She’s made plenty of headlines because her sport is one a lot of people – both men and women – would not dare to do and she is excellent at it.  Vicki Golden is a professional freestyle motocross rider.

She began biking at age seven, imitating her brother’s passion for dirt bike riding.  When her parents recognized her potential in the sport, they bought her first bike and arranged for private lessons.  That’s when she was exposed to the hilly terrain around San Diego near her home.  She described the experience in this way. “It was a gnarly experience, but that’s what made me such a good rider.  We didn’t have well-groomed, brand-new prepped tracks.  We had the hills.”

She began racing as an amateur and then turned pro when she was seventeen.  What has followed in the years since she became an amateur racer and then a professional is a string of medals and firsts.

• The Loretta Lynn AMA Women’s Amateur Champion.
• Four-time X Games gold medalist.
• The first female competitor in a Moto X freestyle competition, winning a bronze medal in the best whip category.
• Nominated for the ESPY’s Best Female Action Sports Athlete award in 2014.

In January, 2018, it looked like her career might come to an end when she had a serious accident during an international motorcycle freestyle show.  It was an extremely traumatic time for her but, after seven surgeries and nine months of difficult rehabilitation, she was determined to return to the sport she loves.

She came roaring back by landing her first ever FMX backflip off the 15-foot Next Level ramp in Auckland, Australia.  She is the only woman who has flipped one of the largest ramps in the world.  That was March, 2019.

On HISTORY’s “Evel Live 2”, Sunday, July 7, 2019, she sped through a series of flaming wooden boards becoming the first female to break the record which was set in 2006.

It seems likely she will continue to make news and win more accolades.