A pair of Utah off-road racers pulled three season titles from a near-disaster at the Baja 1000

The foundation of any good relationship is communication. But Hurricane’s Kaden Wells couldn’t hear his fiancée Emma Cornwell. Not in an abstract, psychoanalytic way. Rather, she sat in the passenger seat next to her not a foot away from him and her lips moved but the tones of her voice were imperceptible.

Since they were in the middle of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, and since she was his navigator, it wasn’t Wells’ ideal way to embark on the second half of a 21-hour trip, much of which would be in the dark along cow trails. Adding to his exasperation, they didn’t have time to fix the problem.

They competed in the Baja 1000, one of the most prestigious and demanding off-road races in the world. With a strong finish—likely no worse than second among UTVs—Wells and Cornwell could claim the overall class and UTV titles in the SCORE International series, which includes three Baja races and the San Felipe 250. Plus, if all goes well, they could drive the first UTV and win the overall four-wheel-drive series title in nearly a decade.

But not everything went well. Because the race typically lasts 20 to 30 hours, and because it requires such intense focus, Wells and Cornwell handed the keys to another pair of drivers for about four hours to allow the pair to recharge. During that time, these alternating riders became victims of a girl’s collision with another competitor.

“I got in the car and said to the guy, ‘Hey, look at the exhaust. It’s really loud,'” Wells recalled. “And then he says, ‘You don’t have an exhaust there.’

Wells said the car vibrated so hard it “almost rattled your eyes.” Beside him, Cornwell blasted KISS’s “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” through the helmet speakers to pump them up for the second stint. He didn’t hear a single note.

And that was just the beginning of their troubles.

“It has to be a win.

Wells and Cornwell may seem like an odd couple. She’s a girl from California who played water polo for USC. When she’s not racing, she works as a medical assistant at a medical spa, giving botox injections and other aesthetic procedures. He’s a construction worker who has spent most of his life racing in the desert of southern Utah. He started with BMX and then moved to UTVs when he was 17.

Racing brought them together.

Cornwell’s father, Dan, was a consistent and successful off-road buggy racer in the 1970s and 1980s before becoming technical director of SCORE International around 2014. He recently got back into racing and enlisted his more social media-savvy daughter to help him track down parts online. In exchange, he taught her how to navigate.

One of the people Emma swapped with was Wells. While she used her personal account, he sent her messages through the account of Risq Racing, the team her parents founded. His profile and page only featured pictures of cars and UTVs.

“I had no idea who Kaden or Risq Racing was,” Cornwell said. “So I thought I was just talking to some old, random, racer.

They finally met in person at the 2021 Baja 1000, where Cornwell provided pre-race IV hydration to the racers. Wells asked her to join him in his car for the next race, the Mint 400 near Las Vegas. She accepted. They won, marking Wells’ first victory in what he claims is the oldest off-road race in the United States.

At the finish line, the DJ played “First Date” by Blink-182.

This connection led to more dates and more wins. In March 2024, the pair cruised to their first victory in the San Felipe 250 — 42 years after Cornwell’s father won his inaugural run. Wells then climbed onto the roof of their Can-Am and proposed.

“My mom had [the ring]and she’s like, ‘You have to design no matter what,'” Wells said. “I’m like, ‘It’s got to be a win.'”

A little more than a year later, as the pair hit obstacle after obstacle trying to finish last month’s Baja 1000 — probably the least that rattled their eyeballs in their sockets — Wells didn’t regret the decision.

Reaching the destination

There was no time for small talk. Not that the dozens of hours they spend side by side during the race provide much opportunity for gossip or wedding planning (they’ve set the date for May). Wells has to focus on the path, or whatever is serving as a path at the time, bits of sagebrush or streaks of sand.

“You have to be 100 percent focused when you’re out there,” Cornwell’s father, Dan, said. “One flaw and you can tear the whole front of the car off. That’s all you need. One mistake and you’re done.”

So Cornwell kept her instructions simple and clear.

“L1,” she yelled through the headset, indicating that she was turning left at the slowest possible speed. Or “R4”, a right turn, but keep your foot on the gas. They probably drove 2,500 miles in the week before the race to map out the best routes and viable alternatives. Later, Cornwell spent hours recording routes into his GPS.

But the GPS does not offer instructions on what to do if the radius rod breaks. So, when it happened in the middle of the desert, they figured it out together. They called their pit crew for help and then freed the rescue UTV of the pole and its axle.

Back on course they faced a decision. They could push the UTV, now equipped with less durable factory parts, to the max and go for the race win. But in doing so, they risked losing everything if they didn’t finish. Or they could play it safe and hope that if they finish second or third, they can still claim the series titles.

Against their competitive natures, they chose a cautious path. And yet they still didn’t finish—at least not on the first try.

“Two miles before the finish the car died and we coasted,” Wells said. “And then we went to turn it over and it turned once and then it got stuck.

Their engine was toast.

They got a tow – albeit a peaceful one, according to them – to the finish line. This was within the rules, which state that each vehicle can be towed up to 1% of the race distance, or roughly eight miles. However, upon reaching the finish line, they learned that they had been disqualified. The race rules also state that all vehicles must complete the final mile of the race under their own power.

Never mind that Cornwell and Wells didn’t know where the finish line was because a flash flood forced organizers to cut the race short. They didn’t even have a way to indicate to the tow truck that they wanted to be dropped off a mile from their new destination. Even if they did, the course was too muddy and hilly for them to get out and push their Can-Am over.

Just as the team expertly navigated the course, they found a solution in this swamp. After about 40 minutes of conferring with each other, race officials told Cornwell and Wells that if they could get their vehicle running and back on the track, they could go the last mile and count their time. However, the clock was ticking.

Coincidentally, during a break, the couple discovered that what they thought was a seized engine was just a faulty fuel pump switch. If they manually held it, the UTV would run.

“We’re excited and he’s pumped, like ‘Here we go again! We can do it!’ And there are jumps and turns and stuff. … So I’m like, ‘Hey, don’t go fast! I let it go,” Cornwell recalled. “And as soon as I let it go, because there’s no fuel in the car, the car dies. So we go through a few jumps and I’m like, ‘Wow!’

“But, we made it.

Despite accidents and delays, missing shock absorbers and faulty fuel pump cables, Wells and Cornwell finished second among all UTVs. As a result, they walked away with all three of the series titles they were chasing.

Cornwell said she learned from a successful racing season and a successful relationship is not that different. Both require communication and trust. And sometimes that means finding a way to get the message across, even if the noise is so loud it might rattle their eyeballs in their sockets.

“I think a big part of how our relationship works is that we have so much trust in the car that it carries over into real life,” she said, “and we both have to honor and respect that. And if it ever goes wrong, understanding that it could be very damaging to our communication in the car.”

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