Fast Female Heads for the Forests

Lady rally drivers are a rather rare breed, Asian lady rally drivers even more so, therefore the Pirelli Carlisle Rally is particularly delighted to welcome Nabila Tejpar to the entry list, the young lady continuing her campaign in the 2016 British Junior Rally Championship driving an R2 Ford Fiesta. It is no great surprise that Nabila has caught the bug for rallying, her father is an active competitor and will also be out on the rally, competing in the Historic Section in his Ford Escort RS1600, while her grandfather was a regular competitor on the legendary East African Safari Rally, driving factory entered cars for manufacturers such as DAF and Datsun in fact, last year Nabila had the thrill of taking her grandfather’s 1971 works DAF 55 to the renowned Eifel Rally in Germany. After schooling and university in the USA, Nabila returned to the UK where she now works in the family business, the well known Dunkin’ Donuts operation with outlets throughout the UK. She is combining this, however, with a determined attack on the British Junior Rally Championship and has completed the opening two rounds. Her campaign got off to a fraught start on the opening round, a very snowy Mid Wales Stages, where she hit a rock on the opening stage, damaging a steering arm and driveshaft. Rapid repairs kept her in the rally and she went on to finish in a creditable 31st place. From snowy Wales the action moved to the fast tarmac roads of the Circuit of Ireland and again Nabila was in the points, ending up 43rd in an event which saw a lot of crews fail to finish. The third round brings yet another challenge, the fast gravel tracks of Kielder Forest but Nabila has been training hard at the Bill Gwynne Rally School and is well up for the challenge. The Pirelli Carlisle Rally runs over the weekend of 30th April/1st May and is based at the H & H Borderway Auction Mart in Carlisle, just off junction 43 of the M6. The pre-event Scrutineering and Documentation takes place, prior to the event, starting at 2:00pm on Friday 29th April. The first Historic car will leave the start at 8:00am and the first of the British Rally Championship runners will start at 12:30.