A Roughed-Up Rider’s Race to the Altar

When a take-no-prisoners motocross rider suffers a horrific thirty-foot fall weeks before her wedding, she fights her way out of a coma and vows to walk down the aisle on her own two feet.

Photo courtesy Wavell Bush

I. One Hill Too Far

A tired Emma Dunn and her fiancé Andy arrived late to the motocross track in Craig, Colorado, on a July Sunday in 2006. Their pickup truck and trailer crunched over gravel into the parking zone, hauling Dunn’s bike and gear for her first race at the venue. A win that day would amass enough points for the professional racer’s license she craved.

She pulled on leather pants, a long-sleeve jersey, plastic chest and back shields, gloves, helmet and reinforced calf-high boots. Then she started the blue Yamaha YZ 250F motorbike, its engine growling braap-braap, braapity-brap, and hurried to practice.

Three consecutive hills rose from the track through a haze of dust and petrol fumes along one section of the Craig course. Jumping all three together would maintain speed and hand Dunn an edge over less-skilled riders. She sailed cleanly over the first two as a pair.

Normally Dunn, thirty-two years old with four years of competition experience, would wa…