Kalee Hunter

 About Kalee:

Q: What is your favorite color?
A: Green, darker the better

Q: What is your favorite food?
A: Pizza!

Q: Do you have kids? 
A: No!

Q: Do you have any pets?
A: No but my boyfriend has a dog that I take care of as if he is mine. His name is Red (the dog not my boyfriend, hehe)

Q: Do you take your pets off-roading?
A: We take Red with us as often as possible.

Q: What are your off-roading goals?
A: Lately I’ve had racing fever. I have gotten to see so many successful ladies who have done racing and I want to try it! If any buggy racers need a co-driver: holla at me! Till then, I’ll start paying off my college debt and saving to build something cool and capable. Currently I want to build something made for the sand but my mind could change.

Kalee's Off-Road Facts:

Q: Is your whole family into off-roading?
A: No just me, my mom was very against the idea. She has warmed up to it now that I have been in a few little oopsies and she sees how safe we are.

Q: Are you usually the driver or co-driver?
A: Both, before I started dating my boyfriend I was always the driver. I met him through off-roading so now we take turns.

Q: How old were you when you first started wheeling?
A: 19

Q: How often do you get to go off-roading?
A: Sometimes I’m lucky and I get to go 3 times a month, some months less. It totally depends on my school schedule and what events the club plans. Luckily I at least get 3 large trips a year in. Glamis, Moab, and Aravaipa Canyon we do annually. This year I will be doing the Rubicon in August. We take a few months off in the summer though because of the Arizona heat!

Q: How did you get started in the offroad world?
A: I bought my Jeep Sophomore year of college. Knowing that I wanted to use it fully I decided in order to be safe I needed to find people to learn from. So I looked online for clubs in my area and I found that my University had a club. I joined Wildcat Off-road the month after I got my Jeep.

Q: Where is your favorite place to wheel?
A: Anywhere in Southern Arizona really. We have access to so much it makes me thankful I got to learn in such a top-notch environment. I love our Florence trips because they are so challenging, but I also love our Chiva Falls trips because tons of members show up and we all go swimming and picnic out there.

Q: Do you belong to an off-road club? Which one? What is their motto/mission?
A: Yes! I am currently the Recruitment chair for Wildcat Off-road. I was previously President and Treasurer before that, so very active. Our mission is to bring students and local off-roader’s in the University community together in an environment where they can learn from each other and just have fun!

Q: Do you have any wheeling traditions?
A: I’ve got a wheeling playlist! I also tend to buy the same food for every trip so now I associate Triscuits, string cheese, and turkey sandwiches with wheeling Haha!

Q: Do you look up to anyone in the industry?
A: Nicole Johnson is the first lady in the industry I think of. She was the first Women to ever finish King of the Hammers and now she’s driving Monster Trucks for Monster Jam! Pretty cool to see that she still has fun with it after all these years.

Kalee's Off-Road Stories:

Q: What is your most memorable offroad moment?
A: It’s probably the first time I broke something. I broke the upper passenger control arm mount off the axle while on a daylong trip. It was my first trip ever and thank goodness I was smart and had joined this club. The members, who had just met me, ratchet strapped and bailing wired it up and we limped it to the trailhead where one member towed it out for me on his trailer, and another gave me a mount they had lying around and welded it all back together for me. It was a wonderful experience for something that could have gone so badly for a new Jeep owner.

Q: What was your first wheeling trip?
A: Aravaipa Canyon was my first wheeling trip ever. That is where I had my first break mentioned above.

Q: What was your longest wheeling trip?
A:  Moab. We go during Spring Break so we often spend 3 to 4 days wheeling and a few days traveling.

Q: What was your favorite wheeling trip?
A: Probably my first trip to Glamis. I had done the rock crawling thing for about a year before I made it to the dunes for the first time and that made it extremely refreshing. It was completely different and new to me. It was like I was learning how to wheel all over again. Plus it’s the first trip I took with my boyfriend.

All About the Ladies:

Q: How do you feel as a woman in the offroad industry?
A: I felt a slight unicorn feeling at first! But luckily I have lots of women off-road friends and when they are around its less of a unicorn feeling and more of a happy to be part of a family feeling.

Q: What changes have you seen in the offroad community since you began wheeling?
A: I haven’t been around long enough to see many changes other than the first lady to finish KOH in the top 5! (Go Bailey!) But I’ve personally seen changes in my environment. I didn’t realize how many people loved this sport and how many talented women there were in it when I started. Now through this process (Ladies Co-Driver Challenge) and by adding more women on Facebook and social media I am really getting to expand my world!

Q: Give us a story, any story, about educating, guiding, empowering ladies in the offroad, past or future:
A: I felt I empowered ladies when I became our club’s first lady President. Many more ladies joined this past year and our club is really headed in a much better direction than the few years before my Presidency. I hope that we will have more empowered women in our club and another lady president soon!

Q: Do you have any advice for ladies wanting to get started in off-roading?
A: Just do it! I just bought a Jeep and fell in head first but, you don’t have to have a vehicle to join a club! Just find one and ride along! You’ll learn a ton and be able to make a good decision about a vehicle to purchase. Mine probably wasn’t the best purchase I made. I now know what is wrong with it so the only thing I wish I had done was join sooner without a vehicle so I would have know what to avoid!

Kalee's Vehicle, Frankie:

About Frankie:
"Frankie is a 05 Jeep Wrangler that also operates as my daily driver."

Q: What is the best mod you have done to your vehicle?
A: Flat fenders. Seems very superficial but I don’t have many performance mods (college budget) so I have to pick that as my favorite. They are paint matched to the body so they are super clean looking. Plus, I can stand on them to get into the engine area so much better, or even use them to set things down on!

Q: Do you work on your own vehicle?
A: I do, but with help. I like to watch/assist in anyway I can that doesn’t annoy the person kindly helping me with the beast. I want to learn so badly but I also understand that sometimes people only have extra time to fix it on their own, not add extra time to fixing it by slowing down and explaining it to me while they go.

SPEC SHEET ON Frankie