"Wait Until I Get Another Holeshot. Your Boy is Going to be Sending It" | Kevin Moranz on Another Chance

Being a privateer in Supercross doesn't come with a substantial amount of tv time or highlights. This past weekend in Seattle, Kevin Moranz tried changing that when he pulled a holeshot in the Main Event and attempted to battle Chase Sexton. It didn't last as long as he would have liked, but it certainly motivated him to do it again. On this week's episode of The MotoXpod Show, Kevin called in to tell us about his weekend and what his plans are for the outdoors. The interview was conducted by Jamie Guida, Scotty Thomson, Michael Lindsay, and TJ Smith.

For the full interview, check out Ep265 of the MotoXpod Show Ft. | Kevin Moranz and Cole Seely. Also, if you would like to watch the video version from the MotoXpod Show click the link below.

Jamie Guida – Vital MX: First of all, what do you have under the hood of that thing?

Kevin Moranz: Dude, I had so many people ask me that. They're like, “Dude, do you have a big bore?” I would love for them to protest me and tear my bike down. I would video everything so that when they see it legitimately is a stock bike, I could just laugh.

Michael Lindsay: I was going to ask, did you forget to turn the nitrous off going into that corner?

Kevin: No, trust me. The biggest thing for me is trying to prove myself to get some kind of supported ride or factory ride, right? So, obviously being able to start like that, that's good. I proved that even last weekend or two weekends ago when I started fourth. When I started fourth, I was freaking out to an extent. I was more worried about the people that were behind me and everything that was going on and not really focusing forward. That was the key thing. Even though, yes, I obviously went off the track pretty dang quick, that was the biggest thing that transitioned for this week. When I did get that good start I even kind of fought back with (Chase) Sexton a little bit, going over the finish line. I was fully focused, and I was calm. I knew my situation. Yes, I know I'm not as fast as those guys yet. Yes, I knew they were going to get around me, but I just told myself, “Just try to keep this as long as you can. Fight as long as you can. Even if you tucker out and you end up last, just keep this as long as you can.” So, in the next section, I hit that triple out the same way I was hitting it in the heat. Obviously, we get a slight lap. I just rolled it during the site lap and it's different from the heat. So, when I hit it, you'll see in the video, I kind of pucker up a little bit because I hit a kicker going off of it. I go long and landed in the ruts and there was no way I could have turned.

Jamie: I wondered if you missed your brake and came in too hot. Chase ran you in pretty deep, and it would be hard to make the turn.
Kevin: You'll see in the video I land awkwardly and cross rut a little bit, which then shifts my weight. Sexton was there a little bit. He was going to be close enough that I couldn't lean hard the other way, so I would have to stand up anyway. Considering the awkwardness of the landing and going long, my suspension isn't as good as theirs. It didn't soak it up as their suspension would. So yeah, it threw me off the track. That was my fault. Nobody else's fault. I saw a lot of people hating on Sexton. Unfortunately, I'll take one to the chin. That was all me. It's just cool to be in that situation and get that experience as a privateer with no pressure on me. Hopefully, somebody gives me an opportunity or something like that. I already have that kind of experience under my belt, you know?

ML: Watching over the last couple of years how you've improved, people always want to see the little guy get the opportunity, and I've seen your name thrown out a few times if there is an injured rider or stuff like that. I've even had people pose questions in our forum, “Why isn't this guy getting picked over that?” I would say you going out and holeshotting and showing you can run with them is a bigger deal because, at the end of the day, you've been improving but everybody just looks at it as he's getting better. Has he beaten anybody that has a ride worth replacing? Has it been tough to improve and not get noticed? Do you see why people wait to see something like that from a rider to show that you can actually run with the guys when it's needed?

Kevin: There are a lot of parts to that question, right? I think the biggest one is I love what I do so much on the racing side, but I almost love the business side as much as I do the racing side. Me setting up my program, and having my program as efficient as it is, I really enjoy both sides of that. It's fun for me whether I'm getting picked up or not. I love the way I have my program set up. I don't have a whole lot of pressure. I have a lot of freedom, which is really cool. The whole fan interaction, the vlog, I've got a lot of things going in my direction, which is nice. If I didn't have any of that, I'd probably be pretty salty. “Why isn't anybody giving me a shot?” I'm loving life the way it is. It's nice to be the underdog to an extent because you don't have a whole lot of pressure on you. So, the more that I can prove myself with those factory riders as somebody that obviously does not nearly have the equipment that those guys have, my time will come. I believe that. If it doesn't, then I'm just going to keep having fun and keep loving what I'm doing and staying with the fans. The biggest thing is enjoying what I do. If I didn't enjoy what I do, I'd be a lot more bitter and hate the sport more probably. People need to realize how much more effort I'm putting into my program than virtually every other racer that's on the Main Event line. I do all of my own bike work on Friday. Kris (Fagala) takes me to the line on Saturday, but changing oil, tires, clutches, all that stuff, I do everything on Friday. When I got a flat tire after qualifying, I pop the tire off, put it back on, and stuff like that on race day. On top of all the social media stuff, on top of me traveling, planning my travel, doing my own bike work, training, dude, there's so much that's on my plate. That's why I think I have so much more potential. If somebody were to give me an opportunity and take care of a lot of this stuff for me, how much more effort I could put into the results side of things, you know?

ML: Speaking of that, from a fan perspective, it's hard for them to weigh what a real opportunity would be for a rider. Would you take the opportunity to go ride a decent bike if there was no money involved to pay your bills? No anything, just for the opportunity to finally drop all this workload. What if it was a really good program, but it's for two rounds? Is it really worth it for you with all the work you've put in to build up yourself and your program and your people? What does the real opportunity look like that actually truly makes sense?

Kevin: That's a really good question. So, long story short, the only way I would probably jump ship, especially this late in the season for a round or 2 is if it's a cream-of-a-crop team. I would want to be KTM, Husky, or maybe GasGas. It would have to be something happened to (Justin) Barcia and they want me on his bike. It would have to be cream-of-the-crop to make me transition for a small amount of time. Because at that point I think anybody, and everybody would understand because then I'd be under Roger’s (DeCoster) scope. It'd be my opportunity for something more in the future. Anything else, any lower-tier team is just not really worth it. It's not worth going backward. It's not worth disrupting everybody who's had your back. That's one thing I've prided myself on throughout racing thus far I don't really jump companies. Very seldom and if I do, it's usually on good terms. You never know where you're going to need somebody again, you don't want to burn bridges. It's a small community. There's a lot more that goes into it. It's all the people that have helped you get to where you're at and you know whether they're going to be cool with it. The biggest thing is results-based, making sure you're not going to go backward and get on something completely new and then be starting all over for two rounds. You can have awful results and then boom, everybody's like, “This dude's a joke.”

Scotty Thomson – MotoXpod Show: So, the theme of this interview is really all these efforts you are trying to improve your ride and get a better opportunity next year. Your Moranz Mafia's getting bigger and your speed's getting better and you're making more Main Events. What are some of the companies, people, or even potential sponsors that you have your sights on for next year?

Kevin: The biggest person I want to give a shout-out to is Tank Masters. I have to give the people the love that are currently behind me. I've been on KTMs ever since I went pro. So, Roger DeCoster and the whole KTM/GasGas/Husky team, something like that would obviously be my primary goal, let's put it that way. I'm kind of game for anything at this point if it makes sense. I'm not just going to jump ship because I do have a pretty good program set up. I do get to make a lot of decisions, so it doesn't really make sense for me to jump ship for somebody that's just going to provide a bike kind of deal, you know what I mean? I can do that myself. It's just whatever I could do to further myself in this sport without burning bridges.

Jamie: To piggyback off what Scotty asked, what would be the one thing that would make the biggest difference if you could get your hands on it? Would it be factory suspension or is there something else?

Kevin: That's tough because there are a lot of things. Obviously, the factory suspension because that's the biggest change that I made from last year to this year. I've been on the KTM and I run the WP Cone Valve forks. I ran a stock shock for the last three years. This year was the first year that I finally decided to make a change. I was like, “Okay, I want to try the ‘A’ kit shock. Everybody I am racing has an ‘A’ kit shock. There is no way that they're just using it because it looks cool.” I finally got my hands on it and used it. I was at my home track, and I went through the whoops. We were getting ready to test suspension. I got the first ‘A’ kit shock that I wanted to try out and long story short, I went through the whoops with the normal suspension stuff that I’d got 15th on in the last race in Salt Lake City. I kept that from last year so I could start riding with it at the beginning of this year. So, I went through the whoops and then I came off and changed the shock. I literally went straight out and through the whoops again. I stomped on the brakes, shut off my bike, and screamed out, “What the F!”  It's that big of a difference from the stock shock to the ‘A’ kit shock. I can only imagine what actual factory suspension feels like. Not only that, but I'm making my own changes in qualifying. I come over, grab the screwdriver, get on my hands and knees, and adjust the rebound on the forks. I don't have a single person at the races watching film telling me to do this or do that. Having a team behind you that gives you data, you know, this is the segment that you're losing time in. You know, this is what we think we need to do with the suspension. Having people that are knowledgeable enough to know what to do correctly, because it's not like the rider always feels what they want. I think that the biggest thing is just having the personnel behind me and the equipment that is up to par with these guys.

TJ Smith – MotoXpod Show: My question is how do you get paid? Are you just making money off of the races? I'm curious about somebody at your level.
Kevin: Funny story. I have an associate's degree, I took all business classes to get it. I've always been business savvy throughout my whole life, more or less. I've never had a real job. Through high school, I mowed lawns. I've kind of always ran my own program working for myself. I knew privateer racing is tough. Through the years I've met great people, great connections, great sponsors, and people that have my back. I take the time to create cool sponsorship packages, aka the helmet wraps and the stuff that I do with the bike. The vlog has then added more marketing ability for my racing as well. I sell spots on the bike, logos, marketing, and stuff like that. Two years ago I got life-flighted from Atlanta Supercross, I got my shoulder fixed and didn't come back until the last three rounds of outdoors. I ended up doing pretty well and then getting that little fill-in ride for the Rocky Mountain team for (Joey) Savatgy and KTM was supporting them. However, when I was down and out, obviously I'm not racing, I'm not getting paid. There's nothing like that. I needed to create some kind of monthly income. Racers don't get a monthly income, at least privateers don't. I've never had that situation. That's why I created a Patreon account. Patreon is a creative way to get fans involved, and not necessarily people that have businesses that want logos on the bike. I thought, “How can I create a monthly income while doing what I love?” Getting people involved, getting fans involved that obviously want more of a fan interaction behind-the-scenes look. So that's why I created the Patreon because then that creates a monthly income for me as well. On top of racing and getting paid for the event, on top of sponsorship deals, marketing, yada yada, yada. So, my biggest goal is to create as many streams of income as possible because then obviously that multiplies and that's how I pay my bills.

Jamie: I want to touch on that program a little bit. You have spots where Patreon supporters can get their names on your bike or helmet.

Kevin: Yeah, it's been really cool. Even right now we just added a couple of spots that say ‘your name’ until it gets filled. Then if people come to the races and they don't necessarily want to subscribe to Patreon because it is a monthly subscription service, if they just want to come up and hand me $100 cash at the race, “boom”, I'll let them sign the bike over one of those ‘your names’ or we'll find somewhere like that. This past weekend. Stankdog did it. He gave me 100 bucks and I had three other fans do it. Apparently, Paige Craig watched my vlog on her flight because her son had downloaded it to her YouTube. She didn't have any service so she watched that and figured out that you could come and donate and write your name on the bike. After I holeshot Christian in the Heat race, she came over and donated some money, and signed the bike. It was included in her vlog and my vlog. It's just creating some kind of fan experience, right? That's why we try to include them in the vlog too because then that stuff lasts forever there. They can show their friends, they're excited about it, and it helps support my racing. It pays for hotels, flights, entry fees, and all sorts of stuff. It's just by having fun and giving people experiences and then me getting experiences as well. It's kind of a no-brainer for me.

ML: What would be your biggest focus to improve your program for next year? What would help you the most? What would be your off-season goals to race and where would you put it?
Kevin: My biggest concern going into next year is the bike that I'm going to be riding. I know the guys are starting to figure out the ‘23 model bike and they're starting to have better results on them now. I don't have the information on how many changes they made to that bike to make Coop (Webb) like it or how different is it from the production one that they're selling. I'm questioning, “Do I stay on the 2022 because I know it? I have suspension for it, I have all the parts for it. I don't have to change anything. The R&D side of that is probably going to be the first situation I need to go through. I don't know if KTM seeing that I'm pulling starts on their factory machines, hopefully, they can give Kev a little help. At least send me in the right direction regarding what things I should do if I want to go to the new model. Other than that, things for my program that I would like to solidify a little bit better is probably having a suspension guy at the races specifically to help me. That way I'm not making my own changes and guessing to an extent. Kris does a pretty good job. I would not mind if I stayed on the same Next Level Racing team. Kris taking me to the line works really well. I have that all ironed out pretty great. The biggest thing for me is more race day help. A better set-up and a little bit better-organized program altogether. There's nothing really super crazy I would change besides better equipment. If KTM could at least help me by allowing me to send some videos to their suspension guys and then give me pointers. Something like that would be sweet over me just shooting in the dark, you know?

ML: Going back to when Weston Peick went all in on himself, the one-year he bet on himself, and built his Suzuki program. A lot of people might not know this, but he spent quite a bit of money, and he had a suspension technician of his own at every race. My question is about the vlog. We have a lot of riders doing them now. The difficult part is everyone thinks, “I’ll instantly get views, it'll be good for me branding-wise.” As you know, it is extremely tough to be consistent with them. You have a lot of content creators that begin to collab a lot more. A lot of guys in the car industry do that. Have you gotten to that point with your stuff where some of the riders that are really on top of their stuff like you, have you started to try to do more of that? Have you thought about that to help build and grow together?

Kevin: I need to do a little bit more. I kind of piggybacked off the Craig's a little bit this weekend. They included me in their vlog, which I think is going to be very beneficial. (Haiden) Deegan obviously has a really good program as well. I'm kind of buddies with him. I talk with him at most track walks and stuff like that. That is a step I need to look a little bit further into. Me being the one-man show doing everything and a majority of bike work and saying, “I have to make a helmet wrap video, and my bike branding, which is a logo of a business that we put on the bike for each individual round. There's a lot of stuff that's on my plate that I'm focused on on race days. Even race weekends and during the week. I need to try to free up a little bit of time or I need to almost get an assistant. We are growing the YouTube thing. It's been really good. The fans do like it because we do have the little spin-off including the signatures and all this stuff. Fans can actually be in the vlog. So, they want to come by and try to be in the vlog. They help support the program. They sign the bike and then they're pretty much going to be in the vlog kind of deal. The Moranz Mafia stuff, KevinMoranz.com. You can hit the Moranz Mafia tab and learn how to join that.
Scotty: When you get the holeshot and you're leading a race like that, the adrenaline is crazy and the heart heartbeats going fast. You have the open track and therefore it should technically be easier, but you're in the front and all the pressure's there. If you don't get the start, you're struggling to decide where you can jump or how can I pass this person while being safe. What was more stressful? Having that holeshot and being the guy out front or, trying to not die in the 14th or 15th?

Kevin: Oh, sonny boy, you just wait until I get another holeshot. Your boy is going to be sending it I 100% guarantee you. I've been in way too many stressful LCQs. Winning those things, I can deal with that pressure. I understand I'm not Chase Sexton’s pace. I'm not (Eli) Tomac’s pace. I'm not Cooper Webb's pace. Sure as shit, I'm going to try to hang with them as long as I can. If I get out front again, even like I said this weekend, I was pretty calm and collected over the finish line, I knew my situation. I knew they were going to get around me eventually. I told myself, “You're going to hold this as long as you can, and I don't care what you have to do to do it.” I'm very comfortable being in front and using that to my advantage. As you said, it's a lot easier because you have free roam to move around on the track. I just straight-up made a mistake. I went a little long and landed awkwardly. You live and you learn. So, 100% I'll take getting that holeshot and getting out in front of all these dudes every single time. If you're in the middle of the pack or back of the pack, it's mayhem. It's tough to get a flow.
Jamie: You're currently 20th in points. Do you already have plans for outdoors and the SuperMotocross season this year?
Kevin: Outdoors is a little bit different scenario for me. Any opportunities out there hit your boy up. As of right now, I’m probably going to go outdoors. The Next Level Racing team was not going to do outdoors. I was going to be on my own and have to find a transportation system. I think they're looking into finding other people, other privateers that want to do a transport system so they might be doing outdoors, which then opens up the door to make it a little bit easier for me. However, I'm still on board with finding opportunities because I really am going to be on my own outdoors. So, I am looking for help. I am looking for a situation that would make my life a little bit easier with mechanic stuff. I'm going to need a little help if I want to do outdoors. It'd be nice to race it. If I can keep myself in the points battle, I'll probably do it. I would love for them to release the information about how much we're going to get paid for outdoors. I know they're talking about bumping up the pay. The Supercross pay changed for the 450 class, maybe a hundred bucks or 200 bucks a position. How much more worth it for me to do that? It just depends on where I'm at in points. If I get an opportunity or get a little bit of support, have a mechanic that helps me, or if a World Supercross offer comes around, I wouldn't be against doing that. Maybe even doing a bit of both. If anybody's got any opportunities, hit your boy up.