how she balances an increasingly hectic lifestyle , and her win in the Unlimited Iron class during Sick Week 2023 .
You were one of the early adopters of social media and YouTube vlogging . At what point did you realize putting yourself out there , sharing your story , and connecting with the public would be beneficial to your racing career ?
It ’ s been a slow progress to that , but I would say probably 2018 . I ’ ve had social media since before that , but I just posted what I was doing . I never really cared too much about sharing for content creation , so I probably missed some of that early boat when 1320Video was really coming up .
It was my freshman year of college and I realized that I wanted to do all these different races . I wanted to do Roadkill Nights and things like that . My mom and dad were like , “ Well , you ’ re going to have to pay for those if you want to do them .” And I ’ m like , “ I ’ m a kid in college . Where am I going to come up with that funding ? I can only work so much , race so much , be a straight-A valedictorian student kind of deal . I ’ m running out of hours here .”
So I reached out to a longtime friend , Phil Smith , who worked at Flowmaster before Flowmaster was bought out by Holley . I had been making some YouTube videos . I sent him this major proposal . To me , it was major , and I laid out the videos and posts I was going to do for them . And I ’ m like , “ And all I need in exchange is a thousand dollars .” I ’ m going from Arkansas to Michigan on a thousand dollars to race at Roadkill Nights . In that email , he came back and said , “ We ’ re in ,” and I ’ m like , “ What ? That was crazy .”
It was at that moment that it clicked . There ’ s magazines and things like that . It ’ s the same thing . I don ’ t want to just be an influencer , whatever that is , whatever that was at the time . I don ’ t want to just do that , but if I can provide a marketing service for these people , then I add value .
One thing led to another . When we really got started building the ‘ 55 , I was like , “ I really don ’ t have the budget for the ‘ 55 , but I have a fourmonth timeline to do it .” So I took what I ’ d been doing , applying that with other companies in a smaller form , and I was like , “ Hey , here ’ s my plan . Here ’ s my proposal .” And it ’ s amazing when you actually set stuff out like that and really think of it in a business approach , how much more willing people are to be involved . So the ‘ 55 is really what solidified it as a business for me .
In an interview a few years ago , you talked about how social media is your job , YouTube is your job , media is your job . There were probably people that didn ’ t take that seriously along the way , but now it all very much is your job . How rewarding has it been to see your efforts to build and connect with an audience through your own channels parlay into a co-hosting role on HOT ROD Garage ?
It ’ s all happened really fast . It ’ s been fast and slow , all at the same time . It ’ s like something
TAYLOR IS ALWAYS QUICK TO CREDIT HER FAMILY – MOTHER DEBBIE , FATHER DENNIS , AND
YOUNGER SISTER MEGAN –
FOR CONTRIBUTING TO HER EVER-EXPANDING EFFORTS TO SUCCEED IN VARIOUS ROLES IN
THE AUTOMOTIVE WORLD .
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