Story by Michael Marino, Owner/Principal
Last year marked Marino Communications’ fourth year in business, and I’m happy to report the brand finished 2021 in a much stronger position than it started it.
The company’s revenue more than doubled from the previous year, and I welcomed three new customers to the fold of Marino Communications clients.
Most of my clients are racing teams that compete in MotoAmerica — the United States’ professional motorcycle road racing championship. It was my fourth year serving as the publicist for Travis Wyman Racing BMW – my first-ever client – and I filled a similar role for the Robem Engineering Aprilia and Jeremy Cook Racing BMW teams for the 2021 season.
Robem rider Kaleb De Keyrel clinched his first MotoAmerica Twins Cup title in 2021, as well as won Aprilia’s first MotoAmerica crown. The team found immediate success in campaigning the new-for-2021 Aprilia RS 660. With no offseason testing under its best, two of the team’s three riders placed first and third on an all-Aprilia podium in the first race of the year.
Travis Wyman Racing had another successful yet challenging season aboard its BMW S 1000 RR. Despite major mechanical failures that cost Wyman dozens of championship points, his racecraft and sheer pace when the BMW was running right allowed him to claim wins at the Road Atlanta and Laguna Seca and kept him in contention for two MotoAmerica championships (Stock 1000 and Superbike Cup) until near the end of the season.
Another newcomer to the Marino Communications fold, Jeremy Cook Racing, had a rough start to the year before a big injury at the Road America round sent his season sideways. Cook got taken out on the first lap of the Stock 1000 race by another rider that resulted in a spectacular crash. Cook shattered his collarbone in the crash, got it surgically pieced together in time for the next MotoAmerica round, but had the screws in his collarbone fail at the Laguna Seca round in July. The re-injury sidelined Cook until the last two rounds of the season in September.
In total, I penned 39 press releases in 2021, as well as edited six editions of Wyman’s column in the BMW Riders Association magazine, On The Level.
Marino Communications also helped young racer and TikTok influencer Chris Clark find sponsors for his racing program. The 14-year-old from Baltimore, Md., competed in the MotoAmerica Mini Cup in 2021 as a member of the Travis Wyman Racing team, and Marino Communications put together a sponsorship proposal to help Clark and his family find sponsors for the 2022 racing season.
I also did my part to help revive the media outlet I started my motojournalism career with. Early in 2021, my former editor at the 2 Wheel Power Hour, Larry Ward, asked me to design a basic website to help him market the rebirthed show to potential advertisers. The website launched in April, and we’re working to get the show back on the airwaves in 2022.
I had one story published in RevZilla’s Common Tread online magazine about my Johnny Cash riding project. The story ran in January 2021, and it was the third story I’ve had published on Common Tread. I also continued to assist the Motorcycle Sport Touring Association as the all-volunteer club’s website editor.
There was a lot more I had hoped to accomplish in 2021, but unforeseen events with my girlfriend and my relocation to Cleveland, Ohio, and a late-year injury on a motorcycle trip curtailed most of those plans. Among the Marino Communications projects I got started in 2021 and will finish in 2022 are revising my business plan, overhauling the business’ website and launching an initiative to put the motorcycling lifestyle in a more positive light.
Though 2021 was Marino Communications’ best year so far, I have even bigger plans for 2022. It’s not the right time to talk about them publicly yet, but I’m looking forward to posting lots more good news on my company blog throughout this year.
Marino Communications 