Press Release | June 26, 2009
With the injury of top 250 rider Trey Canard at the High Point National, the GEICO Powersports Honda team has reached out to top WMA motocross racer, and series rookie, 16-year-old Vicki Golden.Golden will be racing aboard Canard’s vacated Honda CRF250R for the remainder of the WMA Nationals, and the X Games.”The GEICO Powersports Honda team was looking for someone to put on one of their bikes, and Warren from Fox helped out a little bit and they thought about me, and it worked out to where I ended up fitting what they wanted,” the El Cajon, California-native said. “While it might seem like a lot of pressure to ride for a team like this, it really takes a lot of pressure off. It works so I don’t have to work so hard on other things or try to over-compensate for things. I can just worry about racing.”Golden is currently third in the WMA points and hasn’t finished a moto outside of the top five yet, so she’s hoping to improve on that.”It definitely will help a lot, and for X Games, it’s really going to help,” Golden said. “It’ll be a great opportunity to get comfortable on supercross really easily with the help of the Factory Connection Racing guys. It will be a really good way to finish out the year.”GEICO Powersports Honda team manager JC Waterhouse is thrilled with the upside of Vicki Golden.”Unfortunately, we had an opportunity after Mt. Morris to put a new person on a bike,” Waterhouse said. “But fortunately we found Vicki. We wanted to be more involved in the WMA side of things for a while now anyway, and she gives us an excellent opportunity in the WMA series. She’s a great competitor, especially for a rookie in the series, and we’re looking forward to helping her in every way that we can.”Golden is hoping the newfound equipment and support will lead to more competition at the very front of the WMA field.”I know Ashley Fiolek’s been working really hard, and so has [Jessica] Patterson, and it’s been harder for me to try and push through to overcome the equipment they have,” Golden said. “But I think the starts will be better for me, and I think that’s where I’ve been struggling the most with getting out-powered. I think now that I get a factory bike, too, it’ll help me everywhere. I want to put pressure on Ashley and Jessica.”Golden will make her debut with the team tomorrow in Lakewood, Colorado, round five of the championship under the lights at Thunder Valley at night.
