Kristen Tabor

Team Bio: Girls Rock!

Driver: Kristen Tabor

Kristen started out as a co-driver for her brothers, Mark and Matt. After a couple years of being “right seat ballast”, she decided that driving didn’t look too hard, and the Team put her in the left seat of the Nissan Sentra SE-R. Her first event as a driver, the Doo Wops ClubRally of 2001 in Washington, ended in a disastrous roll. She decided that the car was maybe a little more than she was ready to handle, and the Team searched out other options. At this time, the Northwest Region was designing a Geo Metro Spec class for rally, and Kristen decided that this would probably be a good place to start. With her mom as her co-driver, the girls set out to have fun and go fast.

Driving the Geo was a real learning experience, with only 55hp and a tiny one-liter engine under the hood. The basic concept of driving, Kristen learned, was to mash the accelerator to the floor and keep it there. Momentum was key. The little car that could became a crowd favorite around the Pacific Northwest and spawned interest in others looking for a low-cost starting point to competing in rally. Kristen became the “poster girl” and role model to the younger generation of girls involved in working rally, and expects several promising youngsters to follow her steps – as soon as they get their licenses!

The 2004 running of the Doo Wops rally found Kristen often frustrated with the lack of power in the Geo. With two sisters-in-law in the wings waiting to test out the Geo’s mettle, Kristen decided, after breaking a shift linkage and suffering through the last stage of the event in second gear, that it was time to try the Nissan again.

The Dryad Quest/Shitepoke ClubRallies was the duo’s first event back in the hot seat. With three times the horsepower and torque, and twice the size of the Geo, Kristen found that driving the Nissan required a slight, yet fundamental shift in thinking. She took it somewhat conservatively on the first day, ending third in class and 19th of 27 competitors. The second day, she aimed to “knock their socks off”, beating her own father on the first two stages of the day, and ending in 3rd in class and 12th of 28 competitors.