Troy Dog
Welcome to the offseason and our new ongoing “Team Previews” column. Every week from now until the Monster Energy Supercross season starts in January we will be profiling a big team in the sport. We’ll go through the changes that have been made, analyze results, and give each team a grade on all of their offseason moves. This week we have Muc-Off FXR ClubMX Yamaha and you will find the full schedule below.
Who’s In:
#6 Jeremy Martin
#36 Garrett Marchbanks
#56 Enzo Lopes
#69 Phil Nicoletti
Who’s Out:
#26 Alex Martin
#62 Jace Owen
Last season’s Supercross Results:
Jeremy Martin – 17th 250SX East
Garrett Marchbanks- 8th 250SX West
Enzo Lopes – 5th 250SX East
Phil Nicoletti- 12th 250SX East
Last Season’s Motocross Results:
Garret Marchbanks- 11th 450MX
Offseason Grade: C
The Rundown:
I know what you’re thinking, how could I possibly give this team a C for a grade when they just locked in a championship contender like Jeremy Martin? Look, the ClubMX team is a great team to ride for and a big signing like Martin is big news. I’m not disputing that. The last time that we saw J-Mart was in Supercross for the Star Racing Yamaha team. He got injured two rounds in and the next thing you knew he was signing with Club in the middle of the summer.
Before his injury in SX the last time that we saw J-Mart was at Ironman in the summer of 2021 and he was pushing Jett Lawrence for the lead. He got injured and that was it. My point is that I’m worried about all of these huge injuries that J-Mart has had over the years. He’s a veteran now and all of these injuries are adding up. I will never doubt J-Mart’s speed, I just hope he can make it through an entire year injury free. Do I put him as a title contender on this bike? Club has a great bike for their resources. J-Mart can battle for wins on this bike and as always if he’s healthy during outdoors he will be in contention for wins, especially with a very young 250 class at the moment.
The bright spot for Club last season was with Enzo Lopes’ 5th in the East Region. It came out of nowhere and Lopes really earned it with some awesome finishes. I’m not sure what Lopes’ ceiling is at this point, but I would assume he would keep progressing or even be better this season.
Garrett Marchbanks did finish 11th overall in 450MX. I think a lot of people forget that Marchbanks just turned 21 in October. So, to almost finish in the top ten overall at 20 years of age is really impressive. He’s going to race the 250 East Region this season as he recently broke his wrist last week. Up to this point in his career, Marchbanks has had very inconsistent SX results. He’s been a main event winner, podium guy, top five to ten guy, but coming off of an injury, where will that put him in Supercross? This rider lineup has a lot of variables against them as we head into the new year and I have more questions than answers.
Rounding out the team is team veteran and fan favorite Phil Nicoletti. Phil has struggled with injuries lately in the past couple of seasons since he came back from Canada. Surprisingly, the rider who coined the term “deathcross” actually has Supercross on lock these days. He even finished second in one of the three Triple Crown races at St. Louis this past season. If we can keep Phil healthy until the outdoors then we can see him being up in the 10-15 range in this stacked 450 class, which is not easy.
This team lineup has potential to really dice it up with the factory teams, but at the same time I’m worried about them staying healthy. If they can stay healthy then I hope they make me eat my grade.
Thanks for reading my series of team previews for the coming season. If you’d like to talk about these or any of the other stories that I’ve written you can email me at [email protected] You can also reach me on Twitter/Instagram: @troydogvurb.
Team Preview Schedule:
10/27 – Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/ GASGAS Factory Race Team
11/3 – Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing
11/9 – Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Team
11/16 – Monster Energy Kawasaki Factory Racing
12/9 – Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki
12/14 – Muc-Off FXR ClubMX Yamaha
12/21 – HEP Motorsports Suzuki
12/28- Bar X Suzuki
1/3 – Team Solitaire
How can you disagree?