The first step a lot of girls need to see is that there are people like them that can do more male-dominated arenas.”

Whether Tabor ends up being the one to make it all the way to Central European Rally, or even the Junior WRC series in 2025, remains to be seen. But that email landing in her inbox earlier this month is a step in the right direction – both for her and her fellow female competitors.

If all goes to plan, the world championship could beckon.