After beginning the 2024 AMA Pro Racing season with the Muc-Off/FXR ClubMX Yamaha organization – a season launched with back-to-back 250SX West podium finishes at and San Francisco and San Diego – Garrett Marchbanks suffered a thumb injury at Nashville, and then missed the AMA Pro Motocross opening round at Fox Raceway in Southern California due to a press day crash.
His outdoor season thrown sideways, word came down in early July that he would be returning to his former team Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki for 2025. The curtain dropping on his Muc-Off/FXR ClubMX Yamaha outfit ride after a four-race run aboard a Yamaha YZ450F in the AMA Pro Motocross Championship, Marchbanks once again lined back up with the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki race team beginning with the 2024 Unadilla National.
Welcome to the 2025 AMA West Region 250SX West Supercross Championship, where Marchbanks will race for the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki race team he last competed for from 2018 through 2020.
“I feel good,” said Marchbanks. “Usually, I usually always kind of struggle in early practice at A1. It’s a little bit of the nerves. There is the bike setup. A lot of times, like during the last three and a half or four years, I was training back east and then you go to the west coast and it just wouldn’t really gel for well with the bike chassis setup sometimes. So this year training 250SX West Region and racing the 250SX West Region, it really was nice. The bike felt pretty similar to practice days. The Anaheim track was pretty good and I look forward to San Diego.
“This year I feel really good. I truly feel like this year was the year I finally did all the work. It wasn’t like in years prior that I never did it. It was more like I think I always came into the new season hesitating like, ‘Did I do enough? Did I do this, this and that.’ This year I trained with Jason Anderson, one of the best guys out there in the entire world, a 450 supercross champ, and I trained with him on and off the bike and all the work we did. It was like, ‘Okay, if he’s confident, why can’t I be confident?’ I think just training with him, he’s really helped me understand what to do better on race day and on practice day. He’s been a huge help for me and I’m very thankful to be training with him.”
After a three-year run with Yamaha, Marchbanks is thrilled to be back with Mitch Payton and his Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki organization.
“Yeah, I missed it,” said Marchbanks of the Pro Circuit relationship. “I missed it a lot. There were days I’d sit there in my cabin out in South Carolina. There would be rainy days and we’d be sitting there and I have pictures all over my wall, like pictures of me winning at Daytona and pictures of me with Mitch Payton, and I would go, ‘Man, if I could get back on that bike… If I could just get back with Mitch Payton I want to turn it around and win the title. I want to do what I know I’m capable of.’ I remember the day he called me to come back and ride for him. I just remember that I was sitting there looking at those pictures and I was like, ‘Holly crap. I’ve made a full circle to do it again.’”
Sixth overall in the ’24 version of the 250SX West, Marchbanks is looking for bigger and better performance come the clank of the gate in Angel Stadium.
“Last year was kind of a weird year because some of my bad races were more like falls, or getting hit, or getting cleaned out,” he said of his 2024 campaign. “There were just random mistakes. Last year I felt like I was really good. I could have stayed right there in the top three a little bit longer, but this year I definitely feel like I can be a bit more consistent. Last year, my rounds at Anaheim 1 and Anaheim 2 weren’t the best. Those were rounds I just struggled on. If I could have just avoided those mistakes and stayed in the top five, or would have podiumed, I would have been right there in the title hunt. Those are things I just have to fix and I’ll be right there.”
Marchbanks won the Daytona round of the 2020 250SX East title chase. His lone triumph in the classification, the Utah pilot will be looking for thew top step of the podium once again come Anaheim.
“For me it has been five years now, which is crazy to think, and I got so close last year to finally getting to win again and missed it with two laps to go, which sucked,” said Marchbanks, referencing the 2024 San Diego supercross where he placed runner-up. “I feel like everything is there for me to do it again, and I feel like my endurance is great and my speed is great. I feel like if I just get some good starts, ride right there and do what I’ve been doing these past eight weeks, there should be no reason why I can’t win more races this year.”
Dispatched to the West Region for ’25 by Pro Circuit overlord Payton, Marchbanks, despite some reticence, is fine with competing in the West Region stadiums.
“For me – and I’m from the west coast, I’m from Utah – I hate the west coast,” he said. “I never liked the blue groove hardpack stuff. I’ve always been an east coast guy. However, you look on paper and I’ve podiumed six times. I podiumed three times in he west and three times in the east. It doesn’t really matter. You should be able to podium in either coast and no matter what, when you go 450, you’re going to have to rode both coasts. For me, I’m good with it. Honestly, this year has been the best I have rode west coast dirt, so I think I’m just fine.”
