Shift Up Now Athlete Madelyn Tabor earned a second-place finish in class with co-driver Sophia McKee in Rally Colorado, the fifth event of the 2026 American Rally Association National Championship, in Rangely, CO on July 18-19, 2026.
Driving the No. 209 Madelyn Tabor Racing / Matrix Motorsports Ford Fiesta Rally 3 nicknamed “Jellybean” in the National L4WD class, Tabor is supported by Shift Up Now, WIMNA, and Steven Redd Racing.
The Rally Colorado event, one of the most demanding on the ARA National Championship calendar, took place in the high desert country around Rangely. The stages alternated between brutally rough rock-strewn tracks and wide-open, silty terrain that rewards commitment but punishes mistakes.
Temperatures exceeded 90°F, with flash flood warnings active across western Colorado throughout the weekend. Eleven of the 13 planned stages were completed however the SS8 and SS11 stages were cancelled.
After an uneventful pre-event recce on Friday, Tabor and McKee were ready for Saturday’s race, where they would start fifth in class and 13th overall.
Saturday opened with three stages — Dragon Trail (12.26 miles), Cathedral (4.26 miles), and Valley of the Gods (13.24 miles) — each run twice across the morning and afternoon in the desert heat. The conditions were immediately demanding: relentlessly rough surfaces required careful management of pace and car, while the fast, silty sections pushed grip limits and kept dust hanging in the air long after each car passed.
The variety of surface types at Rally Colorado, combined with heat and dust, made for a real-world test of everything Tabor and McKee had worked on earlier in July at Oz Rally Pro — a professional pace note training program.
With temperatures above 90°F and a two-day event ahead, Tabor’s priority was reading the road, trusting the new note structure, and keeping Jellybean in one piece. Early in the race, on the SS2 (Cathedral), Tabor arrived at a corner faster than expected. She reacted instinctively and killed the car but recovered cleanly with minimal time lost and no damage to the car.
At the end of the day Saturday, the duo was running third in class and 11th overall.
On Sunday, temperatures neared 100°F and flash flood warnings threatened western Colorado. With overnight thunderstorms having passed through the region the night before, the organizers needed time to assess stage conditions before sending the cars. This resulted in an unexpected hour-long delay to start the day, along with the cancellation of stages 8 and 11.
Once the competition got started, another car went off course, causing another full hour delay. Racing resumed in stage SS9 (Gods of the Valley), which had been run Saturday. But this time, they ran in reverse direction and the terrain was rougher, with water having worked into the ruts overnight and mud adding a new variable to the surface.
Stage SS13 (Earl’s Bad Day) closed the rally, completing the 11-stage, two-day event. Tabor and McKee crossed the final control second in class and 9th overall.
"Rally Colorado is the kind of event where the rally itself is your biggest competitor,” said Tabor. “The stages are rough, the silt is relentless, the heat is real, and on Sunday the whole region was on flash flood watch.
Finishing second in class out of a weekend like that — I'll take it. Huge thank you to Sophia, our entire TRT crew and interns, Matrix Motorsports, Shift Up Now, WIMNA, and Steven Redd Racing. Being the first rally athlete recognized and funded by Shift Up Now means everything to me, and results like this are for all of them.”
Next up, Tabor heads to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota for the sixth event of the 2026 American Rally Association National Championship, the 2026 Ojibwe Forests Rally on August 27-29, 2026.
