FORMER Thurrock student is living the American dream as she picks up her sporting career.

Teenage racing driver, Emily Linscott, who attended St Clere's School in Stanford-le-Hope, was granted permission to travel to the United States as a motorsport athlete and is now successfully through her quarantine period.

She will be climbing back into the cockpit of a race car for the first time in four months later today (Tuesday, 7 July)h at New Jersey Motorsports Park. She will be resuming racing at the same venue the following week with the Lucas Oil School of Racing Formula Car Series.

Emily is one of the most prominent female racing drivers in the UK. She started in karts in 2016 when she was 13. She made her car racing debut in arguably the toughest junior class in the world, the Ginetta Junior Championship at the Rockingham Raceway circuit in the UK in August 2017, exactly one year to the day after her first official MSA Kart race.

She competed in her first full season in the Ginetta Juniors in 2018, earning her International licence later that same year when she raced in the F4 South East Asia Championship race at the former F1 circuit of Sepang, Malaysia, where she took a very creditable 7th place in both finishes in November '18.

She spectacularly won back-to-back GT4 races at Brands Hatch (UK) in November 2019 prior to which she secured two second place podium finishes in America racing a single seater race car for only the second time in her career. She also secured her first single seater lap record at NCM in Kentucky which still stands to this day.

Emily is mentored in the United States by Indy500 driver Pippa Mann.

After winning third place in the Lucas Oil School of Racing Scholarship Shoot-Out in December of 2019, and then successfully crowd-funding a full campaign and assault on the Championship in 2020, missing the first event of the season due to COVID-19 related travel restrictions was a tough start to what Emily had been hoping would be a break-out season.

However, now she is safely on American soil, she is focusing on the upcoming events, with a goal of trying to work herself back into championship contention.

"I'm so thankful to be back on US soil, and I'm so ready to be back behind the wheel of a race-car", said Emily. "I'm excited to get my season back on track, and with the precedence of the Championship being won by a driver who was forced to miss an event in 2019, I'm still hoping to repeat that feat."

Emily will be racing in the States until September with meetings scheduld as follows:

July 14-16 – New Jersey Motorsports Park, NJ

July 31 - Aug 2 – Nola Motorsports Park, LA

Aug 28-30 – Autobahn Country Club, IL

Sep 24-26 – Homestead Miami Speedway (Road Course), FL

Sep 30-Oct 2 – Sebring International Raceway FL

Live timing for each event can be found here or on the Speedhive app.