Garrett Marchbanks had quite a night in Seattle. Despite a bad start that saw him complete the first lap of the 250SX main event in eleventh place, the Muc-Off FXR ClubMX Yamaha rider put his head down and charged, running as high as third before giving up a spot to Jo Shimoda late in the race. We caught up to him immediately following the action to get his take on his rock-solid ride.
Racer X: Pretty good night for you, Garrett. Walk us through it.
Garrett Marchbanks: It was good. Obviously the start wasn’t ideal, we’re going to get back this week and figure it out. I don’t know what it is, but we’re having an issue on starts I noticed. We’re spinning out of the gate. Not off the grate, but off the plastic a lot more than normal compared to when we’re doing starts at ClubMX. I don’t know what we need to do there, but besides that the speed is good. Obviously, I can’t qualify worth a crap. I qualified I think in tenth, but in the main I was able to come from eleventh to third. Then Jo [Shimoda] got me for third, but for how it went, I was happy with it. But, I still should have definitely gotten third tonight.
It seemed like you picked up the pace during the second half of the main event. Is that accurate?
I feel like earlier in my career I was always fast in the first half and I’d die down in the end. It was an endurance thing. These last few years we’ve really been working on being more steady in my motos and kicking it on at the halfway point. Obviously it doesn’t work when you’re starting tenth, but I did find a really good groove at the end there. But the last three laps, I think it was the third-to-last lap, I almost hit some dude off the triple, which was kind of scary. Some dude ran across the track and it was like, ‘Whoa, where’d that guy come from?’
Like a track worker or something?
Yeah. Then, I don’t know who, but a couple guys I don’t think realized I was lapping them. The guys with the blue flags weren’t waving them beforehand, they were doing it right as we got to them, and it was too late. So I just started giving the panic rev on the Yamaha to get those guys’ attention [laughs]. So yeah, I doubled through both rhythms on one lap and got screwed up, and Shimoda was able to gain a lot of time on me and got me in the whoops. I tried to get right back on him, which I did, but some kid, and I can’t remember his name, almost came right into me off the face of the finish line jump. I lost an easy two seconds there. I tried to make up time on the last lap but it was too much by then.
Is it tempting to try to keep at it on a track like that? Are you balancing risk vs. reward?
A little bit. I look at it like, and this sounds bad, but I have nothing to lose this year. It’s a contract year for me. I have the speed, I’m still that guy, and I’m young, I’m 22. But obviously I don’t want to get out there and injure myself and not be able to race the rest of the year, but I do want to let it hang out. If there’s a mistake here and there, it happens. The first couple rounds I was riding pretty cautiously. I don’t know why I was doing that. I think just from being injured, last year, I just wanted to be a healthy guy and race every race, which isn’t something I was known for. But this year, during the break, I decided, ‘I’m going to go out this weekend, and it doesn’t matter where I’m at or where I start, I’m going for it.’
Well you were good out there. You were as high as third and you finished fourth. Do you leave here feeling good about how well you rode, or are you upset that you were in a podium position, but finished fourth?
It upsets me. It upsets anyone. I was upset with the fact that I couldn’t get around a lapper and give myself a clear shot at Jo on the last lap. I definitely feel like I made time up, and I was trying to manage it to where, if he got me, I was going to stay right there on the last lap and get back in there. And if I didn’t get third, I was going to be happy that I at least tried to run it in there, if that makes sense. But the takeaway from the weekend, I’m happy with the speed, I’m happy with the endurance, but I’m not happy with my starts. We need to figure that out.
