We met up with Vicki Golden at Lake Elsinore Motorsports Park last week to catch up on everything she’s got going on this summer. After battling a few nagging injuries, Golden decided to take a little time off after X Games, but she is back on the bike now and ready to kick things into gear. Check out our chat between motos with Vicki and click here to view the entire photo gallery from our day at the track.
MM: How did X Games go for you?
VG: I felt like X Games went pretty shitty. I mean everyone said I did good, but I don’t know, I felt like I could have done better. I guess it was okay considering everything that happen leading up to X Games though.
MM: Yeah, you had a couple of close calls right before X Games. What happen?
VG: Like a month before X, I ate shit and hit my head off the wall ride at Links Compound. Destroyed a helmet and had to wait a little bit until my head got back to normal. Then about a week before X Games, I did the jump show at the Temecula Balloon and Wine Festival with the Fitz Army and that went good until the 2nd to last jump when I overshot the landing a little bit, or well maybe a lot, and skidded across the grass field, tucked the front end, and went into the gate. I jacked up my leg, my ankle, and my right shoulder, so I took a couple of days off after that and tried to get the swelling out of my leg and get my shoulder rested. I went and saw Doctor Navarro and he was able to help me out a lot, so I tried to ride and definitely wasn’t feeling it yet. Just the impact and everything wasn’t feeling too good. So I ended up just taking off the week leading up to X Games and spent more time with Doctor Navarro getting my ankle and shoulder healed up.
MM: Do you feel like those injuries held you back at X Games?
VG: Well I felt good considering everything that happen, but I don’t know, for some reason I just felt like I could only do turn down whips on the X Games ramp. I just didn’t feel like I could crank a racer style whip off of it for whatever reason. Every time I tried to, my front end would just tuck out and I’d slide off the ramp instead of gripping into it. That was like my main problem. I mean everyone else was hitting the ramp just fine though, so I don’t know. It was just some weird deal with me.
MM: For those who didn’t catch the event live, how did you end up finishing after the fan vote?
VG: I ended up with a 5th in Best Whip, but I just wish I could have done better because leading up to this year’s X Games, I felt the best I have ever felt, especially switching to the 450. I was getting my whips so much bigger, especially the racer style ones. They were like night and day better and I felt so much more comfortable and confident with them, so it just kind of sucked with all of the bad luck that came my way right before X. But I guess I can’t come home with a medal every year, so hopefully I’ll get invited back next year and we’ll get it figured out.
MM: What have you been up to since X Games?
VG: A whole lot of nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean I’m literally doing nothing. It was nice to come home after X and just sit on the couch and relax and just not have anything to do. I’ve been giving myself some time to heal up completely, but now I’m feeling better and just getting back into riding.
MM: What do you have going on for the rest of the summer?
VG: Well June is usually a pretty slow month, so things will start picking back up in July and I’ll start doing some races and some shows throughout the summer. Fitz said that if I get comfortable jumping ramp to ramp that he’d defiantly love to have me out at some of the Fitz Army shows, so I may be doing some of that if they have the room. I also want to start doing some Kicker Arenacross races again. There’s a lot of room this summer for me to do some shows and some races, so I’m just planning on having fun with everything for the rest of the year. Next year is going to get pretty gnarly with doing stuff, so I want to just make sure that one, I’m healthy, and two, I’m back to where I need to be on my A game for everything that’s coming up.
MM: How was it spinning motos out at Lake Elsinore today?
VG: It was fun. It’s been nice getting back into the swing of things. At this point though, it’s just a matter of how much my shoulder can take while riding motos. It hasn’t really been able to take a lot, so riding today was pretty chill. I’m just slowly trying to get back into it because I actually have a race coming up in mid July. So I’ve just been trying to get ready and get some sort of endurance on a bike and get my strength back to where it needs to be.
MM: If you end up doing some jump shows with the Fitz Army this summer, can we expect to see any tricks?
VG: Yeah I want to start learning some new tricks once my shoulder is completely healed! I really want to get started into that, but I think that’s probably going to be in a few months, probably after July or into August or so. And like I said, I just want to make sure that everything is healthy and 100% before I start trying to get back into it fully. I don’t need to make a stupid mistake because I was too weak to do something.
MM: It sounds like it would be much more safe to just stay home and drink some beers!
VG: (laughs) Oh I’ve definitely been doing a lot of that too. We can’t let the beer tolerance go down, so that’s actually been my number 1 priority of training. Less gym, more beers. My shoulder exercise has actually just been tossing a ping-pong ball and that’s about it. Which it’s been getting pretty weak by the end of the game, but we’re working on it.
Vicki has also been nominated for an ESPN Espy award for the Best Female Action Sports Athlete of 2014! Show your support for Vicki and head over to www.espys.com and VOTE for this Metal Mulisha badass!
