Lody Natasha: “Who else is going to make our dreams come true if not ourselves?”
- Meutia Rafa Anandita
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
Lody Natasha does not come from a family with a motorsport background. She built her motorsport career from scratch on her own as a mother and a florist. Becoming a rally driver in AXCR is the best adventure she could have imagined, and it has now become her life’s ambition.
“My struggle is perhaps four times harder than other drivers because I have to fight for every single step by myself,” said Lody, opening the conversation with Females in Motorsport. Starting out as a co-driver for her first off-road speed event, she discovered that she had fallen in love with the adrenaline of off-road racing. Off the track, Lody lives a very different life as a florist. Her flower business began unexpectedly; initially, she was simply helping her cousin who had opened a wedding decoration business, and gradually she learnt to arrange flowers so that the leftovers wouldn’t go to waste.
When the pandemic hit, orders for flowers suddenly increased, and to this day flowers have become her source of income. However, it wasn’t that simple for Lody to go on to become a rally driver. She had many doubts as she realised that motorsport is a tough sport and not something to be taken lightly.
With her extroverted and courageous personality, Lody put herself out there, learning as much as she could about the world of motorsport and building her own network so that doors of opportunity would be wide open for her. “Who else is going to make our dreams come true if not ourselves?” she said.
The turning point came in 2017, when a Japanese sponsor opened up opportunities for female drivers to compete in the Asia Cross Country Rally—often called the Dakar Rally of Asia. Lody was selected and she didn’t let the opportunity slip away.
Compared to off-road racing, Lody felt inspired to tackle a longer route, spanning around 2,500 km. It was a huge leap from her previous short-distance races, and now she had to cross Thailand and Laos without being allowed to survey the track beforehand. Even so, she was very satisfied with her first rally finish, which was full of twists and turns.
“The route was incredibly challenging to tackle,” she says. “But I felt really satisfied. It was worth it.”
Competing in international events with minimal support made Lody realise that her journey would not be as easy as that of other drivers who were already financially secure and had the motorsport background. She continued to take on bouquet deliveries, even over long distances, to raise funds because she was determined to race on the international stage. She kept entering this championship year after year, with or without sponsors.
2025 marked her lowest point, when she faced the prospect of being unable to compete in AXCR due to financial difficulties. Having given everything to become a rally driver, Lody didn’t run out of ideas; she stopped chasing major sponsorships and instead turned to smaller ventures and the community. As it turned out, 2025 became her best year at the AXCR since she started in 2017, finishing 19th out of a total of 44 participants.
“They come with full service teams, powerful trucks, containers packed with spare parts, meanwhile mine was just one pick-up truck and a simple paddock. I was so happy with it," she says.
Not satisfied with that, Lody now dares to dream even bigger. She wants to compete in the Rally Raid Portugal–one of the most prestigious rally raid championships in the world. For her, Rally Raid is quite challenging as it requires teamwork between the driver, navigator, and mechanic.
Lody has one message for women who want to follow in her tracks:
“Don’t overthink things,” she says. “First, find out which type of motorsport you love, and once you know, training will go much faster. We have to be adaptable, good at making friends, and learn as much as we can—especially for those of us who aren’t from racing families like me. If you just keep dreaming without doing anything, it’ll never become a reality.”