Kevin Williams and Williams Event Management have done an exceptional job at raising the bar when it comes to motocross in Australia, and so far in 2012, we’ve witnessed what is possibly the sport’s strongest year yet.

At the halfway point of this season during the mid-season break, MotoOnline.com.au spoke to Williams in detail about various topics in the championship.

The Monster Energy MX Nationals are a mid-season break at the moment after five of 10 rounds and so far it has been a really positive start to the season for the series…

Yeah, it has been a great start to the series, the series itself feels like it’s evolving to another level. With the professionalism of the privateer teams now, the timing devices are up and working, the amount of media attending and the crowd numbers growing at every round, it’s just creating its own momentum.

It really is a prestigious event this year, and with the addition of the international riders it has definitely helped it.

We’ve seen great racing obviously on the track within all of the classes. So as far as the categories go, what has been the standout for you so far, as far as the racing goes?

I think when you look at the MX1 class, the first time an Aussie won was at the fifth round, so it really does show that there is a lot of depth in the field.

It was great to have Ben Townley at the first round, and it just shattered the whole series to see what happened to him at Coonabarabran, because we were ready to adopt him as ours and then send him off to America with Chad [Reed]. So that was really disappointing.

I think there is a number of riders on teams out there that need to have a real long look in the mirror and then go have a look at their training programs.

When someone at 36 years of age like Josh Coppins can do what he is doing week-in-week-out, I think a number of them need to work a little bit harder. This series isn’t won just on the weekend, its won with what these guys are doing Monday to Friday.

As far as the sport goes, the formats this year seem to be really popular.

I think the format is a winning formula, we still have the traditional 30-minute moto and I do understand that, I love this sport with everything I have and the 30-minute motos for our company are so easy to run. If we wanted to take the easy way out we would just run two 30-minute motos.

When you look at the whole championship and ask yourself the questions, why is the racing so good? Why is the championship still so wide open? And why are the crowds still coming? It’s all those bits and pieces.

When I talk to a lot of the sponsors who are die-hards and I talk to fans, they love that format and I was surprised after round one when I spoke to Townley and he said that we had something that in years to come the rest of the world will follow.

I couldn’t be happier with the format, it would be easier to change it back to the two 30-minute motos, but these things are what makes the sport grow.

Kevin Williams has been directing Australian Motocross since 1997.

Monster Energy is onboard this year and they’ve been doing a heap of work in lead up to the events. The way the series is being run in some ways has been refined just in experience through WEM, has resulted in quite strong crowds this year hasn’t it?

Look, it has. Monster Energy has been a fantastic partner and I got to work closely with the guys from Monster throughout Super X last year and I got a chance to understand where they’re vision was for the sport, and we are pretty much on the same field.

As a partner they get out there and hit the towns three weeks before the events, giving out tickets to the kids and putting posters in stores that we can’t even get in the front door of.

So they are not just a naming sponsor, they are a partner in developing championship motocross and we can’t thank Monster Energy enough for their support that they give us.

They have engaged the MX Nationals as a brand to be a part of their branding and clearly when they put money aside for something they want to be a part of it, not just send a cheque through, and that’s fantastic.

A lot of our sponsors are seeing that this year and getting more involved, bringing in more competitions using social media. So everybody is getting involved and pitching in, which is why we are seeing such great results.

Social networking has been something that you’ve obviously been focusing on and expanding just the online activity altogether, what kind of result have you seen from that even though there is no TV this year?

The television thing is a bit like the fictitious 10 thousand clouds that everybody wants to see. TV has been good for our sport, but it comes at a huge cost that is just not sustainable.

Our TV audience on SPEED last year with each program being run three times, we saw 360,000 viewers, which was fantastic and we were wrapt with that.

But already this year with the culmination of all the video clips from the rounds, from all the different media houses, teams, and the social networking and media coverage that we are doing, we have already exceeded 360,000 views.

So at the halfway mark we have already exceeded the exposure right across the board to a much broader audience. The demographic for motocross is very strongly in the 13-26 year-old range, which is still a fairly wide demographic.

Nearly every one of those people has a smart phone, so they’re watching the YouTube clips and following the action on Instagram and Facebook.

I was impressed to see throughout the day that people were taking screenshots of the results of the race because they can now watch the results live, then posting them on their Facebook because they were running in 10th place.

So for me the social media is huge and we haven’t even gone close to what we can do with that, it will be a huge focus for us in the second half of the season.

We are looking at launching some new media elements for the second half and really continue to grow our electronic medium because that is where it is at today. Everybody gets their magazines online, people go online to watch and read and see what is happening.

The international coverage we are getting through Racer X and other American sites, plus MX Large in Europe and you guys at MotoOnline is just taking it to another level.

A big thing this year has been two-strokes in the MXD Class, what’s your opinion on that? Is it good or bad for the development of the sport?

You know, I am very amused by the people at the moment suggesting that they should be banned from the class. Having said that, you can ride the two-stroke in the MX2 class aswell.

There’s all this hoo-haa about the 250 two-stroke, for example Joel Milesevic is an exceptional rider on a two-stroke and he struggles a bit on a four-stroke.

What we are seeing is that a number of riders coming out of juniors who are used to riding 125s and are still very strong and competitive are able to bring that forward.

If they were that dominant that they could win everything and it was just the bike, KTM would have everyone in the MX2 class riding a 250 two-stroke, as they are also eligible there.

I think people are getting ahead of themselves. I would rather see it be a two-stroke only class rather than ban the two-strokes, as it is an affordable way to go racing.

Love them or hate them, two-strokes are here to stay. Image: Simon Makker/Makkreative.com.

At the end of the day the lap times come from the quality of the rider. Have a look at those kids that are doing well, maybe they are training harder? A 250 two-stroke on a rough track is going to be harder to ride than a four-stroke.

Many of the riders on the four-strokes are quite lazy in their riding. So don’t just blame the bike and say we need to get rid of it. I think it is a huge addition to the sport and I think the fans really like it too – it’s great to hear the two-stroke. They are not dominating, they are not even winning the class – Dylan Long is still leading the Pirelli MXD class on a four-stroke.

So whilst we are seeing some great runs on these bikes, they are not dominating and hats off to KTM at the moment as they are still developing that bike while other manufactures are focusing on the four-strokes.

In Europe there is a lot more focus on racing two-strokes for rider development and I just think this year we have some exceptional riders on two-strokes and a couple of which I know would not be doing the series because they couldn’t afford to race a four-stroke in the series.

There have obviously been quite a few two-day events in the beginning of the year and we’ve got the final one coming up at Coolum aswell. Do you think they are a positive or a negative for the series?

It’s a 50-50. The two-day events, it doesn’t matter what you do – you run the two-days and you get heaps of riders, then you have people saying they’re only doing it for the cash, or this, or that. The clubs that are running the two-day events have done an exceptional job because there’s a lot of work to run a two-day event.

I think the future of it is in the hands of the riders. We’ll be surveying the riders at rounds six and seven for their interest in two-day events. Certainly for us it adds an additional cost and in some of the preliminary talks I’ve had, they prefer the one day because it’s one less day they have to take off work.

We don’t want to see the championship suffer for the addition of support classes. The final round will always be two days because it’s the wind-up of the series, and also Perth works well as a two-day event since riders don’t get to ride the deep sand that often.

Moving forward I would say that 2013 will be a 10-round series without WA in it (the series will return there in 2014), we’re looking to go further up into Queensland and we hope to have some announcements on that in mid-July.

Just finally, WEM opted not to propose to run Australian Supercross in 2012. Is that’s a sign that you guys are focused on motocross and expanding that side of the sport that you’ve excelled in for so long?

For the last four years we’ve put a lot of time into supporting Super X and the ultimate dream of supercross, but unfortunately the Australian market can’t do that. That does mean that come August, I’ve hung up the motocross keys and gone straight into supercross.

We certainly are 100 percent focused on the MX Nationals, Australian Motocross Championship, and we want to continue developing it. It is the foundation product of national comoetition in Australia, now recognised around the world.

Our off-season focus will be in preparing, improving and making the product better for spectators and the industry in 2013. We’re not going to bite off more than we can chew, we’ll simply work harder to develop a better product for everybody.