Racket collaborated with the Bethel University Arts + Culture Reporting class to produce the stories you'll read this week. Our editors worked with students, mostly juniors and seniors, to develop ideas, source stories, and edit them for the enjoyment of readers. Feel free to seek out these young journalists, photojournalists, and graphic designers to fill your internships and jobs. They like to get paid for their work, and thanks to Racket members and a grant from Bethel, they got cashed out for these pieces. Enjoy!
Taylor Goldman looked at the victory lane upside down through a windshield of spidered glass, blood rushing to her head as a seat harness held her in place. She could hear her dad screaming like the world was crashing down around them. The car had flipped on an oil slick coming out of corner four, and 13-year-old Goldman was left dangling in her seat while she waited for Elko Speedway’s tow truck to flip her back over.
When Goldman got out, the first thing she asked her dad was: "Is the car going to be OK?"
Within a week, Goldman was back behind the wheel. That 2006 crash earned her the nickname "Rollergirl" in the Twin Cities auto racing community, a name that has stuck with her for the last 19 years. Two weeks later, Goldman returned to the same track to blow everyone away, not only winning her first race but also making history as the youngest and quickest person to win a race at New Market's Elko Speedway.
From talking her way out of six speeding tickets and consistently wearing one pair of unsettlingly old socks to becoming the first female driver to win a championship, Goldman made a name for herself both on and off the track. Under her dad's mentorship, she broke race cars, track records, and community expectations, rising to the top in a world traditionally dominated by men.
Now 32 years old, Goldman has kicked off another year of fighting for the championship at Elko Speedway, with the next race set for June 21.
One reason she was Elko's youngest ever winner: Goldman had lied about her age to be allowed to race. Her 14th birthday missed the cutoff by six months, so Goldman's dad, David, pushed her birth month forward in the paperwork.
"I had practiced, so [my dad] thought it was fine," Goldman says. "I started in the back, you know, I wasn't in anybody's way. And so yeah, we kind of, for my first season, BSed my way through for my age."
The brake pedal, which was pushed up as far as it could go, still wasn't high enough for Goldman's feet to reach. So her dad bolted a 2-by-4 wood plank on top of the pedal. That small adjustment remains a part of Goldman's car to this day. Goldman's dad also had a knack for repurposing old decal stickers from previous race seasons, not caring how badly crinkled the vinyl looked on the hood of the car.
"And this is how cheap I am. This is a sticker I peeled off the car last year," David Goldman says. "This is like, probably a $20, $30 sticker. Instead of buying a new one, I'm gonna reuse the old one."
Together in Boulevard Station, at their family-run gas and service shop in Minnetonka, Goldman and her dad worked to prepare her car for the opening race of the season, Wheel of Fortune blaring from an old television mounted on the wall. Every few minutes, David needed to be pulled away from the TV to help with the decals, yelling at the small screen when he couldn't guess the correct answer. The two bickered over the placement of the stickers, both of them insisting they knew how to put the decals on better than the other.
The banter between them became a signature part of who Goldman was, even within the racing community.
"If you're in the pits… all you can hear is Taylor yelling, 'Dad!'" reports friend and fellow racer Julie Jorgenson. "That is the most Taylor thing that I can think of. I don't even know, it's just her yelling, because she's a very loud person, which—I love it."
Before she ever got behind the wheel, Goldman grew up mucking out stalls and feeding a barn of 50 horses. That dedication translated into her racing career, helping her prove herself as a woman in a male-dominated sport.
"Learning to navigate life as a female in a man's world when it comes to personal life, like for sports wise, outside of school, outside of work, that was really challenging," Goldman says. "But I think each year as I grew as a person and became more successful in racing, it only boosted my self confidence."
Then reality hit Goldman hard. Throughout middle and high school, she began to realize how great the risks were of going into a career field with a low success rate for women. So Goldman pursued her “plan B” and focused her efforts instead on business and environmental science at River Falls, Wisconsin.
"When I was put under pressure, I really had to think about, what am I going to be able to do in life that is going to successfully pay for my bills?" Goldman says. "And if I had to do it all over again… I would absolutely go pursue some sort of job related to motorsports."
Alongside her day job managing an oral surgery practice, Goldman now competes every weekend at both Elko Speedway and Wisconsin's La Crosse Speedway with her family as her pit crew. Her dad, a former racer himself, operates as Goldman's crew chief and mechanic.
"It's super addictive when you get involved in it," David Goldman says. "You come and you watch [the race], and… it's one of those things where you don't realize it, but you want to come back. And it's all of a sudden you get hooked on it."
When Goldman wanted to attend her high school's prom, her dad brought the racecar to the track and conducted test runs until Goldman showed up to the track after prom photos in her dress and heels to drive in the race. And when Goldman wanted her car painted bright pink, her dad compromised by letting her use pink decals and cover the gray body of the car in sparkles. Together, the two of them would often get into trouble, confronting drivers in heated arguments and the occasional fistfight post-race with whoever forced Goldman into the wall or cut her off.
Trouble also bled into Goldman's daily life. Even in her 2012 Toyota RAV4, Goldman got pulled over more than 50 times. Yet of the eight tickets police wrote, she talked her way out of six. Excuses ranged from the truth (her horses getting out) to made-up situations to sitting lower in her seat or saying she really needed to use the bathroom.
At the track, Goldman has her own set of rituals to prepare herself before each race. She wouldn't allow her mom to wash some dirty-but-lucky socks until the race season ended. She also made sure to tie her shoes just right and always wore her hair a certain way.
This mindset would play a critical role in her success in 2018, when Goldman was in a tight battle for the championship lead, sitting in second place. When her first place rival couldn't finish the race, Goldman's team decided to crunch numbers and, much to their surprise, learned that Goldman had jumped up to first place in the points. That had happened a few times before in her career. But never before had Goldman won a championship, and she was more determined than ever to race with everything in her.
"At the end of the season, the last race, when I crossed the start finish line for the checkered flag, I didn't win the race, but I had realized I just made short track history," Goldman says. "And it hit me, and it was the most out-of-body experience that I'll never forget."
Goldman became Elko Speedway's first female track champion in its 57 years of business that night, cementing her name in local racing history and showing the racing community just how capable female racers can be.
"It's fun trying to gain the respect of these male drivers… but sometimes it can be really frustrating with having to push back a little harder than most," Jorgenson says. "You can see it on track that she's not going to give up and that she is going to fight back so each race… you can see her confidence go up each time."
Even amid the victories, Goldman still faced the challenges of competing at such a high level. Not only did she have to prove to others what she could do but also to herself. And as her reputation grew, so did the expectations and the pressure. But Goldman met both head-on, recognizing every race as a chance to demonstrate her skill and ability to push the limits.
"You just get this huge weight on your shoulders that you struggle with because I know that I've been able to [win] before… What is wrong with the car that I can't figure it out? And why am I not being successful?" Goldman says. "And my dad's taught me this saying: You'll have a lot of bad nights and a few good nights. And it's true."
It couldn't matter any less to Goldman what her day looked like before getting behind the wheel. In her experience, she could be having the worst or best day ever, but as soon as that green flag waved, everything else was forgotten. That state of limbo—that addicting feeling—is what has Goldman coming back to the track week after week.
Because for Taylor "Rollergirl" Goldman, behind the wheel is the happiest place of her life—chasing 10 minutes of freedom, where peace and adrenaline collide and the world fades away.
Rachael Van Rossum is a sophomore political science and journalism major at Bethel University in St. Paul. She has a passion for writing the voices of athletes, peers, political figures, and even fictional characters to tell compelling stories both on and off the field or podium. She loves spending her weekends yelling at Formula 1 cars on TV at 4 a.m. and collecting ’80s rock vinyl for her record player.
