Bradenton rally racer made her mark in Europe. Now she wants to race closer to home
On her best days, Nabila Tejpar would prefer to be driving 100 mph, while her car slides between trees, scattering gravel and throwing a rooster tail of dirt.
Tejpar, 27, a 2011 graduate of Saint Stephens Episcopal School in Bradenton, had been making her name as one of the rare women in the world of international rally racing in Europe until the COVID-19 pandemic sidetracked the sport in 2020.
While preparing for a race in Ireland, she got the call that the rally season had been scrubbed because of the pandemic and and was told to return to her home in Essex, England.
It was an abrupt interruption of a career that included competing in the British Rally Championship in a Ford Fiesta in 2016 and 2017, and being named the British Ladies Rally Champion in 2017 and 2018. Later, she drove a Peugeot 208 R2 in events in Spain and Portugal. She has also driven a Proton, a car made in Malaysia.
When it became apparent that the pandemic would not be ending anytime soon, she returned to her family in Lakewood Ranch to begin sorting out her options for the future.
“I have been focusing on physical training, looking for other avenues to explore and keeping my mind sharp. COVID has taught me that you have to have some back up plans,” she said.
Tejpar would like to move into rally racing in the United States and is working on developing sponsors. The National American Rally Championships are planned for March.
However, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the American Rally Association advises that it is working with event organizers and local and state officials to determine all options concerning upcoming events.
“We thank you for your patience and for staying home and staying safe,” the association says on its web site.
Most Americans are not as familiar with rally racing as they are with NASCAR or drag racing. In rally racing, drivers race on closed-off dirt or paved roads through forests or towns. The timed racing is done in stages — anything from 2 to 50 kilometers . There is a co-driver or navigator in the front seat, who may be called on to change a tire or perform other maintenance during the race.
A driver whose time is not competitive in one stage may be able to compensate by being quicker in other stages and still win the rally.
“Rallying in America today can be compared to soccer 30 years ago: a global phenomenon that isn’t as well known in the United States. I plan to change that,” Tejpar said.
“The sport is a glorious, lovely thing, all noise and aggression,” she said. “There’s nothing quite like it.”
Her father and grandfather, Kenyan-born Indians, were also rally racers who moved to the United Kingdom about 30 years ago.
“I dreamed of being a race driver when I was a little girl,” she said. She got her first hands-on experience while still a student at Saint Stephens.
“I fell in love with it and realized it was what I wanted to do,” she said.
When she told her mother, Riz, and father, Aziz Tejpar, owners of Environmental Biotech, that she wanted to be a rally racer, they laughed, and said, “That’s not really a career, is it?”
But instead of blocking her ambition, they insisted that she first get her college degree. She earned a bachelor of science in international business, entrepreneurship and management, with a minor in international relations at American University.
“My mom said a deal is a deal so she let me start competing when I was 21,” Tejpar said. In the past five years, she has taken part in about 50 races.
Now back in the United States, she reflects that she enjoyed her time at Saint Stephens, learned a lot, and developed as a person after transferring from the British education system. She is also impressed by how much Lakewood Ranch has developed while she was rally racing in Europe. Another plus to being back in Florida in the winter is “enjoying the sunshine.”
Saint Stephens faculty member Bernie Yanelli is not surprised at the path Tejpar has chosen.
“Having taught Nabila in both American history and economics at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School a decade ago, I am not at all surprised by her rather unique form of success. Even then, she possessed an inner drive and sense of determinatio— two traits she inherited from her entrepreneurial parents, Aziz and Riz,” Yanelli said.
“Over the past few years, Nabila has also been quite generous with her time, frequently serving as a guest speaker in my Economics class and keeping my students spellbound with her many noteworthy accomplishments,” he said.
For more about Nabila Tejpar, visit her website www.nabilatejpar.com, and her social media pages. For more about rally racing, visit https://www.americanrallyassociation.org/ and https://www.fiaerc.com/.
This story was originally published January 9, 2021 at 5:15 AM.
