The Background

Almost a year ago, I quit the automotive world. Well, I tried to quit. It didn’t last more than a few days, made myself cry and left me feeling like it just wasn’t the time. Yet.

What led to that moment in time was a combination of a few things:

1. Realization that a close colleague could prove fatal to my character and self-respect, if not my life. And no, that is not an overly dramatic interpretation.

2. Understanding that I was, in fact, reaching that age when just my age alone would become a running joke and that I am aware of a few in the automotive industry outskirts who can be particularly cruel. I am on their list. Just a matter of time before the circle back around to me about something. (Sure sign that they have nothing better to do.)

3. Verification that my so-called career was not covering my nut, my nest or my basics needs. One look in my bank account was all that it took.

4. I became afraid.

Now, while we could probably attribute the first 3 things to number 4, in all fairness, what had me really spooked was reaction to an article I wrote last year about the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles. Some girls cheated. They might have cheated for years, in retrospect. They had won the rally but been disqualified in the end. It was true. I wrote about it. I got threatened. Harassed. I felt fear. Being threatened about things that are frivolous are part and parcel of life but you still have to decide if you are going to run or defend yourself. In this case, I hid.

I had a new-ish friend who believed in me. She would call me and talk to me about me. She was usually right. She pushed me, but gently. She made me talk to her and I actually started talking and not just prattling on like I normally do. She was real and not a name speaking from behind a computer. She liked spending time with me in real life.

When it came time to begin planning for the 2011 Rallye Aicha des Gazelles, I assumed at first that my participation would be to cover it again but my friend expected more of me. I expected more of me too for so many reasons and I decided to try and go. Last year’s experience had me a little scared but I wanted to meet that fear head-on. I knew in the back of my brain that my journey to Morocco would change my life. I especially knew that my 6-year, on-again-off-again relationship wouldn’t last until the beginning of the rally. This was a journey that I had to make.

I was introduced over the phone to my “perfect” co-driver. She was quirky, friendly, enthusiastic and brought a resume to the table that would ensure that we could gain sponsorship together. She had a lot of Facebook friends so she must be okay, right? We began to plan.

The first event was to be our training in Imperial Dunes, near Glamis, in mid-January, 2011. We were to meet the other US team, Team Lerner Reina, and spend a few days driving, getting instruction on the dunes and the rally and delve into the navigation techniques that are so essential to this point-to-point style raid. Although the training had been planned a couple of months in advance, the week before it was to take place, my co-driver insisted it was a bad weekend because of a trash clean-up event taking place in the area. She told me that if it didn’t happen that weekend, she was fine with it because she didn’t feel it was a “good time” for her anyways. I was irritated. I knew that it had to be then. There was a staff of 4 people who were showing up to instruct us. They had pulled permits, rented a toy-hauler/camper, purchased food and arranged for a camping spot. There were only 4 pupils. Two teams total. The $XXX-odd dollars that the training cost each of us would barely cover the navigation trainer’s fees. (You don’t need to know how much the trainer makes. You just need to know that we didn’t pay enough.) The other two trainers were completely unpaid, teaching for their love of the rally. Both of them appeared to be stricken with that little bug called the Gazelles’ Spirit.

Red Flags

The training did happen and despite my co-driver’s reticence to attend, she solicited monies from an individual (the “Sponsor”) to pay for her flight down to San Diego. I paid for her hotel room in San Diego since she arrived before we needed to depart for the desert. I paid for the Jeep rental for training. I paid for the fuel for the Jeep rental for training. I was told that I would be reimbursed by the Sponsor.

At training, I felt that she was distracted and unprepared, at best. This was a dress rehearsal for the real rally and essential items were forgotten that were specifically on our checklist. Headlamp, goggles, glasses, medications, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, compass, pens and pencils were all lost, forgotten or omitted from her belongings. I began to have concerns that she wasn’t taking it seriously at all.

At navigation training, I felt like she zoned out. She had forgotten her glasses so she couldn’t see the 1950s maps in French that we are required to use.

My concerns were about our ability to perform professionally and safely. In retrospect, I believe that these were all signs that she wasn’t taking the event as seriously as the others, including myself.

My friend urged me to be patient. She believed that my co-driver was just nervous and would be less distracted once we were in the desert. My gut told me that there was something wrong with all of this. I wasn’t feeling safe.

Meanwhile, I was told by my co-driver that we had sponsorship. Quite a bit. Enough to cover our expenses. I was seeking a truck. I reached out and harangued automotive industry contacts. Endlessly. The deadline approached for the final rally fees to be wired. My co-driver was in charge of this transaction. Only she knew the actual contacts of our sponsors. I just had a vague list of brands from her and the assurance that the $17,000 for our entry fees and satellite tracking equipment would be covered in wire to the rally organizers in France.

The day that she was to send the wire, I called her and got no answer. Finally, about 2:30 in the afternoon PST, she called. She is on MST. She started telling me how hungover she was because she stayed up until 6am on Skype with a friend, drinking. She wanted a shower. I asked her about the wire transfer and she said she was waiting on me. She said she needed my information. I knew that the US organizer for the rally had already told her she didn’t need any of my information for the wire transfer but my co-driver insisted that she needed my passport number, address and, strangely, my social security number; the latter being a number no one needs to submit. My gut wouldn’t let me give it to her. She relented on needing my information. She said she was leaving for the bank and I told her to be careful and to call me when she got back home.

The following morning, I turned on my computer to find an IM from her Skype account. It read, “Michele, it’s XXXXX. Mom was ina really bad accident going … this afternoon. A semi blew a tire, and came across the freeway and broadsided her.  Two of her vertabres are broken, and bone went into the discs above and below L# and L4 and T1 and T9 have some damage to the discs. She could feel and move her finger and toes.They did surgery on her to fix it, ad she got out at around midnight. The surgeon said her sciatic nerve was severed, but they were able to reconnect it, all we can do is wait now. They will put her into an induce coma tomorrow to keep her still,for a day or so, so she doesn’t move and go from there.  It won’t do any good to call her obviously, and she is adament about her privacy anyway and never has allowed her namee to be on the roster or what ever you call it. I will keep you posted. She also has a pretty good conciusion. She kept asking if her hair and makeup were messed up. Over and Over and Over. … She will be ok I know. It scares me a lot. I knew you would want to know. Do you know of other people I need to contact?”

And then after a bit, she added, “Mom thinks you are one of the neatest people she ever meant. She was planning on leaving Friday to go see you, but that won’t happen now. I feel so bad for her. She was so excited. Please let me know if I need to take care of anything for her until she can.”

I was sick. She was on her way to the bank for us. I took my daughter to school and when I came back, the daughter had IMed again. I had a long conversation with her via IM, through her mother’s Skype account. She told me which hospital she was in, which name she was registered under and the name of her dog. A lot of personal information that only a daughter could know.  After she left to go by the hospital and on to her job, it occurred to me that I needed to tell the Sponsor (who had paid for her training and trip to San Diego). I sent a direct message to her on Twitter and she called me back minutes later. She sounded concerned but distant. She also friended me on Facebook and added me to Skype, urging me to add her. She asked me to email her the transcript of the Skype chat with my co-driver’s daughter. I sent her everything I had.

At this point, I felt helpless. Even the Sponsor had said that she felt bad for me about the rally. The fact that I had no contact info for any of the big sponsors sank in. Even with my co-driver in an induced coma, I never thought that she wouldn’t want me to follow our mutual dream of driving in the rally. My friend called the “sponsor” and they spoke at length. I was listening on Skype; stunned but listening to my friend try and help while they discussed the accident and the implications on their cell phones, I thought of the list of questions to ask the daughter about my co-driver’s recovery, the rally and our sponsors, so I sent them through Skype via IM. I had no idea which of the many names my co-drivers works under had been used along with my name to solicit sponsorship.

And suddenly and oddly, the Sponsor blocked me on Skype. And on Facebook. And on Twitter. Simultaneously, I looked at my co-driver’s Facebook: blocked. Twitter: blocked. Skype: blocked. I refreshed my browser and watched as pages disappeared. My co-driver was in an induced coma as far as I was aware.

It was a long day and the following days proved no less intense. My co-driver posted on both Twitter and Facebook the afternoon after the accident that she was just fine. She blamed social media for something. The following day, she posted a Facebook note in which she publicly announced that she had made a decision to not participate in the rally.

It wasn’t until a full 4 days after I had said the words, “Be careful. Call me when you get back from the bank,” that I heard from her. She called me and said, “I am trying to figure out what the F*** is going on!” (As if I had some explanation for her recent non-car accident and subsequent silence.) She said that her accounts had been hijacked and that her daughter never contacted me. I can’t explain my feelings except to say that it was weird. On one hand, I was so grateful that she wasn’t actually hurt but at the same time, it began dawning on me how much she had hurt me by not being upfront about her decision to not participate in the rally.

When I asked if she had wired the funds to the rally for registration, she told me that she hadn’t; she had changed her mind on the way to the bank. Sadly, she hadn’t bothered to tell me. The deadline had passed to get our entry fees in. This feeling started sinking in: I wasn’t a Gazelle this year.

According to her Facebook note, she was taking the money from the sponsors and starting a vague non-profit. She also claimed that she had raised an additional $30,000.00 above what we needed. That means that she raised almost $50,000.00 in both of our names? Terms of the pre-registration agreement states that this money must be returned to the sponsors or donated to a non-profit. As I mentioned, she is starting her own non-profit.

I still had my flights and some money from family members so I told her I was still going to Morocco. If I couldn’t find another new co-driver, I would instead be covering the race from the sidelines. As a blogger. As a journalist. As whatever would get me closest to the rally. (Those titles are a means to an end. They don’t define me.) She told me that she valued me as a friend. I told her that she should have told me days before that she didn’t want to go. Our phone call and friendship ended.

I had asked her on that final phone call for the contact information for the sponsors so that I could at least write a thank you note. She agreed to send that, along with other  items. To date, I have yet to receive anything she promised or any further communication from her. I don’t even have confirmation if there were any real sponsors at all.

The New Approach

Now, I am packing according the list provided to journalists, instead that of competitors. Messages of confusion, sympathy and support have come in from organizers, competitors, colleagues, future competitors, past competitors and friends. Turns out that they are all just happy to have me there. My fear of repercussions from last year’s article about the cheaters was unfounded fear. I get to scope out the rally from the next best place to the cockpit of a truck. I get to meet all of the Gazelles. I will sleep in the dunes for the marathon legs of the race with one of my heroes and someone who is a solid member of the Gazelle’s Fan Club. I can already feel their spirit.

And so, in addition to packing, I must start my thank you notes to all of the equipment sponsors who I will have to approach again for 2012, the manufacturers who pulled strings and sent messages around the world finding us a truck and the colleagues who I begged for introductions and sponsorship.

A lot of people besides me were hurt by all of this. It is never easy when anyone betrays a trust or sabotages a goal, especially when the goal is a team effort. It has been emotionally confusing for every one that this series of events has touched.

I still feel unsettled. At times, last week, my brain told me that all of this was the result of the rally cheaters who threatened me, colleagues who dislike me, or my now former significant other (as predicted, our relationship didn’t last until the rally). It was not a result of any of those people. This was my fault for not listening to my gut instinct about all of those people, including my former co-driver who always knew inside that she would never be a Gazelle. They are now behind me. I know better now. I will listen to my gut instinct and defend it, even to my closest friends.

As more Americans join the rally, I hope that this does not leave a stain on their presence at the rally.

I am a real person. I work online, but I do work. I have a real life. I have supporters. I don’t hide behind pseudonyms or chatrooms.

I don’t quit. I finish what I start. I am a Gazelle. This is my journey.