William James "Rocky" Moran Jr. (born January 11, 1980) is an American racing driver from

Irvine, California Irvine () is a master-planned city in South Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on December 28, 197 ...

. He is the son of retired racer

Rocky Moran Rocky Moran, Sr. (born February 3, 1950 in Pasadena, California) is a retired American race car driver. Moran, Sr. started three Indianapolis races ( 1988, 1989, and 1990 Indianapolis 500) with a best finish of 14th in 1989. Moran also teamed ...

Racing career

Early career

Moran participated in karting from 1990 to 1994. In 1994 he transitioned to cars through the Skip Barber Racing School. He made his professional racing debut in 1996 in the

Barber Dodge Pro Series The Barber Dodge Pro Series was a professional open-wheel auto racing series from 1986 to 2003. It was one of the first professional spec series for open-wheel racecars in North America. The races were primarily on road and street courses in Nor ...

, finishing 10th. He improved to sixth in 1997 but fell back to 11th in 1998. He made his

Toyota Atlantic The Atlantic Championship is a formula race car series with races throughout North America. It has been called Champ Car Atlantics (after its former name), Toyota Atlantics (due to the series' previous history of using Toyota-powered engines) ...

debut in 1998. Moran split his time between Barber Dodge and Toyota Atlantic in 1999. In

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

he joined Toyota Atlantic full-time and finished fifth in points for P-1 Racing. In

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

he began the season with Condor Motorsports but switched to Cobb Racing mid-way through the season. He captured his first series victory in the season finale at

Laguna Seca Laguna Seca may refer to: * Laguna Seca Formation, a geologic formation in California * Laguna Seca (Mexico), see Convention of London * Laguna Seca (Santa Clara County), a seasonal lake in California * Laguna Seca, Texas, United States * Rancho L ...

and finished eighth in points. In

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia and ...

he returned to the series driving for Sigma Autosport. He finished fifth in points with a win at

Circuit Gilles Villeneuve The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, also spelled ''Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve'' (), is a motor racing circuit in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the venue for the FIA Formula One Canadian Grand Prix. It has previously hosted the FIA World Sportsc ...

and two other podium finishes. Moran spent 2003 away from professional motorsports, but returned to Atlantics in 2004, making five starts with Polestar Motor Racing. He made three

Busch North Series The ARCA Menards Series East (formerly Busch East Series, Busch North Series, Camping World East Series, and NASCAR K&N Pro Series East) is a regional stock car racing series owned and operated by the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) an ...

race starts in 2005 as well as two Atlantics starts and drove in the

Infiniti Pro Series Indy NXT, previously Indy Lights, is an American developmental automobile racing series sanctioned by IndyCar, currently known as Firestone Indy NXT Series for sponsorship reasons. Indy Lights is the highest step on the Road to Indy, a program ...

Freedom 100 The Freedom 100 was an automobile race held annually at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana, as part of the Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires. The event was a support race for the IndyCar Series Indianapolis 500, and since 2 ...

but suffered a gearbox failure after only four laps.

Sports cars

In 2006 Moran made three starts in the

Rolex Sports Car Series The Rolex Sports Car Series was the premier series run by the Grand American Road Racing Association. It was a North American-based sports car series founded in 2000 under the name Grand American Road Racing Championship to replace the failed ...

. He also made occasional road course appearances in the Busch North Series from 2006 to 2009. In 2011 Moran was a Jaguar factory driver in the

American Le Mans Series The American Le Mans Series (ALMS) was a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada. It consisted of a series of Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance and sprint races, and was created in the spirit of the 24 Hours of Le M ...

with

RSR Racing RSR Racing was an American sports car racing team formed from the defunct Rocketsports Racing. In the spring of 2009, Paul Gentilozzi and his sons, Tony and John, founded RSR in partnership with Jaguar Cars Ltd. to build and race the Jaguar XKR in ...

, driving in five of the nine rounds of the championship. However the car was plagued by mechanical problems and never finished higher than 20th.

IndyCar Series

Moran completed his first

IndyCar Series The IndyCar Series, currently known as the NTT IndyCar Series under sponsorship, is the highest class of regional North American open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices o ...

test with

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports The IndyCar Series operation of McLaren Racing competes under the banner of Arrow McLaren SP. This entry is based in Indianapolis and was founded by former driver Sam Schmidt as Sam Schmidt Motorsports. Fellow ex-driver Davey Hamilton joined a ...

in fall of 2014 at

Homestead Miami Speedway Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses * Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres *Homestead principle, a legal concept t ...

. Shortly before the

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the April ...

Grand Prix of Long Beach The Grand Prix of Long Beach (known as Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach since 2019 for naming rights reasons) is an IndyCar Series race held on a street circuit in downtown Long Beach, California. Christopher Pook is the founder of the event. It wa ...

it was announced that Moran would drive in the race with

Dale Coyne Racing Dale Coyne Racing (DCR) is an American professional open-wheel racing team that currently competes in the IndyCar Series. The team was founded in 1984 and is owned by former driver Dale Coyne. From 1995 to 2000, the team was known as Payton-Co ...

, stepping into the seat formerly held by

Carlos Huertas Carlos Huertas (born 22 June 1991) is a Colombian racing driver. Racing career Born in Bogotá, Huertas began his career in Formula BMW UK in 2007 with Räikkönen Robertson Racing where he finished 13th. He finished fifth in the World Final r ...

. His IndyCar debut came nearly 10 years after his last Atlantics start. However, he broke his thumb during contact with the wall during Friday practice and was replaced for the rest of the race weekend by

Conor Daly Conor J. Daly (born December 15, 1991) is an American professional racing driver who competes in the NTT IndyCar Series, driving the No. 20 Chevrolet for Ed Carpenter Racing, and part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 50 Chevrolet Ca ...

.Cavin, Curt
Conor Daly replaces Rocky Moran Jr. in IndyCar ride
''Indianapolis Star'', April 18, 2015, Retrieved 2015-04-19

Racing record

American open-wheel racing results

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (ma ...

)

Atlantic Championship

: ''¹ C2 Class''

Indy Lights

IndyCar Series

: * Season still in progress

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Moran, Rocky Jr. 1980 births Living people Racing drivers from California Atlantic Championship drivers Indy Lights drivers Rolex Sports Car Series drivers American Le Mans Series drivers Barber Pro Series drivers Dale Coyne Racing drivers AFS Racing drivers