Motocross Performance Magazine Canadian Motocross news leader
By Mike McGill
Trailblazer – a person who blazes a trail for others to follow through unsettled country or wilderness.
There are a multitude of talented Canadians working in the motocross industry these days. Not just at home, here in Canada, but in the U.S and other parts of the world. That wasn’t always the case. In 1990, when Sarnia, Ontario native Marshall Plumb signed on with the U.S Factory Suzuki Team to wrench for an up-and-coming rider named Jimmy Gaddis, he was one of, if not the only Canadian to be working in the industry south of the border. It’s been quite a ride for Plumb. He’s seen it all in his time on the circuit and he’s still grinding it out to this day. And this is his story.
Of course, Plumb didn’t start off as a mechanic. He. Like so many other young guys in those days wanted to be a racer, and he tried his hand at some CMA motocross races for a few years starting in 1975. “It was fun, I did alright” remembers Plumb. “I did make it to the Intermediate class in 79 but had a few injuries. Nothing too serious but I broke my foot pretty badly and decided that maybe the racing wasn’t for me.” So, while his actual racing days may have been over, his enthusiasm for the sport had not diminished in the least. To stay involved with the sport, Plumb started travelling to the races with another local Sarnia rider, Dave Beatty who was turning some heads in the highly competitive Ontario motocross scene.
“Yeah, I started going to the races with Dave and his dad Sam” states Plumb. “I helped Dave’s dad out with the bikes and that’s when I started to learn how to be a mechanic.” Plumb, although he had no formal mechanical training to speak of jumped into the role headfirst. “I went to the school of hard knocks” he chuckles, but he was attentive and a quick study. So much so that before long he was receiving offers from some other top Canadian riders to wrench for them. Extremely modest in nature, Plumb is quick to recognize Daves father Sam as a big influence on his early success. “Sam was a huge influence on me” states Plumb. “He really showed me the ropes. I would go as far as to say he was my mentor.”
In an interesting side note, during his formative years working on his wrenching skills with the Beatty family Plumb was also actively pursuing a career as a professional bowler- two sports you don’t usually hear mentioned in the same breath. From 1984 to 86, Plumb actually competed professionally and while he was never able to crack the upper echelons of professional bowling, he certainly gave it his best shot, pardon the pun. “Back then my average was around 205”, remembers Plumb. Marshall goes on to explain that just as in motocross, the technological advancements in bowling. The quality of the lanes, the balls have come so far over the years that now, even as a once a week amateur, he regularly bowls a 230 game. “I’ve had many 300 games in my career”, says Plumb proudly. “I’ve even thought about trying to get on the Seniors tour but at 62 I’m just not sure the old body would be up for it.” After taking many years off to travel the Pro Motocross Tour, Plumb has recently made it a priority to get back to his roots, “a little bit” and bowls now every week just for fun.
In 1985, Kevin Moore was the hottest young property in Canadian professional motocross. His family had recently re-located from Sudbury to Sarnia, Ontario and Moore, who was about to embark on his first season as a Honda Canada sponsored Pro was in need of a good mechanic. Aware of the solid work he had put in with Beatty, Honda approached Marshall and offered him the position as Moore’s wrench. “I think Dave (Beatty) was a little upset at first,” remembers Plumb but “it was a good opportunity and certainly led to some bigger opportunities for me down the road.”
Marshall spun the wrenches for Moore for only one season but I it was during that 85 season that he met “The Rollerball” Ross Pederson. “We hit it off right away” recalls Plumb. “And Ross was looking for a mechanic for 86 so I jumped at the chance. We ended up working very well together.” That might even be a bit of an understatement as the period between 1986 through the 1988 season could very well have been the pinnacle of Pederson’s illustrious career. Not only did he win absolutely everything in Canda, but he was a top rider in the U.S during this period as well. “He was always top 10. Every time he rode in the States,” explains Plumb. “Outdoors or Supercross. Didn’t matter.” Plumb goes on to claim that if Ross had been able to access some better equipment during this period, there was no doubt in his mind he would have been a consistent podium threat in the U.S, Particularly outdoors. “His bikes just weren’t quite as good”, he laments. “He should have been a factory guy.”
Unfortunately, all good things do end and in 89 Suzuki, whom Pederson had only re-signed with the year before after spending the previous three seasons on Yamaha, decided to pull their Canadian Motocross support and Marshall was left looking for work once again. ‘Ross told me to find something else.” He couldn’t afford to keep me on anymore.” Fortunately, the likeable Plumb had made several solid connections through his time working with Pederson in the US. “People knew who I was. People seemed to like me.” Plumbs’ first order of business was to try to catch on with the all-powerful American Honda Racing Team. “The Honda thing didn’t happen” but former factory mechanic, and Scott Goggle rep at that time, Bevo Forte, a larger-than-life character in his own right, had taken a real liking to Marshall and put in a good word for him with his old buddy Bob “Hurricane” Hannah, who oversaw the Factory Suzuki effort at that time.
“Hannah called me about a Suzuki job” explains Plumb. Obviously, he was thrilled at the prospect of signing on with a U.S Factory Team but there was one obstacle that almost scuttled the plan before it even got off the ground. “Green Card” was the issue explains Plumb. A Green Card, or a Permanent Resident Card as it’s officially known allows a person from another country to live and work permanently in the United States. They are not easy to obtain, and U.S Suzuki were not going to go out of their way to get one for Plumb. “Hannah wanted me, and he went out of his way to help me get it” recalls Plumb. Plumb goes on to discuss the fact that Hannah really took a chance in helping him out as he could have landed himself in some hot water if the execs at Suzuki found out. Luckily everything worked out and Plumbs “fairy tale” story in the world of professional motocross had well and truly begun.
Plumb credits much of his early success in the U.S to Hannah, who obviously took a chance on him. “It’s crazy” says Plumb, who lists Hannah as his motocross hero when he was younger. “He’s a very smart and knowledgeable guy” states Plumb, who, while he never worked as Hannah’s mechanic, did do several testing sessions with him in 1990. Marshall relays a story to me in which Hannah came off the track after a testing session and complained that the ride height on his factory Suzuki was off by about a millimeter. Skeptical, Plumb grabbed his tape measure and “sure enough it was off by a millimeter” he chuckles. “Hannah was a pretty shrewd person if he didn’t like you. Look out” he explains, but he was great to me, and I still really appreciate everything he did for me.”
Plumb had been slated to work with second year Factory Pro Jimmy Gaddis in 1990 but at the last-minute Suzuki hired veteran Guy Cooper to contest the 125 Nationals and Marshall was reassigned to be Coopers wrench for the season. “Bayle and Kiedrowski were going to be the major competition” Plumb recalls, He goes on to explain that they almost blew the Championship. “We had built up a 48-point lead at one point. Bayle got hurt, so he was out of it and Guy ended up winning the championship by 1 point over (Honda mounted) Kiedrowski.” His first year working for a U.S Factory Team culminated in a Championship for his rider and Marshall was paired with Cooper again in 91 in the defense of his 125 National Championship.
Cooper lost the 91 outdoor Championship in a “close one” to Kiedrowski and it was then decided that the Cooper, Plumb combination would be broken up and for the following year. 1992 would see Marshall hook up with rising young star and Michigan native Brian Swink, who had just signed with Suzuki after a successful rookie campaign on Peak Pro Circuit Honda. Things started out famously as Marshall was able to add another championship trophy to his mantle in as many years as Swink won the 1992 125East Supercross Series Championship. Swink finished off the 92 Supercross season by placing a very impressive 6th overall at the final 250 Supercross at the LA Coliseum and hopes were high for a real run at the 250 title in 93.
The factory execs at Suzuki felt that Swink had a real shot at winning the 250 Supercross Championship in 93. Marshall wasn’t so sure. To be fair not many would have predicted what Jeremy McGrath did in 93, but as we all now know he destroyed the competition in his first season of 250 Supercross and never looked back. Swink on the other hand had an extremely mediocre season and ended up placing a distant 6th overall when it was all said and done. “Things started out well” recalls Plumb. He got second at Seattle behind McGrath, and he really should have won. He followed it up with a 5th the next week in San Diego. Not bad, but then in Tampa he didn’t even qualify for the main. That was a shock and things just kind of went downhill after that.” Plumb, continues, “Brian was probably the most naturally talented rider I had ever seen,” he remarks. And he was not the only one that thought this. Even the King of Supercross himself, Jeremy McGrath has stated on several occasions that he was in awe of Swinks pure talent on a Supercross track. “Brian was a fantastic rider, way ahead of his time, one of the most talented to ever ride a bike. So innovative,” continues Plumb, but I have to be honest. “He had a bad attitude. His attitude sucked, and so did the bike.” The Factory Suzuki’s of that era were not good and by the time the 93 season came to an end Plumb had had enough. “You really couldn’t say anything bad about the bikes to the Japanese” explains Plumb. “That would be job suicide, but I just couldn’t take it anymore and I expressed my feelings about the bike. I guess it was time to move on,” he chuckles.
Another possible opportunity to sign on with Factory Honda fell through the cracks in 94 but Honda did play a big part in the next few years of his career as Plumb spent the next several seasons wrenching for a variety of riders, including Swink again in 95 and Larry Ward in 96 and 97 at the upstart satellite team Honda of Troy. In fact, Plumb lists 97 with Larry “Big Bird” Ward as one of his favorite years as Ward not only finished top four in Supercross but in the Outdoor Nationals as well. In 98 Plumb was slated to work with Mike Craig at Honda of Troy but an early season crash which left Craig with a broken femur put and end to that partnership. After another brief stint with Suzuki Off-Road Plumb decided that it was time leave life on the road as a full-time mechanic and to start his own business, Marshall’s Racing, out of his home, which he had purchased from his old rider and friend Guy Cooper, in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
That was in 1999 and then in early 2000 an unexpected opportunity arose. Just as he was getting his new business off the ground, Dunlop tires who supply approximately 90% of the tires to the racers in the paddock approached Plumb as one of the techs who worked for Dunlop at the Supercross Races had a family medical emergency that he needed to attend to,” explains Marshall. “They asked me if I would fill in four 5 maybe 6 races tops.” Plumbs 5 race stint as a fill-in tire technician for Dunlop at Supercross soon carried on into the outdoor season and now, twenty-two years later he’s still at it. It’s at this point in our conversation that Plumb drops a stat on me that is truly hard to believe. Since 1990, when he started working with Cooper, he’s only missed one Supercross race. That occurred in 2020 when he was one of the first to be hit with the Coronavirus and was literally too sick to make it to the race that weekend. “Even dating back to 1986 with Ross, I’ve only missed a handful” he continues. It’s an amazing record of longevity and consistency in my opinion. Only to have missed a handful of races in the last 36 years. Who else would have such an Ironman record I ask him? “Oh, there’s a few he imagines. Roger DeCoster for one and Mitch Payton obviously would be another. Bevo Forte was a permanent fixture long before I ever arrived on the scene although he does not come as much anymore.” Still, he’s got to be one of the very few to have spent this many consecutive years on the circuit.
It looked like it may have all been coming to an end four years ago. “I thought that I’d had enough” admits Plumb. “I seriously considered leaving, but they (Dunlop) wanted me to stay. They restructured my deal and eliminated the outdoors. It’s a great deal for me and I’m truly blessed and grateful.” Once again Plumb uses the fairy-tale reference to describe his situation. “If you had told me back in 1986 when all this started, where I would be today, I would never have believed it.” Unfortunately, he doesn’t get to visit with his old friend Bob Hannah too much anymore. Broc Glover, Plumbs boss at Dunlop and Hannah were bitter rivals during their racing days. Over the decades that have passed since then the bad blood between the two never went away so while Hannah does attend the races on occasion you will not find him anywhere near the Dunlop trailer. “He keeps his distance,” chuckles Plumb.
Between Marshall’s Racing and working the races for Dunlop he’s as busy as he’s ever been, but you can tell that it’s a labour of love for Marshall. When referring to Marshalls Racing, “We, well mostly me, did 600 sets of suspension last year at Marshalls. Things just keep getting busier every year. It doesn’t seem as if he will be slowing down anytime soon either, as at the age of 62 he has no real thoughts of retiring. “I’ll just keep going until they tell me to stop coming,” he admits when referring to Dunlop. “Being at the races, changing tires. That’s my happy place. It’s like stress relief for me.”
Before I hung up with Marshall, I decide to fire a few rapid-fire questions at him. Which one of your riders was hardest on his equipment, I ask? “Well, some might think it would have been Ross because he was such a big strong guy. He manhandled the bike and certainly wasn’t afraid to trade paint with guys, but without a doubt it has to have been Cooper,” He goes on to explain that, yes with Ross he would have to change chassis every three to four races but “Coop was not a finesse guy. He would over jump stuff; he would case stuff and lots of crashes. I would carry 5 sets of handlebars in the truck at all times and sometimes I would use them all in a weekend,” he chuckles.
In closing I ask what part of his career he is most proud of? “Probably the fact that every rider I ever worked with finished inside the top 10. That means more to me than anything and it looks pretty darn good on a resume.” It certainly does, although I don’t think Plumb will be circulating his resume any time soon. He admits that the travelling and flying can be tough at times but he’s happy to keep going for now. “One day I’ll just say I’m done. And that will be it.”
For now, you can always see him at the Dunlop Trailer at the races on the weekend or reach him at his shop in Oklahoma during the week. If not there you may want to head out to the local lanes and possibly catch him rolling a 300 game.
