Garrett Marchbanks: Pivoting into SuperMotocross World Championship contention
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, "No man could ever step into the river twice for it is not the same river and he is not the same man". He could have been describing motocross and Garrett Marchbanks.
The track changes with every lap in a race. Riders have to constantly adjust their line through deepening ruts in order to protect, and ideally gain, positions. It's an important trait all successful riders need if they want to be competitive at the highest level of this sport.
The same is true for race teams.
Returning from a wrist injury that kept him out of the 2023 Monster Energy Supercross season, Marchbanks launched out of the gate with less success than he wanted – and far less than he expected.
Starting from scratch at the start of the outdoor season with zero points, Marchbanks had a lot of ground to cover if he was going to qualify for the inaugural SuperMotocross World Championship on a 250 bike. At the time, Cole Thompson held the 20th position with 87 points.
In the first two rounds, Marchbanks earned only 15 points on a 250 with three moto results in the mid-teens and one outside the top 20.
"The first two rounds were not ideal in the 250 class," Marchbanks told NBC Sports prior to last week's Round 5 at RedBud MX in Buchanan, Michigan. "I thought we'd be a little better than that. Our starts were hindering us big time. It's really hard to start 30th in every moto and come from the back, especially with how fast those top 15 guys are in the lights class.
"I didn't really know where I was. I missed the whole [Supercross] season due to my wrist injury, so there wasn't really any expectation on how to do. I just wanted to do the best I could in the first round. I was hoping for a top-10. It did not go that way. Round 2 did not go that way either. So, it was definitely like where do we sit?"
Marchbanks and Club MX team manager Mike Bonacci applied a version of sabermetrics, the empirical analysis of sports' statistics, to the problem. They ran the numbers and quickly determined that catching up to 20th in the 250 standings was going to be difficult.
It was time to pivot.
A rash of injuries in the 450 class in the final rounds of Supercross created an opportunity. Several top factory riders were sidelined and top-10s were available for the taking.
But the rider had to execute at a high level to take advantage of the scenario.
"Right after Hangtown we decided to go up to the 450, especially with the class being not a stacked as the lights," Marchbanks said. "And that decision was definitely a good one. We only had two days of the bike going into it.
"It was like pushing the restart button to switch to 450s and get a top-10 the first round. It was like, 'all right, there we go; that was a good one'. And then getting to the top three in the second round on the 450 was like, 'all right, we belong here'. It's where I know I belong. I can win races and podium. We have a good mindset right now."
Marchbanks mounted his 450 bike for Thunder Valley, finishing sixth in the first moto and eighth in the second. At High Point the following week, he finished second in Moto 1 after briefly passing Jett Lawrence when that rider crashed. He finished eighth in Moto 2 to score his second consecutive overall top-10.
Those two strong runs moved Marchbanks to 30th in the standings, which is the cutline to qualify for the SMX Championship. Riders 21st through 30th qualify only for the Last Chance Qualifier and are not guaranteed to start the main. That honor goes to the top 20 in points.
Bonacci and Marchbanks do not want to haul the bike to Charlotte, North Carolina for Round 1 of the SMX playoffs , then Joliet, Illinois and all the way to Loas Angeles on the hope they would be one of the top two finishers in each LCQ.
So they kept crunching the numbers. In fact, Bonacci and Marchbanks sit down each week to determine where they are in the standings.
Two riders ahead of Marchbanks, Kevin Moranz and Justin Starling, have opted out of the Motocross championship this season. That currently creates a three-rider battle for the final position in the top 20.
Marchbanks is fighting Lorenzo Locurcio and Ty Masterpool for the coveted spot. Locurcio has four top-10 moto finishes in 10 races. Masterpool moved into the 450 class beginning with Round 2 and swept the top 10 until a mechanical failure in Moto 2 at RedBud cut his day short. Marschbanks kept his perfect record of moto top-10s alive last week and now has six consecutive.
Above those three riders, four others have not yet made their first outdoors start of the season, although Christian Craig is expected to return sometime before the SMX playoffs begin.
"We're excited to stay in the 450 class," Marchbanks said before heading out to score his third consecutive overall top-10. "We're in the top 30 in points for the World Supercross championship series. We're super excited with that. Hopefully we'll keep clicking on top-10s, top-fives, we should be in the top 20 in no time.
"It's super important [to be part of [the inaugural SMX Championship]. It means you stayed in the series and were competitive the whole time. To be in that series is a big deal - and the money looks like it's really good.
"The top 20 guys are the elite guys in the world."
At his current pace, Marchbanks would earn slightly more than 200 points in the Pro Motocross series, which may elevate him as high as 18th in the standings if all of the active riders ahead of him also continue perform consistently with how they have run in the opening rounds.
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