Kevin Bailey- Powersports Marketing Manager for Race Winning Brands

PJ Doran

Welcome to Pit Pass Moto, the show that keeps you up to speed on the latest in motorcycling and brings the biggest names in motorcycle racing right to you. I'm P.J. Doran, and this week we'll be talking to Kevin Bailey. Moto America, the home of the AMA Superbike Championship, is the official sponsor of Pit Pass Moto. Did you know you can get tickets and info in the complete 2021 schedule at Moto America dot com forward slash tickets regarding all nine rounds of the best racing on two wheels featuring 190 mile an hour on Super Superbikes.

PJ Doran

All 20 super bike races are going to air live on Fox Sports. The King of the Badgers is going to air live on Fox Sports. That series is amazing. Supersport races are going to air this season live on Mad TV. So don't miss a minute of the action practice, qualifying races and video. You can get all of that on demand with Moto America live plus streaming again. Tickets are available at Moto America dotcom forgood tickets. Be sure to follow Moto America on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

PJ Doran

This week's Pit Pass Trivia Question is what Hollywood film star owns his own motorcycle brand. We'll be back with that after we speak with Kevin Bacon. What kind of pit pass motto for the first time, Kevin Bailey, powersports marketing manager for race winning brands for our listeners, Race Winning Brands is the holding company for mainstream brands, Reckless Ways GoPro projects, G.E. Piston's K one technologies that. I get that right. Kevin Correct. You Diamond Pistons Trend Performance Darte Manley and MGP Rise.

PJ Doran

So glad you've joined us today, Kevin. Thank you for taking the time what you've been up to.

Kevin Bailey

Yeah, I'm stoked to be here. I appreciate you guys having me on. Just been you know, there's been extra busy work in powersports industry like most of the companies are, and I've been doing some raising a little bit this year too.

PJ Doran

So right on. So you personally raised what where you raised that.

Kevin Bailey

Yeah. So I live I live in Southern California and based out of Riverside. I grew up. I've always been an off road guy for the most part. So this year I told myself I was going to commit to racing the District Thirty seven parent home series. There was a five race series out here all all locally. So I was like, you know what, I'm I want to commit to that. It's been a long, long time since I've raced consistently and I just wanted to give a shot.

Kevin Bailey

So, yeah, finish that up. Wrapped it up. I think just two weeks ago was the was round five of that series. So it was a good time.

PJ Doran

And how did it go. No, no injuries myself as I age. Not aging, anything good. Just aging. I find crashing hurts a lot more. I'm sure it's the same for you and everybody else. How'd the season go for you that you completed?

Kevin Bailey

Yeah, definitely. Definitely had no one happiest about coming away with no injuries. That's always the most positive thing. But yeah, I went well, I raced open, d class. I mean, I ended up second four points on the season, so I had some fun battles. It always seemed like it was me and me and one other guy ended up finding each other just about every race. So it's definitely a good time.

PJ Doran

Yeah, that's the beauty of a series. You end up finding your most natural competitor and then going head to head and hopefully pushing each other forward. That's cool that you have like most of us in the power sports industry, you have the flexibility, right, to go racing when the opportunity presents itself, works totally kosher with that. They probably enjoy seeing you out there, don't they?

Kevin Bailey

Yeah, absolutely. And that's definitely something that our company always encourages and something that we try to promote actually is, you know, it's not just a group of people trying to sell performance parts to to an external customer. It's that's the whole reason that we all do it and that we all work with our brands is that, you know, we're enthusiasts ourselves and that's that's what we look for and what we love to do. So it's good to have a full circle.

Kevin Bailey

You know, it's work life. It's pleasure. It's pretty much all of it.

PJ Doran

So, Kevin, I'm curious, how does in the marketing segment of the power sports industry, things are in my world. I work at a dealership. We're selling out all the time have been, it feels like, since the beginning of our global pandemic era. How does marketing change in this time?

Kevin Bailey

Yeah, marketing it has definitely been a little bit of a challenge, kind of like you said, things being sold out, which was which we learned. And we started seeing that trend the middle of last year, which was the unexpected reaction, but one we were all grateful for, for sure. But, you know, coming into, you know, in the last year and coming into this year, it doesn't seem like it slowed down very much, although we still have a lot of you know, we're still trying to keep up with a lot of orders, you know, production and everything like that.

PJ Doran

So marketing as has, I guess, transition to to support in different areas, support what we can instead of trying to draw awareness to certain products. It's kind of transition to to supporting other avenues and trying to support our business, maintaining as we try to keep up with manufacturing and filling all these new orders.

Kevin Bailey

Yeah, that's a thing that we I was going to touch on supply chains all along the manufacturing process. Supply chains are impacted daily. I assume you've had to find workarounds for initial suppliers becoming unavailable, that kind of thing. Is that been a real big challenge with the brands you represent?

Kevin Bailey

There definitely has been some challenge with getting suppliers, you know, raw materials, things like that. Even, you know, freight costs, gas. It all definitely factors in. It is one thing. We do have a little bit of an advantage because Pistons, I would say our bread and butter, especially with Wisco Proiect, JT Pistons, are definitely the bread and butter. And we we manufacture everything from foraging, actually taking the raw bar material, cutting it, forging it, doing all the machining and having a finished product in a box, ready to ship out.

Kevin Bailey

We do all that in-house in Ohio and our main manufacturing facility. So that definitely has helped us that we're not relying on quite as much for part of our manufacturing. But there's always different suppliers, you know, even packaging materials, boxes. It's just seems like it's economy wide, almost. You know, everybody is is backed up with stuff.

PJ Doran

Yeah, without doubt. That's the case. Again, as a as a dealer, we see it in finished products fully. Bill ready to go out the door? Motorcycles, ATVs, TVs, watercraft as well, but Parts is a huge, huge component of the the dealership business. And I can only imagine it's a big part of your business. That's what you guys are selling. How do you see marketing changing as we come out of this period?

Kevin Bailey

There's a really large and it was going into it before, but there is a very large business to business support factor. And I think that is just going to keep increasing as we as we get out of this. All the big distributors, their big dealer customers, you know, the big retailers, the motor sports, the Rocky Mountains of the world, all those guys, a lot of these new customers that we've seen come in, which is great.

Kevin Bailey

You know, we've seen some people go out and either buy dirt bikes for the first time or the guy pulls the old dirt bike out of the garage or closet out of the garage and dusted off and then goes out and buys a couple more for the family to get back into it as an activity to go outside and do and these newer customers or remerging customers coming into the into the market and into our sport are sourcing all their parts from some of these online or from local dealers like you guys.

Kevin Bailey

And it's it's definitely requiring a lot a lot more business-to-business support. I think the day and age we're coming to, there's less and less for for at least a manufacturer from our standpoint. There's less direct to consumer and more there's a lot more outlets for everybody to go to to get their parts. So I think I think supporting those are business partners is definitely, definitely a main priority.

PJ Doran

So there's a suite of brands that you have as long. Distinguished and impressive. Kevin, do you have currently or do you foresee any of your brands really getting into the burgeoning electric market? Do you guys have involvement there or are there plans for involvement in that market space?

Kevin Bailey

Yeah, it's absolutely a growing segment that I don't think anybody in the sports industry can ignore, that's for sure. So, yeah, we do have we do have initiatives in place or I should say research initiatives in place and things like that to continue to adapt. There's definitely going to continue to be a large a large area of support for the machines that we have right now. And then there's also a long road and and a lot of opportunity for growth in the electric field.

Kevin Bailey

So, yeah, we do have research going on. We've purchased existing vehicles from from EA bikes to to other things to continue to do research and product development and bring all the teams together to also bigger projects like that all the way down to smaller product support such as, you know, through projects. That's kind of our performance replacement parts line more of an affordable but OEM quality replacement parts. So even for some of the KTM electric bikes from the 50s to their free ride bike that they offer, we we have things like brake pads and chains and sprockets and brake rotors and all those consumables that even the electric bikes will still we'll still utilize.

Kevin Bailey

So that stuff is actually already covered from projects as well. So kind of the, I guess, low hanging fruit, I guess you could say to the to larger development projects for definitely. We definitely see that there is something to pay attention to.

PJ Doran

Yeah, that's an exciting segment and it's going to be interesting for everyone in the market to see how it grows. Clearly, you've already stated you are involved in the ATV utb world again with experience at a dealer. It's by far and away. The lion's share of our business seems to be TV's and only becoming more so. I presume that trend carries around the nation, not just in my little segment of the world in the Midwest. Is that segment growing for you guys in the parts that you provide?

Kevin Bailey

Absolutely. There's yeah, beauty is is a massive growing segment and has been, you know, for for several years. And what's nice about having our brands is we can support the spectrum of the customers from the newer models and kind of the customer that's looking for a little bit more of a top of the line build or or is actually, you know, has their newer car in for like a performance build, you know, more booths or something like that.

Kevin Bailey

We have pistons either, whether it's a custom part or, you know, a Ford shelf part that we offer that will accommodate whatever kind of high performance build they're doing to even the more the more common stuff. Like we've we've seen that one of the largest quantities of used utes out there in the field on trails and stuff right now is is the Polaris Razor eight hundred model or the sportsman? Eight hundred. Utah uses the same engine. So we have a lot of offerings for for that engine as well, because, you know, from complete engine rebuilt kit to testing kits and everything in between with such a large quantity and influx of of, you know, even people buying used models of that, they're going to start needing service because they're one of the earlier ones.

Kevin Bailey

So so that's something that we've tried to cover as best we can.

PJ Doran

That is an interesting point. The first generation of performance, you TVs and Off-Road cars, there are all. Coming, coming of age where, yeah, they're either going to the scrap or they're going into the hands of somebody who's going to put some love into them. So that's cool to be there and be able to supply those guys. What else have you got going on for yourself this summer? It sounds like you said you'd finished a season of Hair and Hound.

Kevin Bailey

How'd you got more plans as far as racing? That was the main that was the main series that I wanted to commit to with the off road stuff. There's a little bit of a place district thirty seven anyway. There's a little bit of a summer break because it's at least for me, it's too hot. I'm not going racing and in the desert in June out here, so don't blame it.

Kevin Bailey

Yeah. So you know a little more toward the end of the year. Some more racing I'll pick up. There's a few races, odds and ends that I'd like to do. I think there's a couple of spring duros. Those are always fun, but most of the time in summer, once it really gets hotter, I pull out the the water motocross bike. I have a 76, I count Sarki stand up and then I ride on. Yeah, I have an old old faithful 650 RSX as well.

Kevin Bailey

So I kind of switch to water Moto I like to call it and get out on the river or the lake and, and do some of that. So you know just a little bit of a change of machinery but same thing.

PJ Doran

Yeah. There's been a resurgence in standups with the advent of the four strokes and I'm really, we've sold every one I haven't been able to ride. One of the new Yamaha is the new superjet for stroke. It's going to be heavier than the two strokes, but I'm really looking forward to getting on one, hopefully at some point because they're legal again, because that's been a problem for two strokes. Yamaha made the last one a couple. It's been a few years ago.

PJ Doran

We sold the last of the two strokes. And I'm looking forward to riding one of the new ones, if you had a chance yet.

Kevin Bailey

Yeah, I have seen the new Yamaha and I'm definitely, definitely curious to ride one of those I rode. I have not ridden one of those yet, but I rode the I've ridden the new Kawi, the fifteen hundred and manosphere, like looking for a beauty machine. That thing is an absolute monster. It's, it's so fast out of the box completely stock and it handles insane. But you know, it's, it's big and it's heavy. But if you're, if you're going to run some Beuys or you just want to cruise around on the river, it's that's an awesome machine.

PJ Doran

But I think there's a lot of potential for that superjet for sure, because it kind of give you that four stroke power that the Kawi has. But it definitely looks lighter and a little more nimble, little more playful if you're just, you know, want to go kind of mess around and have some fun.

Kevin Bailey

Yeah, I think it hits the balance between what is the new fifteen hundred. I did ride one of those. We took a few on trades and the thing that struck me most about that machine was you could stand up and idle around in the marina, which is, as we know, not possible on any previous generation of stand up watercraft ever, that you could just idle around and you can do that on the Kawi. You could not do that on the Yamaha, I do not believe.

Kevin Bailey

Yeah, no, it's it's crazy. You can I mean, I don't think even if it's not idling, you could just about stand on it like.

PJ Doran

Yeah, no that was the impression I got as well. And it's, there's going to be a place for it. They're selling so clearly there's people that wanted that level of performance. So I'm looking forward to that market growing as well. Hopefully as our time winds down. Is there anybody you want to say thank you to? We want to thank you for taking the time. First of all, Kevin.

PJ Doran

And joining us today, it's been a treat. It's good to get positive industry news. Anybody you want to say thanks to you?

Kevin Bailey

Oh, yeah. I just I really appreciate you guys having me on and giving me the opportunity. I always love. Like I said, you know, I'm passionate about this stuff. That's that's why I'm in the industry. And I love being involved in anything, anything that I can be from the whole spectrum. So I just really appreciate you guys give me the opportunity to come and hang out for a little bit.

PJ Doran

It's been a pleasure, Kevin, and thanks for joining us today on Pipas.

Kevin Bailey

Thanks very much. Appreciate it.

PJ Doran

This week's trivia question was what Hollywood film star owns his own motorcycle brand, the answer, of course, is Keanu Reeves. He's the owner of Arche Motorcycles, which are powered by U.S. manufactured S.A. V twin engine, up to 143 cubic inch engines now. Amazing company. He's an amazing owner. He gets into all forms of motorcycling. He's been known to dip into a racetrack every once in a while around the country. Super big fan of Keanu Reeves and his motorcycles, which are amazing.

PJ Doran

Upcoming motorcycle racing action begins with Moto America at Road America, June 11th through the 13th. We also have Moto GP returning to action. The Bart Chaloner GP in Catalonia, Spain will be June the 6th World Superbike will begin in Italy, the Amelia Romana, June 11th through the 13th. Then we also have Lucas Oil Pro Motocross at Thunder Valley, June 5th at the American Flat Track Twin Series is going to be at the Occy Mile on June the 18th.

Speaker 1

And if you have a chance, get out to the GNC, see round number eight, the Mason Dixon race, June five through the six. Thank you again to Kevin Bailey for joining us today. Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. If you have a moment, please write and review us as well. We really appreciate it. Make sure you're also following us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and visit PYT past Moto dot com where you can check out our blog.

PJ Doran

This has been a production of Evergreen podcasts, a special thank you to Tommy Boy Halverson, Chris Bishop, producer Leah Longbrake and audio engineer Eric Colt. Now I'm PJ and we'll see you next week. Keep the sunny side up.