During the weather delay at the East Rutherford Supercross, 450SX riders took shelter in the pits. Once the riders lined up for the 250SX East/West Showdown main event, the 450SX riders were able to watch the 250cc race from the tunnel, scoping out the track condition and the race lines. With no sighting lap for either main event, once the gate dropped riders were experiencing the changed track for the first time. But that did not stop the field from roaring down the starting straight and attacking the course.
Typically a great starter, Kevin Moranz used another one of his great starts to get inside the top ten early. While navigating through the conditions and the mud coming off the riders all around him, Moranz was counting the fingers on his mechanic’s hands in order to see where he was! His mechanic, Kris Fagala, ecstatically held up his fingers, signaling to his rider his positioning in the field: Moranz was running in eighth behind Shane McElrath. Late in the race when Fredrik Noren went down in the whoops, this bumped both McElrath (now sixth) and Moranz (now seventh) up one spot each. McElrath and Moranz held on for new career best finishes.
With the race ending a few hours late and rain continuing to fall well into the night, we did not catch many riders in the post-race media scrum. However, I ran into Moranz in an empty parking lot after the race. Soaking wet, standing with his gear bag in the rain, he was still pumped on his result. But he was stuck without a ride back to his hotel! So at about 1:10 a.m. local time, Moranz and I hopped into my rental car, busted out a quick interview and got the #80 back to his hotel safely.
Racer X: Walk us through your day here in East Rutherford.
Kevin Moranz: [Laughs] Man, it was wild. Get through qualifying and whatever. That’s not the exciting stuff. The exciting stuff, ended up with a good heat start, fifth or sixth, ended up seventh in the heat again for the second time in a row, and the fifth time in a row transferring straight from the heat, which is huge. Big step forward from last year. Getting away from those LCQ’s is ideal. Then when it was game time to go main event, the stadium was cleared. Everything was postponed. Rain was coming in. Storms, lightning… We didn’t know if we were going to race. It was downpouring for a solid hour, hour and a half. Then we go racing, man. And it was wild. I got off to a good start, thank goodness. Got one of my Kevin Moranz starts! I knew I was going to slide off the gate. So, everybody revved, had their RPM’s up pretty high. I kept mine a little bit lower because I knew I was going to spin, especially with obviously I have the timing and the finesse of the clutch down, so if I did it my normal way, I knew I was going to spin. So I just kind of relaxed a little bit, got a good jump and then drove. Then I knew I was top ten-ish at the beginning. I got passed by like four dudes, so I was like, I don't know where I’m at. People were going down. I was all over the place. I looked up at my mechanic, and there was obviously no pit board because of the rain. I see single-digit numbers on his hands, like seventh and eighth. I’m like, no way!
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| Rider | Time | Interval | Best Lap | Hometown | Bike | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Justin Barcia | 18 Laps | 58.913 | Monroe, NY  | GasGas MC 450F | |
| 2 |  Eli Tomac | +14.742 | 59.560 | Cortez, CO | Yamaha YZ450F | |
| 3 |  Ken Roczen | +25.396 | 58.405 | Mattstedt, Germany  | Suzuki RM-Z450 | |
| 4 |  Chase Sexton | +42.642 | 1:02.311 | La Moille, IL | Honda CRF450R | |
| 5 |  Cooper Webb | 17 Laps | 1:03.993 | Newport, NC | KTM 450 SX-F | |
| 6 |  Shane McElrath | +29.191 | 1:06.373 | Canton, NC | Suzuki RM-Z450 | |
| 7 |  Kevin Moranz | +36.104 | 1:06.870 | Topeka, KS | KTM 450 SX-F | |
| 8 |  Benny Bloss | +40.943 | 1:05.967 | Oak Grove, MO | Yamaha YZ450F | |
| 9 |  Justin Hill | +45.537 | 1:08.119 | Yoncalla, OR | KTM 450 SX-F | |
| 10 |  Dean Wilson | +52.256 | 1:06.804 | Scotland, United Kingdom  | Honda CRF450R |
Wait, during all this chaos you were trying to count his fingers? [Laughs]
He didn’t have his ten up. He had like five and two. He was like, “Seven.” I’m like, no freaking way! So just rode it home. Obviously, a track like that, survival. You’ve just got to hit the jumps, if you can get them, but just try to stay on two wheels, man. That’s thankfully what I did. I got really sketchy in the whoops several times. But I’m stoked with a seventh.
You guys were at the truck when it was postponed? So, what was going through your head there? What was that process like?
Just, hanging out. It was actually [Justin] Starling, Tristan Lane, and I all tucked in a trailer. Some dude’s empty trailer just with our bikes inside there, because we were just getting downpoured on. We were all just going through scenarios of like, if they get canceled, do we do another race? We don’t have to qualify into the main, because everybody’s already qualified into the main, so do we just do a different main at another location? Then 25 minutes later the 250s are going up. So then we heard them take off and we were like, “Boys, we’ve got to get out there and go!” So I went up there and watched them. I saw them hitting a lot of the jumps. I was like, okay, maybe it’s not going to be bad. By the time we got out there, everybody was hitting it in the same line, so it was just super choppy. So, you couldn’t get all the jumps consistently. I was just happy we got out of there safe on two wheels. Obviously, a career best with P7, 16 points. That’s huge for the championship battle that we’re in.
Then you mentioned the wait and stuff. Did you prep your gear and stuff for the mud?
I did not do anything, because I didn’t have any equipment! I didn’t even have one of those clear jackets. I thought I had my Fly Racing one, but I didn’t. Just went out there, raw-dogged it and we got it done. [Laughs]
No sighting lap. How does that throw you off?
A little bit. You just try to watch the 250 guys, kind of see where the main lines are. You know that you’re not going to be exploring many other lines than what they have going on.
You’re watching them from the tunnel, right?
Yeah, I watched them from the tunnel. I kind of got a good feel for what we’re about to get into, but you obviously have no idea. Nobody wants to take a sight lap, so they took the sight lap away and then it’s just full on send it mode. It ended up working out.
Like you said, career best and everything. That was awesome. Plus, it was a St. Jude event. We saw your gear. We saw your graphics and everything. Just talk about that relationship and what that means to be able to represent St. Jude and have that relationship.
Yeah. Exactly. It’s super cool, especially because I got to go to St. Jude the hospital in Nashville four years ago. It was pre-COVID, because I don't think we can go back there yet with the whole COVID situation. But it touches you. It changes your thought process. You’d better be grateful for what you have, because you see a lot of kids in unfortunate situations and it’s cool that St. Jude is stepping up to help those kids in those situations, and we have, as professional athletes, some sort of way to contribute to that. With the graphics and everything that we have on our bikes, obviously everything is soaked. I had plans of giving a jersey, pants… At least pants. I’m not sure if I have a jersey I can give away. The majority of the plastics of the bike we’re going to take off, sign, give to the auction and everything like that. But it’s all soaked. So, I told them we’ll just get you next week. I can’t sign a soaking wet set of pants. It’s pretty cool just to be able to make an impact or at least have some sort of influence. I hope everybody goes over to the auction and checks it out and we raise some money for the kids.
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Mitch Kendra ![]()
Mitch Kendra ![]()
Mitch Kendra
Anything else you’d like to add as the season kind of wraps up here with supercross?
Main thing for me is find an opportunity for outdoors or world supercross. Anybody that’s got anything open. Our transportation team, I don’t believe the Next Level Racing Team, I don’t believe is going to be doing outdoors. Things fell through for us. Unless a team sponsor wants to jump in and help support. So that puts Kevin in a situation where I’m pretty much doing it like last year. So I’m just trying to find somewhere, somehow to get my bikes around, whether it’s transportation or if a team wants to have me out of the back of the rig, or a team wants to have me on their team kind of deal. Kev is wide open for after supercross! Other than that, we’re just really focusing on grinding out the rest of supercross. Try to grab that top 20 in points. Sending people to KevinMoranz.com to grab some merch, help support. Getting fans to sign the bike in person at the races has been really cool. The Moranz Mafia stuff. Just raising funds to keep us racing and hopefully go into outdoors.
Moranz posted on Instagram:
“P7!!! Last night was INSANE!
HOW WILD WAS THAT!?!? ⬇️
Solid heat, to not even knowing if we were going to race, wild turn of events, pouring rain, got one of our decent starts in the main which was crucial, kept it on two wheels, sending the finish line 1/2 the time, and brought home a career best. We took advantage of the conditions and I couldn’t be happier!”
