Suspension is a person of people factors that a large amount of us just never have an understanding of. What changes essentially impact what? There are also lots of choices out there for you to decide on from when it comes to who providers your stuff. Race Tech is privateer proven and they have service facilities all across the United States. Chris ‘Checkerz’ Riesenberg is the Internet marketing Director for Race Tech and recently gave us some time to explain to us all about it.

For the entire job interview, look at out the YouTube video right right here. If you are fascinated in the condensed written model, scroll down just a bit even further.

Jamie Guida – Important MX: Give us a minimal bit of your history for these that don’t know you. How did you get concerned with Race Tech?

Chris ‘Checkerz’ Riesenberg: Like most individuals that operate in the industry I grew up riding grime bikes. I’ve liked dirt bikes given that I was a minor kid and sort of chased the aspiration. I was blessed and privileged enough to have pretty supportive mother and father and sponsors rising up and was capable to do a large amount of the novice nationals. I was a superior community male. I received to be a front runner on the regional professional scene, and I tried to race just one national the final national ever in Ohio. It did not go perfectly. I was not quite significantly of an outside man anyway. I didn’t know what I was receiving myself into. And then I did a minimal bit of arenacross for a whilst. I was quite great at that for the reason that of my qualifications racing reasonable races and cash races. But I was in no way likely to make a occupation out of racing dirt bikes. I built the determination to go to college or university, which I quickly discovered wasn’t for me. I wanted to do a thing diverse. And I transpired to stumble into working for Rainbow Studios on the MX vs. ATV online games as a track designer, some thing I was doing as a interest for some of the online games that had presently been released, moding them. They saw some of my function and the task was accessible. They surprised me with a cellphone interview and a flight to Arizona for a task interview and employed me on the place. That obtained my foot into the industry. I commenced doing the job with the industry firms and riders. We signed up virtually each privateer you could consider to be in the recreation. Right before I begun there had been 10 fellas max, and they were being having to pay all of them. I mentioned, “You’re undertaking this improper. The worth is to all the providers, like the gear business that’s on the riders. Let’s go to them and request them to assist get the riders signed up in the video game. All these privateer fellas, it really is a desire for them to be in there. Let’s go incorporate some authenticity to the game and give them an option for something cool”. We finished up with 90 riders or a little something like that. That created it easy for me to master who all the privateer men were being, and they were all stoked to meet me for the reason that they desired to be in a video game. The largest challenge I obtained was functioning with Purple Bull and we obtained James Stewart on the cover and The Compound in the match, and that was seriously unwell. I had no encounter on the promoting aspect prior to that. I discovered as we went, and I had no budget to perform with. Transitioning out of the MX vs. ATV stuff, the title received to a position where I didn’t come to feel like it was finding any better. My target was to operate on the greatest motocross sport on the current market and I wasn’t looking at the development. I was having actually frustrated. A whole lot of it was on the company aspect, not automatically on our aspect in-residence. And it received to the issue where I was just annoyed and I named my present boss, Rob Brown. He was my suspension dude more than the very last yr. I raced arenacross and we’d grow to be pretty fantastic buddies. He was doing the job at Race Tech at the time. I created a logo for him and a web site and some general marketing stuff. I failed to know it was advertising and marketing at the time. I was just serving to a buddy out and I just named him on the way residence and said, “Hey, if you know of something in the sector, let me know because I will not want to go anywhere that’s not in the industry, but I am seeking for a little something new”. And he goes, “Well, truly, I want a internet marketing dude and you would be best for it”. And he set me in touch with Paul Thede and pushed to make that total course of action materialize. I transitioned over to Race Tech with no promoting knowledge. Paul and Rob stated, and it trapped with me to this day, “It’s alright, you may figure it out. It can be ok to make mistakes. Just you should not make them twice”. They gave me the flexibility to do what I preferred to do. And if it went mistaken, I was not in hassle if I figured out from it. The name of Race Tech at the time was less than stellar. Our aim was to get this item out there and exhibit people today that it would not suck. I begun calling all the privateer men I could, and Rob and A.J. at the time who was our trackside guidance dude. They ended up at Milestone undertaking supercross screening two or 3 occasions a 7 days, and it began to snowball. The privateer fellas out there noticed that these fellas are making use of this stuff, the bikes are performing nicely, and these guys are below furnishing aid. The subsequent factor you know fifty percent the evening show’s on Race Tech. We selected to go down a route of ‘how do we develop’ the finest merchandise and let’s get the job done with a lot of privateers, because then we get a ton of different riders riding, a lot of unique bikes throughout all brand names. 

Crucial MX: What is it about Race Tech that helps make the privateers want to come to you?

Checkerz: There’s a few points. One is just the assistance in normal, and we are willing to shell out awareness to them. We usually are not distracted by a very high-stage race workforce hard work where a lot of our personnel has to set their interest. We’re able to unfold it across the privateers in normal with guidance at the races,  and there is Race Tech facilities all all around the state. You get into nationals and fellas are on the East Coastline and want a rebuild and they do not have time amongst races to ship stuff back again and forth. A large amount of times they really don’t have a spare set of suspension. For me to identify a support center in their location that they can go to through the 7 days or even a person that’s at the races every weekend to offer that help for them to do a rebuild or if a seal pops or any sort of placing transform or just about anything like that, they have assistance all-around the state. The last a single is the stuff works it is really confirmed to work. And we are also just one of the providers that you really don’t have to go obtain “A” kit stuff to be aggressive and make it function. We’re equipped to function inside your finances to give you one thing to be competitive on at a quite high amount with a production setup if required. On the motor aspect, it truly arrives down to a truly, seriously good motor package that also has trustworthiness. 

Important MX: Persons may well not be aware that you do engines as well.

Checkerz: We have to cope with the motor aspect a little bit otherwise because we don’t want to be ‘engine builders’. We want to be an motor machine shop. And what that signifies is we are establishing a great motor bundle in home, and we want to offer the machining function to supply you a very good head. And we are going to give you recommended areas, and we will tune the European for you. But we want to send out it to either your self or another motor builder to put the point collectively. At the conclude of the working day there is a whole lot of our things out there that you never know ever came from our store. And that is alright. We are high-quality with that since as prolonged as we are rising their companies by supplying them a great merchandise, then we’re undertaking our position. 

Vital MX: How do you offer with studying what the evolution of advertising is? What is the subsequent greatest issue? What functions the most effective?

Checkerz: It’s an ongoing understanding process, and I’d be lying if I told you I experienced all the responses. In the 11 years I have been accomplishing it, it is improved a ton. When I initially started out, it was functioning with all the privateer fellas and that facet of matters. And neighborhood racing, in standard, grassroots racing is a big section of what we do as well. You will never see extremely many amateur events go off devoid of Race Tech remaining component of them. What has altered is it applied to be magazines and magazine editors and obtaining our product on publications, function stories. We still do that. But it made use of to be that was the most essential matter you could perhaps do. It is nonetheless crucial to be there for the guys that are reading print and to have the relationships. But a great deal of the stuff has shifted to video clip and on-line and podcasts and social stuff. We’ve been effective with it and it truly is superior, but it is just a studying knowledge and it is really surely adjusted the dynamic and is definitely tough for me as someone who’s just a supporter of the sport and the market to go and pay back a bunch of cash to Fb or Instagram for just generic advertisements versus supporting a media outlet that is likely to the races and supporting the business. I check out to maintain as a great deal of our promotion cash endemic as achievable within just the business. A single of the several matters that Paul told me when we started was, we are not a branding firm to go out and fork out to slap your logo all around almost everything. “We are a performance company”, he stated. The most effective way to sell Race Tech is by means of phrase of mouth. Even with the PulpMX Show, that only performs due to the fact I set Steve on our suspension, and he can share his serious belief of it. The exact with the Keefers of the world or the Jamie from Vital’s of the World or the Michael Lindsay from Very important. I want them to try the item, consider in the solution, and then share their activities with it in a podcast type. It is all about chatting. 

Important MX: There is certainly a large amount of resources on your internet site to assist individuals as nicely. Can you speak about those?

Checkerz: Absolutely. The site is a plethora of info. We are frequently working to evolve the web page to make it improved and less complicated for buyers to uncover what they’re searching for, simply because there is a whole lot of information and facts there. It’s not just a listing of products for your bike, but you go on there and you can come across spring prices that we endorse for your bicycle as nicely as all the spring premiums accessible. We will give you oil stages and where to set your sag as very well. Air pressures if you’re on an air fork. There are common notes about the suspension in common, whether or not you might be tearing the fork totally apart or if you’re environment it up as a consumer. And the other aspect of issues is there are recommendations that are move by action on how to rebuild or re-valve your suspension. Even all the way to placing your forks on your dust bike thoroughly so that they are parallel. Due to the fact I will convey to you, I received back again from Loretta’s not long ago and fellas arrive around and complain about a severe front finish. 9 instances out of ten the reason why is typically their forks are not parallel. They bind up their forks when they put their front wheel on the bike. I have had this with a properly-recognised media outlet. We went out screening a single working day and they stated it was a person of the worst setups they have at any time ridden, and it was a proven setup that we have utilised for many years. So, we experienced a fairly fantastic concept that it was not the genuine setting and loosened the axle and the pinch bolts and the fork went, ‘pop’, back again into location and they tighten it back up. The take a look at driver looked at them like, ‘you’re not heading to touch it?”. He goes, “Go ride it”. They came back and mentioned, “this is incredible”. A media outlet that’s been telling folks that their stuff’s fantastic or negative for ages and who is aware if it was our things or any individual else’s that received reviewed, that the things was awful, and it genuinely was not the suspension. It was the way that they set the wheel on the motorcycle. And if you feel perhaps ‘I can rebuild my individual stuff’, it’s going to give you the instructions, the resources required. If you will need unique tools for it, we also have a entire listing of tools that we offer. The principal driver of Race Tech’s business is the warehouse in the back and marketing elements and instruments and bits and items and Gold Valves to other tuners.

Essential MX: For those people that do want to consider on the task of working on their individual things or studying, Race Tech also features seminars.

Checkerz: Yeah, at the time a yr it truly is a weeklong training course and it is really split up into three various classes. We educate suspension and the ins and outs. Paul and Rob use their several years of encounter and a lot of, lots of, many professions in just the field have begun there. They are coming up in the drop, I feel, in November. The information is on the seminars tab at the site. If it really is a little something you want to do and are intrigued in, irrespective of whether it truly is to start off your very own enterprise, setting up suspension or possibly you have a motorbike store currently and you want to include to the services division and you want to study suspension it can be a way to be rewarding and make money.  Paul’s mainly offering away many years and several years of know-how for virtually nothing. But it all goes again to we want more suspension tuners out there mainly because that lets everything else to function perfectly in our organization. We can give you with sections and fluids and bushings and seals and springs and valves and all that. It really is in our best desire to get as quite a few people today out there tuning suspension as we can. The purpose is to work with each other to get far more people to understand that their suspension can be superior.

Important MX: How did you turn into the master of the air wheelie?

Checkerz: Well, I think it all began when I was young. I was not a little kid. All the years of using on a 125 and not staying the smallest intended really stretching jumps out of a corner. I acquired to place the front close up pretty simple and confidently. And now I have the ability of a 450 and I just form of did it by accident after. We were messing around, and people today were laughing, and I saw some photos of it and I was like, ‘Holy crap, that’s essentially rather vertical. That’s form of cool’. So, I stored performing it a lot more and a lot more and then it became my issue. If it helps make persons chuckle, I am likely to keep executing it. If men and women believe it’s preposterous, I agree it is ridiculous, but I’m not heading to stop.