Slaw Dog
Slaw ain’t here to defend Garrett Marchbanks after his aggressive takeout of Cameron McAdoo in the 250SX main event on Saturday night at round 15 of Monster Energy Supercross at Atlanta Motor Speedway. It was a dumb move and one that Marchbanks and his ClubMX team have apologized for. Guess what? Dumb moves happen EVERY weekend in supercross. Public enemy number 1 this week is Marchbanks. It will probably be someone else next week.
Look, as a fan it’s fine to get heated over this stuff. You can yell and rant at your TV all you want or even discuss it amongst your friends. All of this is cool. But death threats toward a rider and their family members is taking it WAY too far.
On Instagram yesterday, Marchbanks wrote about the incident and said that he and some of those around him have gotten death threats after the incident. “As I stated before I’m not asking for sympathy but I do ask if the death threats towards myself and the people in my life could end. They can’t control what I do on the track only I can.”
Be better, people.
Here is his full statement he issued yesterday:
“I know a lot of people have been waiting to hear about what I have to say after the incident that took place on Saturday night in Atlanta.” wrote Marchbanks. I took some time to reflect on my actions and what led up to that moment. As I type this message my goal isn’t to change the fans minds about myself nor ask for sympathy. I’m typing this message to do my part and own up to a mistake that I made that should have never happened in the first place. First things I want to apologize to the whole ClubMX team, my sponsors and the people in my life who have been affected by my actions. This mistake I made doesn’t reflect who ClubMX is as a race team and training facility and I realize that all I did was let them down.
“Now I’m not going to sit here and lie to everyone and say that I didn’t mean to make an aggressive move on Cameron, I did, and it’s obvious that I did. I fully intended on making an aggressive move solely because I was cross jumped multiple times, I let my emotions get the best of me because of the red flags, and I honestly felt like he was a hazard at the time. I realize now that that is absolutely NO excuse to go and clean someone out the way I did by any means. And that I was actually being the hazardous one in that moment.
“This has nothing to do with Cameron being on a Pro Circuit Kawasaki bike ONLY how I felt about him as a racer during these last couple of rounds at the time. I can see why fans can jump to conclusions and say how I might’ve wanted to “take him out” on purpose because they think that I have some grudge towards Pro Circuit when that is NOT the case at all. Pro Circuit is a great race team and i’m very honored to have gotten the chance to ride for them for the years that I did. But i am equally as happy to be part of the ClubMX race team as well. I understand the frustration that I caused the fans, Pro Circuit and Cameron. I am not a perfect racer by any means and I’ve made my mistakes. All I can do now is learn from this incident so I don’t make the same mistakes again in the future.
“I realize I could’ve injured Cameron even more and just that alone I’m no ok with myself for doing. I don’t wish injuries upon any racers and what I did could have easily done exactly that. As I stated before I’m not asking for sympathy but I do ask if the death threats towards myself and the people in my life could end. They can’t control what I do on the track only I can. So right now I’m going to take a break from social media to gather my thoughts and learn from this mistake before the last round of the Supercross.
“Again, I am very sorry to everyone that I affected and will do everything I can to become a smarter racer and make better decisions for myself and for the sake of everyone else.”
Main image: Octopi Media
He took a guy out that he was frustrated with. Big deal. Get over it people and get a life… Stuff like this happened in the 90’s all the time and now there is apology letters and death threaths after an incident like this? Fuck me.
It’s racing, grow up everyone.
Wrong is wrong. Whether it’s the 90’s or today, purposely crashing out another rider is just wrong.
Too much money, too many careers and the general opinion about the quality of SX are in the balance. If we want SX to become the gladiatorial facade of wrestling, unpunished actions like Marchbanks’ will take us there.