Australian international rally car veteran co-drives with Travis Pastrana

Rhianon Gelsomino is known globally for her achievements in the niche sport of international rally car racing. She has had two near-death experiences and often competes alongside her husband around the world.

It all started in the small central Victorian town of Wedderburn, when she sat alongside her brother in a Datsun 1600. “My dad had this grand plan, he said, ‘Rhianon, you’re the perfect size to be a navigator’,” she told ABC Central Victoria.

Navigators are an integral part of rally car racing: they work with the driver to map out the course, then at speeds of up to 200km/h, the navigator calls out pace notes (instructions) to travel as fast as possible. Gelsomino says she tries not to think about the speed, which can reach 270km/h on tarmac rallies like Targa Tasmania, and just focuses on her job. “The adrenaline is pumping, but in the car you need to try and keep your heart rate down, stay calm, and not let your voice get too high or yell at the driver … when you’re calling the notes you don’t want those emotions to come through,” she said.

Gelsomino learnt to navigate alongside her brother Nathan on a test track her father built on their Wedderburn farm, before her younger brother Brendan took the wheel when he turned 18. The three siblings competed in more than 80 rallies in 15 countries around the world before a major crash at the final stage of the Australian Rally Championship in the Adelaide Hills in 2009. They all lost consciousness and don't remember what happened—she broke both of her legs, and Brendan broke his neck in three places. “When I woke up from that crash, my mind wasn’t ‘you’ve got nine breaks in your legs, you can’t walk, you’re going to have all these surgeries’, it was ‘how can I get to Malaysia for the next rally on Friday?’”

Both siblings were back racing within six months. Brendan is a professional rally driver, while Gelsomino currently navigates for American Travis Pastrana. She had to quit her job as a physical education teacher at Ballarat High School and move to the US to get more rally opportunities. Gelsomino is one of only five full-time professional female navigators in the world, earning an income through racing and sponsorships. She runs a rally training company with her husband, who is also a professional rally navigator.

“[That crash] actually changed my life, the following year I quit my teaching job and went full time into motorsport,” she said. But 10 years ago, Gelsomino was seriously injured again. In 2014, a mechanical fault caused her car to catch fire, and she suffered severe burns to her hands and face. But the injuries did not diminish her love for rally car navigating. “I go all in with everything I do,” she said. “I was back in the car four weeks later, but mentally it was definitely a lot harder. It taught me a lot about how to recover from those situations, deal with the anxiety and get back in the car.”

She won the American Rally Championship in 2021. Her husband, Alessandro Gelsomino, was one of her main competitors, coming in second place. “He beat me in 2022, and last year was funny, we had a lot of times where we were on the podium, first and second,” she said. “Sometimes you have to run out of the room to make a phone call so he doesn’t know what your tyre strategy is.”

The couple recently returned to Australia to visit family, and Gelsomino returned to her hometown of Wedderburn to host some mentoring and training workshops for local rally car students. “I just want to inspire anyone, if you’re from a small country town, anything is possible … don’t limit yourself,” she said. “I started in Wedderburn … now I travel the world navigating, so I think the possibilities are endless. Dream big and don’t hold yourself back in any way.”

Gelsomino has already turned her attention to her next race, a snow drift rally in Michigan, where temperatures can drop to minus 30 degrees Celsius and racing takes place on ice and snow-covered sections of closed forest roads. “There are eight rounds this season, so I’ll head back to the US and get ready … I’ll be with Travis again, it should be a pretty good year.”