ALTHOUGH Emily Linscott passed her driving test only this month, she has been tearing around race tracks for four years.

The 17-year-old Basildon racing star has developed a huge following since her career began in the karting world, progressing into real cars after her first year.

Harwich and Manningtree Standard:

Testing - Emily is making waves across the world

Now, with nearly four years of experience under her belt, she has no plans to slow down.

But it all began when she was able to beat her dad, Mark Linscott, in a race when she was just 13.

Mr Linscott said: “I don’t normally let any one of my children beat me, and that puts some meat onto the bones onto how we realised she might have something.”

Emily said: “I was 14 when I first got in a car, I started practicing in my dad’s truck, which was pretty insane. We went to Romford Autodrome where you can just drive around.

“It was a little bit nerve wracking, but it was really enjoyable and I’ve never looked back.

“In my first year I won my first championship, won many awards and moved into a new kart and did about 12 or 13 races in that, so that was my karting time.

“After that year I moved into cars. At the end of that year I did my first race at Rockingham [Motor Speedway] in August.

“I turned up and there were about 200 people standing outside waiting for me to talk to me before I did the race.

“It was definitely a ‘thrown in at the deep end’ but I learnt a heck of a lot and it improved my confidence massively.”

However, before Rockingham, her second test outing at Snetterton Circuit, in Norfolk, in March 2017, could have ended very differently, as another driver sent her crashing through the track barriers.

She said: “Just after lunchtime, a driver came out of his garage and on the first lap I went into the first corner. He thought he could beat us into the corner, from a long way back, so I was already turning in and he just came right into the side of me and took me through and under the barrier.

“It destroyed the car, completely wrote it off. That was sort of the christening of it all. That was my second time out. That was a big thing to get over.

“Everyone in motorsports knows it’s dangerous, but it’s a risk we’re willing to take.”

Since the crash in 2017, Emily has gone on to race in multiple championships in the USA, and her social media following continued to grow.

Last year, she won the Essex TV Award for “Sports Personality of the Year”.

But despite her ballooning career, she would always allow time for her education, as “if the grades drop, the racing stops. I can play hard but I need to work hard”.

Now, she has an apprenticeship with Active Apprentice, working with Creative Sport and Leisure and Be Mindful, built around her racing.

But it was with the help of her mentor Pippa Mann, who she met in 2019, that led her to form her own scheme Motorsport in Education, to help more youngsters with limited resources to get into the racing world.

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At work - Emily alongside Pippa

Emily said: “I think in my first year of racing I noticed there weren’t many girls in racing, I was the only girl in the championship at that time.

“I spoke to mum and dad but at that stage I didn’t have the confidence or understanding that I could do something about it.

“I’ve always let the children sit in the car, spoken to them, but the time I properly realise I wanted to help more girls in general was when I met Pippa Mann in beginning of 2019.

“Since I’ve been working with her it’s opened my eyes about getting more girls into the the sport and how beneficial it will be, not just to me but to the sport in general, that’s when it started to take place.”

The STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) scheme was set to launch tomorrow at the TeamSport Indoor Karting Centre at Basildon Festival Leisure Park. However, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, it has been postponed.

Emily worked on the scheme with TeamSport, her sponsors FASTR, an automotive apparel company, along with Everyone Active and Basildon Sporting Village.

The scheme also aims to enlighten people on the amount of jobs available in motorsport aside from the race drivers.

Over the next two years, she hopes to to “climb the ladder” to take on the IndyCar series, the premier level of open-wheel racing in North America.

She added: “The scheme is opening children’s eyes up to something new, combining it with STEM and working with the schools on that. It’s definitely something we’re going to carry on with.

“I think America is where it’s heading at the moment, that’s where the biggest opportunity for me is. They’re a lot more accepting of females in America. That’s the aim for the next two years.”

To follow Emily’s racing, visit facebook.com/emilylinscottracing.