From Setbacks to Speed—Rally Driver Rhianon Gelsomino on Resilience, Risk & Rising to the Top | EP162

You know, there's only males in the industry and they can't, you know, break into that world. But my opinion is if you work really hard and you make no excuses, you will get there regardless because of how good you are at your job.

Welcome everyone to the driving vision podcast brought to you by the Ziggler Auto Group. I'm your host, Sam Dark. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Like it if you do, and leave a comment.

Hey, listener family and team Ziggler. We are here backstage in our Kalamazoo Honda locker room with Rhianna Gelcimino, Subaru Rally co driver with Travis Trana. And we just got done with an absolutely amazing presentation, Rhee. What were your thoughts on Team Ziggler?

I mean, it's amazing to be out here to see the group of people and see inspiration that they all have. I love talking about my passion for rally. And then, you know, you're talking about how teamwork and collaboration and stuff can work in the Ziegler Group as well. So I'm excited to be out here. I've never been to Kalamazoo before.

So

first time.

First time. I've been to Michigan a lot of times, though, to the national rallies in in Michigan. So it's great being out here, and I'm excited to try and give people some motivation to take the next step in their goals.

Well, Rhee, you talked about taking your dream and making it a reality and your path for success. And you just did an incredible job, and I've never seen our audience so engaged. Were just asking questions along the whole presentation, so it was fabulous. But first off, how did you get into rally racing?

Yeah. I was lucky. I was born into a motorsport family. So I'm I'm a bit blessed in that way because a lot of people, obviously, they have to work their own way out. Whereas having my dad and brothers involved allowed me to, you know, quickly move into the motorsport area when many other people have to find their own route.

So having dad and my brothers there and helping me and coaching me along the way has definitely helped me on my path to where I got today.

Yeah, absolutely. You shared your incredible story. Of course, with your story, you had several setbacks. You had a lot of obstacles. And we heard the word resiliency, right?

It was talking about your mindset. You went through a phase where you're in a horrible, horrible accident and you broke both your legs. You had to learn to walk again. And then fast forward and you're in another horrible accident and you're burned. Your whole body's burned.

I mean, how do you get through those types of things? And how do we tie that in with our lives with challenges that we have?

Yeah. I think that in life, it's important to take risks. But obviously, risk can come with, you know, some of the horrific things that have happened with my broken legs and my burns. But, you know, I've always told myself that I need to wake up every day and set goals and challenges because you're not living life otherwise. I was talking to some of the girls just before and one of them had had an accident as well.

And she was saying how she's still coming back from that mindset of how does she move forward. And I just said to her that you need to wake up every day and remember it's a new day and and we need to challenge ourselves in so many ways. So for me, you know, I they were setbacks and they were challenges and I had to learn to walk again and all these many things. But they made me stronger. They made me more resilient.

And I think in anything we do in life, if we don't take risk, we're not living. So, you know, challenging yourself and taking risk comes with, you know, some bad circumstances sometimes like it has with me. But at the end of the day, it it challenged me and it made me a stronger person. I think I'm able I'm 44 now and I think I'm able to do so many things and motivated to do so many things because I was challenged along the way.

Yeah. Well, it's just interesting hearing your story. And you're an incredible person. I mean, you got an incredible, incredible will and a why for why you do what you do. Tell us a bit more about kind of your why.

Why? I definitely everything I've done in my life, I've always wanted to be the best.

Yeah. That internal drive, that competition. Right?

Definitely competition. I love competition. It doesn't matter what it seemed like. I asked one of the people before. I shouldn't have done that.

I'm like, oh, who sold the most cars this year? Like, I'm still, like, competing with the with the sales guys out there. So, you know, I I thrive on competition. And and I think that that's important because it it actually makes me challenge myself more. I wanna be the best.

And I I also wanna challenge people around me to be the best. So the cool thing about working with Travis Perstrainer is that, like, he's one of the best in the world that what he's done throughout the years. And then he meets me and we're like, I'm like the female version. I think I just take

a little

bit less risk than him. And so like, at the end of the day, we both work really, really hard together and challenge each other. And and I think that, you know, for me, the why is that, you know, I wanna wake up every day and I wanna be challenged and I wanna face fears and and, you know, take risks in life that, you know, some people, they live their life. I've got friends in Idaho who have never left Idaho. Like, I can't even imagine, like, not taking, you know, opportunities to see the world and travel and all these sort of things that we can do in our life in this, you know, day and age that we live in.

So I think that too many people just live in their little box and they're too scared to jump out of it and try new things. And And even if you're a mother with children, I feel like you still should be giving yourself challenges because it's good for you mentally as well. So I think that that's important.

Yeah. Know, Ree, from the first time you and I chatted, I think it was on a phone call or on a Zoom quite a while ago. I could feel your passion for life, living life to the fullest, feel your energy. It's contagious, right? And we have a lot of listeners out there that could be going through some obstacles in their life, could be going through some bad setbacks, but just your will to live, your passion for what you do is just so inspiring for others.

So I hope our listeners are able to take that. And whatever challenges they've got going on, they're able to apply some of that mindset.

Yeah. And I think it's about setting, like, small goals to start off with. Sometimes people try and set these huge goals like, oh, I wanna be world rally champion. Yeah. I'd love to do that, but how do I get there?

You know what I mean? So I think it's about how do we set small goals first to get you where you need to be today

Yeah.

And then progress to the bigger goals, you know. So I think that one thing that people, you know, worry about so much is I need to be in that place. Well, how do I get to that place first? As the many small steps along the way. So even if you've had setbacks like I have and and today might feel harder than others or you've got some challenges you're facing in many different ways, if you can just set yourself small goals along the way and then progress to the bigger goals as you go, I think it's a good way to wake up and feel positive in the morning.

Absolutely. Absolutely. In your past past life, you're a teacher, so I know you're passionate about education. You're passionate about leadership, mentoring, coaching. What is OZ Rally Pro?

Tell tell us about that and how it ties in.

Yeah. So I was a school teacher in 02/2010, and then I took up my racing full time. And I was actually really missing teaching. Yeah. And so I realized that there was a bit of a gap in the world of rally where, you know, the successful people like myself and my husband, they weren't giving back to the sport, you know, and they weren't really helping to progress the sport.

So I come up with this idea of Aus Rally Pro to start training people. And so we started in 2013, and Alex and I you know, it's just Alex and I and our own little small company, and we've trained over 800 people between America and New Zealand and Australia, which for the rally industry, that's a lot of people because it's not a huge sport. Yeah. And so, you know, we give back to the the sport in that way. We do big group sessions of 30 people.

We do one on one trainings, And it's a really good way to get people in the, you know, on the right track so they're not doing the wrong things when they're racing down a stage at a 100 miles per hour and they don't know what they're doing. So it's really good way from Alex and I to give back to our sport and help build it as much as we can. So Aussie Rally Pro is definitely a passion of mine, and I get to keep teaching that way. But I get to combine my two passions of teaching and rally, which is super cool for me.

How cool is that, right? Combining those two passions and then also giving back. Right? That's huge. Know, I know Subaru is huge on community and huge on giving back as well.

Actually, I don't know if you realize this, but at Team Ziegler, Subaru is relatively a new franchise for us in the last five years, but we love our Subaru teams and our stores, our Subaru customers, and passionate about giving back. You know, talk to us a bit about kinda how your values tie in with Subaru and

the Yeah. Mean, it's been great. Subaru, once I started working with them in 2020, they've now brought me on board. I attend the Subi Fest. Yeah.

So I get to attend those and share my passion for rallying. And I also was at the Subaru Summit last year. So I've been really able to build a great working relationship with Subaru of America, and and we have the same core values of, you know, what we want to achieve, our passion and love. And so, you know, at the Subaru Fest events when I go there, I meet thousands of people. Yeah.

Yeah. And I get to share, you know, what my love is of Rally and their passion for the car. Like, the Subaru, you know, community and the passion that they have for these cars is nuts. Like, the Travis and I signing dashes, and we're doing all I'm like, are you sure you want us to touch your car? Like so yeah.

I mean and we've actually got a Subi Fest next week, Travis and I, that we'll be heading to. So there's six of them throughout America. So, you know, if you're a listener and you're a Subaru person, check out Subaru Fest. They're really cool. You can bring your car out and get Travis Knight to sign the dash and all those fun things.

Well, we're thankful for Subaru and our partnership there with Ziegler Auto Group and definitely love our Subaru stores and our customers.

That's cool.

They're great customers. And it's neat how they align and tie in with our Team Ziggler values too and with our culture. So it's really been neat. And I saw you won the Hanu Mikola award. Did I say that right?

The Hannah Mikola award. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did that your research.

My research. What is what is that? That's through the ties in with give it back.

Yeah. That was actually pretty cool. So if any of you heard of the Goodwood Festival of Speed, it's one of the biggest festival speeds in the world. So Travis and I were there just, you know, in July, I think it was actually. And when we were there, as you would have seen today, I'm big into giving.

So I gave everyone some good swag today.

Yeah. That that was fantastic. We got extra credit from our team today. Great.

When went to The UK, I made sure I took swag with me, and I made sure all the officials were looked after really well. And Travis and I made a special effort to give back to the fans and things like that. And we we really went above and beyond to communicate with the people over there and really share our love for what we do. And and at the end of the day, we were awarded the Hannah Mikkelar Award, which was an incredible, you know, feeling for us both to have that. It's now sitting proudly in my house.

That's fantastic. Yeah.

So it pretty special, to be honest.

Congratulations on that. You're working in a pretty male dominated industry, right, your whole life. And we've got a lot of fantastic leaders across teams. A lot of them are female leaders, right? What message would you have to them maybe if they're dealing with imposter syndrome or maybe they're dealing with feeling like a minority in a male dominated industry?

Yeah, a lot of people ask me that question because if you go to our rally team, in the videos today, would have seen I'm the only female there. But for me, I just, you know, I try never make any excuses and I just work really hard and I prove that I am the best and that's why I'm there. So I feel like, you know, a lot of times people feel threatened that, you know, there's only males in the industry and they can't, you know, break into that world. But my opinion is if you work really hard and you make no excuses, you will get there regardless because of how good you are at your job. Right.

So when on the video at one point, Travis said, it's not because she's a girl. It's because she's the best.

She's the Yeah. So Take note of that.

I think that's really important that, you know, it doesn't matter if I'm male or female. Travis has me in the car because I'm the best. So, you know, if you are a female and you're feeling a little bit intimidated by the male industry, which the car industry really is in many ways, You know? But if that's really what you wanna do and you're passionate about, just work really hard and and you'll get there just like I have by being good at your job and proving that you should be in that position over someone else.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well said. So well said.

We kind of share those same beliefs at Team Ziegler as well.

Yeah. I don't think there's any reason why you can't be there. You know what I mean? And and sometimes I I think as a woman myself, sometimes we set the boundaries and we say we can't go past it. But don't be afraid to push those boundaries and say, well, it doesn't matter if I'm male or female.

If that's where I want to be, that's where I can get if I work hard and and I push those boundaries.

Yeah, would definitely agree with you. And I think about everyone at some point in their life has had a set of imposter syndrome or maybe a self limiting mindset. You just have to work hard to overcome it.

Yeah. And I think the self limiting mindset will just hold you back in every way. So, you know, trying to set goals and set challenges for yourself, then you get past those, you know, and sometimes it's something a comment that someone made to you and you've taken it the wrong way or you've taken it too far. You know what I mean? Whereas I think that, you know, just keep your mind very clear and focus on your goals and try and block out the external things.

Yeah, anytime I have that in my personal life, for the listeners out there, what I try to do is look at and focus on gratitude and think about, hey, what do I have in my life that I can be really thankful for? Pull those things out of my mind or actually physically write them down on a piece of paper and really visualize those things. So gratitude is just so important. It can maybe take you from that self limiting mindset or maybe that imposter syndrome to the positive mindset.

100%. I think gratitude is very, very important. And even the other day, I think you saw I was wearing a T shirt that said kindness is free. Yeah, that's right. There's so many things that I think that we can work together on to help build our collaborating and teams and everything just by being positive and nice.

You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't hurt to come to work with a smile on your face and make people feel good about themselves versus being a negative person. So I feel like there's so many ways that as an individual, we can help build our team and build other people around us to be better as well, which is really important too.

Absolutely. Really well said, Rhee. A couple of questions to close it out. I feel like we could talk for a couple of hours together here. This has been fun.

Talk to us, you know, you're the co driver, and the word that keeps coming up in my mind as you're explaining your job and your role is preparation. Talk to us about preparation, how it goes into your role, and then also how we can tie that in maybe with our customers Yeah. At Team Ziegler.

I mean, preparation, think, is key in any role in any industry. So if Travis and I don't prepare well enough in our industry, we could die. So it's pretty crazy to think that you know? So preparation is key from, you know, when I'm at home studying the maps to when I'm studying the notes from previous years to the videos, like, the countless hours I put in before I actually arrive to a event. Like, people just see me calling notes in the stages, and they're just like, oh, you know, how do you get there and how do you be so good and how do you do this and that?

Well, it takes countless hours of preparation, you know, in in building the success that I've been able to achieve. But there's also so many other words that I use, like multitasking. Like, not only do you have to be prepared, you'd be have to be able to multitask along the way. So be doing, you know, three different jobs at once. And even at Ziegler, like, you've got you know, you're preparing the best you can for the customers you're dealing with and and how you set them up for success with their car and things like that.

But also, like, at the same time, you know, there's so many different multitasking going on. You know, you've got this customer over here that needs this and this customer. So I think that if you can build a good group of values and and core ways that you move through your life, it makes it, you know, your job a lot easier because you can give yourself standards of how you go about things every day.

Yeah. And also, if we're preparing what we do at Team Ziglar for our customers in any role in the organization, it shows that we're professional. 100%. We value our customers' time, and we care about them.

Yeah. And I think as a customer, like, they wanna be felt cared about. Yeah. It's really important. So I think that, you know, if you can really and and for me, one of the biggest things that I'm a happy person, but I think that if someone enters a room and you've got a smile on your face, it can change their day.

And so, like, I feel like some people let themselves down because they just don't have that right attitude on their body language and things already. So, you know, if I can give people one piece of advice, even if you're having the crappiest day, if you can put a smile on your face and that customer walks in or whoever you're dealing with and you just changed how they felt about themselves on that day, you may have just given yourself a customer for life So, purely because of your I think that that's key to success as well.

So well said. And you can do that in any role in any organisation, right? Yep. That has customers. And you can even do it over the phone.

100%.

I think customers can hear the smile over the phone.

100%.

So big. A couple last questions. We got to get into Travis Pastrana a little bit here, because I grew up I watching grew up watching him, you know? Huge fan. But what makes the two of you complement each other so well?

You're a dominating force and you both have strengths, weaknesses. Right? But what makes you so good together as a team? Teamwork, there's trust. Right?

Talk to us about that.

Yeah. I think that we're both very, very hard workers. A lot of people just see Travis, and they just think he's crazy. But he, you know, he looks at risk and he assesses it, and he works out what's the safest way to achieve what he wants to achieve. So I I mean, he will work just as hard as I, you know, push him.

And so what I love about working with people like that is they don't give up. They just work as hard as you do, and they wanna challenge you as well. So I have become a better co driver from working with Travis too because we get to the end of the stage. And even if we've won the stage, we're both so determined and we're so, you know, committed to what we're doing and competitive, obviously, that we're always like, how could we have been better? What could we have done better in there?

And so it's actually made both of us better as a team, and it's challenged our our service crew and things as well because, you know, we're all expecting better from each other. So it's raised the team as a whole, you know, and the running joke is I might be the only girl in the team, but I'm the boss of the

team. So so That's fantastic.

So I think that, you know, if you're hardworking and you can challenge each other, it's gonna be key to anyone for their success. And and look, if it's not working, maybe the teammate that you're dealing with at the business, maybe there's challenges with different personality types and things like that. But I think that you can always work around it if you're willing to push each other and challenge each other and and try and be the best you can be.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And what's a common myth about Travis that maybe listeners might not know or or maybe something interesting about Travis that the listeners might not know.

There's actually a funny X-ray of his body going around at the moment.

Have you seen it? I haven't seen it.

Oh my gosh. It's online, and it's supposedly Travis's X-ray of his body. Okay. But it's not.

It's actually not. Okay.

See that? Yes. He is very broken, and he has a lot of things going on. But one of the funniest things is, like, I've broken both my femurs in a racing crest, but Travis hasn't broken a femur. So on that X-ray, there's, like, rods in his femurs.

He's like, nope. That's not me.

So me.

So if you have seen that, it was going viral. It's definitely going viral. And everyone's like, this is Travis's scans. He's like, no. It's not.

So That's funny. So so one of them. He broke both your femurs.

Yeah. Yeah. I got him. So and and and I have a broken fibula that I live with. So he he loves saying, Rick, come over here.

It's a party trick. Show him your fibula. And I'm like, Travis, really? So it's it's always fun and I'll be at Pastorrano Land next week. So wish me luck.

Hopefully, I survive Well,

we'll pray for you.

Thanks for me.

That's great. Well well, let's end it let's end it on a funny story. You're telling us your husband, Alex, obviously, is a professional rally co driver too. How cool is that? And then you're telling a funny story about he's at Pastranaland.

Right? And what did he do?

Well, Alex is actually he takes risks in the rally car.

Okay. Okay.

But day to day life, he's very, you know, conservative, would say. He's careful in what he does. And so next second, see the pink barbie car that you may have seen in Nightmare

Oh, I've seen it.

And I see my husband in it. And I'm like, what has Travis got Alex doing? And next second, Alex goes Travis is, like, waving. He's okay, Reid. And Alex goes flying down the ramp and into the foam pit, and he just thought it was the best ever.

And I'm like, the things that Travis convinces us to do. So I was a little bit nervous, but he thought it was great. And I didn't think I'd ever see that happen. So if you ever get the chance to go to Pastoralant, be careful

what That's you wish right.

That's right. Be careful what you wish for. And be prepared that you definitely may leave with some sort of broken bone if you're not careful.

Gotta be up for the challenge, right?

Definitely. You need to be up for the challenge. Otherwise, Travis will definitely just push you.

That's awesome. Well, Rhiannon and Gelcimino, congrats on your success. We appreciate you genuinely here at Team Ziggler for investing your time with us. Amazing job today. And if listeners wanna find out more about you, how do they how do they find out more about you?

Yeah. I mean, if they wanna follow me on Instagram, it's at rianna and julcimino. That's where I post a lot of stuff. I I am very active on social media. So feel free to do that.

There's also a really cool YouTube video on me, stories of survival, which you'll find on channel 199, which is Travis's YouTube page. That tells a good story about my life as well. So yeah, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, check it out and call Emma.

Congrats on your success and we appreciate you and your, just heart and passion for people and giving back.

Thank you.

Special thanks to all who contributed to this week's podcast. Until next week, how are you driving vision today?