Garrett Marchbanks and Waddell Discuss Motocross and Hunting Dreams
DENVER (May 6, 2026) – Garrett Marchbanks started riding motorcycles when he was just 5 years old, he began to compete locally as a 6-year-old, and by 8 he was traveling to race in AMA Amateur Nationals. As a 9-year-old, he won his first championship at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch, and between 2010 and 2017 he won a total of eight championships there as a member of Kawasaki’s dominant Team Green, competing in everything from 65cc class to 250 B division. He turned Pro in 2018, and today, at 24 years of age, he’s one of the hottest riders in the SuperMotocross Championship, and a key member of Team Kawasaki, having finished in the top three in the 2025 standings for Pro Motocross in the 250 class. Now, he’s back as a lead rider for Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki and has his sights set on Top 5’s and podium finishes riding 450 class, and he’s our special guest on The Michael Waddell Podcast, presented by Spandau Arms and in partnership with Folds of Honor, Cigars International and Poncho Outdoors. In this easy going podcast, Garrett Marchbanks and Waddell cover a wide variety of topics, including Marchbanks’ career, his motorcycles, riding and racing, the training and discipline necessary to meet the physical and psychological demands of competing at the highest level, the specifics of racing Motocross and Supercross, shooting bows and arrows and, of course, the thrills of racing and the thrills of hunting.
Garrett Marchbanks calls Coalville, Utah home, and he was introduced to hunting by his father about the same time he started riding motorcycles. “I definitely grew up hunting quite a bit. I’d say from the ages 7-15 I hunted quite a bit with Dad,” said Marchbanks, “but then once racing took off when I was 15, I haven’t done it as much. But whenever I get the chance, I try to do it as much as I can.”
While he hasn’t had the opportunity to hunt and fish as much as he’d like in recent years, Marchbanks has spent a lot of time in the great outdoors – but on his dirt bike. Today he splits time between racing outside on dirt Motocross tracks and inside at stadium Supercross tracks. Mastering both very different disciplines takes time. “At first it was pretty difficult for me,” explained Marchbanks. “For me, it always seemed like when we do testing, going from Supercross to go run outdoors for a week, once I had to go back to Supercross it would take me a week to get comfortable. Now, when I kinda just swap, I can do two days outdoors, one day on Supercross, and go race the next day. What makes it more difficult is just the bike setup – a completely different chassis setup, suspension, clamps and things like that.”
“It took me a full year to really get going on Supercross when I first went pro,” Marchbank continued. “After that, it came more natural to me. The light bikes are a lot easier to ride Supercross on just because everything is almost wide open. You hit a lot of triples, like when you’re tripling into a turn or hitting a quad you’re just wide open, on the 250. The 450, on the other hand, it’s just so much more power. So you’ve got to be super precise. That’s something I’ve really worked on this year, being the first time running Supercross on a 450. So, I’d say for me, it’s not really the triples, for me it’s quading stuff that’s a little harder just because the other bike was always wide open. With the 450 when you do that, you OJ something and almost go five, and you’re like, ‘Uh, that wasn’t it!’”
The Michael Waddell Podcast is produced by Outdoor Sportsman Group and is available widely on Outdoor Channel YouTube, MyOutdoorTV, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and OutdoorChannel.com, to name a few.
In Motocross, there’s a lot of talk about being “in the flow,” when muscle memory and instinct take over and a rider and bike work as one. “It’s a lot of timing, a lot of practice and being in the zone,” explained Marchbanks. “For me, a good example is like Seattle this year: there was a jump I wasn’t doing all day in qualifying or the heat race, and it was just a triple onto a table, and it was super steep, and all of a sudden in the main event, two laps in, I had that flow and that feel of the bike, and I was like, ‘Oh, all right, I feel what I need to do on it,’ and I just started to doing it. …Sometimes, I’ve had that in practice, there’s a big jump I know I should be doing, I won’t do it, and then all of a sudden I’ll start to put laps together and I’ll bust it out. I’ll just do it. So, it’s just how comfortable you are with the chassis, the bike, how you’re feeling… For me, once I put a lot of time on something and get really comfortable, that’s when I start to do all the big stuff.”
Few, if any, sports are as physically demanding as Motocross, and every race is a test of physical and mental toughness. “…You want to stay consistent,” explained Marchbanks. “Stay at a steady pace. You’re not gonna want to go all-out for 20 minutes because then you’re going to blow yourself up, unless you’re just a special breed of a guy who can do that. For me, when you’re racing these 20-minute moto’s on a bike like this that can ride you sometimes, you just gotta learn to be super precise with it, smooth and find a flow. If you can find a flow on these things, it won’t take the energy out of you.”
Watch one highly competitive Motocross race, and you’ll see riders putting their bodies and their lives at risk. “I’ve had my fair share of hitting the ground this year,” said Marchbanks, “and it still hurts. No matter how good a shape you’re in… You could be in great fitness shape and then you go hop on the bike and sometimes it doesn’t even translate. I mean, you gotta be in bike shape also. You’ve got to be in good shape in the gym, you’ve got to be in good shape on the bike, you’ve got to make sure you’re doing all the motos and things like that. It’s a lot of work to put into it. …I’m finally starting to learn what I need to do to be successful and be in great shape. It took me five years to figure it out. So, it’s a work load.”
While Garrett Marchbanks is completely focused on winning motorcycle races right now, he still thinks about the future when he hopes to hunt and fish more. “I’ve yet to kill an elk,” he confided. “I really got into it when I was about 17…I got real close with it. We’d get into them. But when you’re hunting public land out there [Utah], it’s like showing up to your local dirt track on a Saturday – there are hundreds of people out there. It gets pretty tough elk hunting on public. So, for me, my goal is to, when I do have the time, to finally go get myself an elk.”
“I’ve already killed some pretty good-sized mule deer,” Marchbanks continued. “I get more nerve-racking shooting a deer with my bow than I do racing my dirt bike. …It’s wild, because I’ll be calm on the gate and looking at my heart rate on my handlebars, and it will say 130-140, just sitting there, just the adrenaline going; but I’m calm, like I’m not really shaking, I know what I’m going to do – execute. But when it comes to shooting a deer, I’ve watched them come up 30-40 yards and looked at my heart rate and it’s 80-100. I’m like, ‘All right, my heart rate is low,’ and I’m sitting there shaking and trying to take deep breaths, and I’m like, ‘Why am I freaking out right now?’”
When asked about competing against idols, friends and mentors, Marchbanks explained, “For me, it would make me super happy to go out there and beat those guys that I grew up watching and, for me, to just put good races together. This year has been a little rough for me, but my goal is to just be up there battling with those guys. I’d love to be battling with guys like Kenny [Roczen] and Eli [Tomac], guys I haven’t quite battled with yet, but I want to be up there and put some good races together,” concluded Marchbanks. We have a strong feeling that Garrett Marchbanks will do just that.
“I was so pumped to visit with Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Garrett Marchbanks,” said Waddell. “I have been a fan of Motocross since I was a teenager and even dreamed that someday I’d be screaming around the dirt track myself. Cam Hanes introduced me to Garrett last July when he landed his first Pro Motocross Podium at Washougal National, and I was thrilled to learn he’s a hardcore hunter too. I have a feeling that someday we’re going to be sitting around a campfire in hunting camp together, but he has some more races to win – and I have to figure out how to trade him an elk hunt for an MX bike.”
The Michael Waddell Podcast releases new episodes every other week.
Waddell’s story began in the backwoods of Booger Bottom, Georgia, where he grew up surrounded by nature, family, and a love for the outdoors. A self-proclaimed “rowdy redneck,” his passion for hunting and storytelling led him to win a Realtree turkey-calling contest, which launched his career in the outdoor industry. From guiding and filming hunts to creating hit shows like Realtree Road Trips and Bone Collector, Waddell has become a beloved figure in the outdoor world.
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