SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1520945
WINNING RACES AND HEARTS Emma Cornwell Will Be Navigating Through Life With Kaden Wells By Mike Vieira Emma Cornwell has progressed to a race-winning navigator for her fiancée, Kaden Wells, SCORE Pro Stock UTV champion. The engagement became official after their win in the Pro Stock UTV class at the San Felipe 250 in March when Kaden knelt down and proposed to her outside their race vehicle. Emma’s dad, Dan, was a competitor in the 1970s and is now the SCORE Tech Director, so she’s been around the sport most of her life but didn’t start attending races until she was about thirteen. Her dad had taken a break from racing during her early childhood, but Emma says, “I always thought it’s so cool, my dad’s a race car driver. I want to do that, too! That’s awesome!” When the opportunity came for her to go with him to the SCORE San Felipe 250 as a young teenager, she jumped at the chance. Dan caught the racing bug again himself at that point, as did Emma. She raced her first event at fifteen but was too busy with school and other sports activities to pursue racing in earnest. A few years later, after Dan became a SCORE official, Emma’s interest picked up again, and she began navigating for her uncle in races. Additionally, she also began helping out with medical care at the races, as she had started studying to be a physician’s assistant at the time. Both activities were a great fit for her interests, so when Kaden asked her to navigate for him, she didn’t pass up the opportunity. Their success on the race course, as well as in their personal lives, has shown that Emma and Kaden are an impressive team. She says she hopes to make navigating a life-long activity, and ideally have a dual career in the medical and racing world. In any case, she plans to continue racing, even if it turns out that she’s doing it just for fun. Seeing women racers like Kristen Matlock and Sara Price succeeding in a mostly male sport inspired Emma to see that she could make it in racing herself. She says, “I thought if I could talk to them and get some advice, or get in the car with them, it would be awesome. And now, they’ve both become friends of mine. So looking back on it, it feels pretty cool to say I’ve kind of made it, and I’m in the In Crowd.” Emma is definitely happy to see more and more women participating in the sport and feels that she has generally found good support from other racers. She feels she may have had an easier time as a female navigator, rather than as a driver, in terms of any resistance or skepticism. She’ll be in Kaden’s navigator seat for all the upcoming SCORE races in the foreseeable future unless her school schedule conflicts with an event. Once she’s completed her physician’s assistant studies, she doesn’t intend to miss a race. SJ