A love of motorsport has revved for three generations in Nabila Tejpar’s family.  
 
Her late grandfather raced rally cars in Kenya. Her father competed into Tejpar’s early childhood. And Tejpar, Kogod/BSBA ’14, also grew up a gearhead, attending rally events with her dad and learning handbrake turns by 12. “Ever since I was little, I dreamt about being a racing driver,” Tejpar says. 
 
At 15, when a friend visited her house in Essex, England, with his old Proton Satria rally car, she finally grabbed her dream by the steering wheel. As Tejpar shifted, braked, and turned in a nearby field, “I instantly fell in love,” she says. “Something about the way the car moved and the way I felt in it was like home.”
 
After AU, Tejpar accelerated toward full-time rallying, securing her competition license in 2015. In 2017, she snagged her first podium at a British Rally Championship (BRC) Cadet Cup event and became BRC Ladies Champion, repeating the following year. In search of stiffer competition in 2019, she completed several European Rally Championship rounds and a full season of Peugeot Rally Cup Iberica in Spain and Portugal for a total of 14 events. 
 
The added race time built a confidence and speed Tejpar has had painfully few chances to demonstrate. Her 2020 season was curtailed by COVID-19, and an accident in early 2021 reaggravated an eye injury, forcing her to carefully consider racing beyond a couple “bucket list” events. 
 
“I haven’t officially retired because I can’t bring myself to do it,” Tejpar says. A Realtor in Florida since summer 2021, she is committed to finding a road back to motorsport—a field she knows from experience must do better in its outreach to younger generations, women, and people of color. 
 
“Until we can do that, I don’t think motorsports—especially rallying—has a future,” she says. But even away from the wheel, it’s a future Tejpar is driven to be a part of.