Top Fuel Motorcycle icon Larry McBride is quick to point out that he’s adamant about being the best person he can be at all times. Recently, some haven’t subscribed to the same approach as him.
McBride said he’s recently been a victim of a campaign of misinformation, intended to smear his reputation in the drag racing community. It’s known in today’s digital world as a “clickbait scam.”
Clickbait scams benefit perpetrators in several ways, primarily through generating revenue and collecting sensitive information. Clickbait links can redirect users to malicious websites that download and install malware (viruses, ransomware, spyware) onto their devices.
In the first clickbait scam, McBride was alleged to have embezzled $4.2 million in sponsorship money, and in another bizarre example of clickbait, he died in a fiery crash.
“I have no clue what’s going on with this stuff,” McBride said Friday morning at Route 66 Raceway, as he prepared for his first run at the NHRA Route 66 Nationals. “False news, that fake news on Facebook, it’s crazy. It’s caused me some problems, but anybody who knows me knows it’s false. Let alone say that I embezzled $4.2 million from sponsors; that’s kind of an incredible number, right? So maybe if it had said $4.20, maybe, but not 4.2 million.”
The first story, attributed to a website www.creditcardmill.com, published an article “Legacy In Ashes: Larry ‘Spiderman’ McBride Under Investigation of Misusing Sponsorship Funds in Multi-State Probe,” quotes National Motorsports Daily, which neither has a website nor a Facebook page, as having internal documents detailing his so-called transgressions. NHRA is also quoted in the content, which is an obvious fake statement generated by the author.
Then, last week, McBride learned he’d been burned to death in a fiery crash. Not a joke at all, as a decade ago, McBride exploded an engine
during a run, which left him with second-degree burns on his legs.
“This particular story came out on Wednesday, and then I died on Friday in a fiery crash, which is unbelievable,” McBride said. “I get a call at 11:30 PM, somebody just calling me to see if I would answer the phone, see if this was true because somebody had called them.
“They hoped my wife would answer the phone or something. When I answered the phone, they was crazy. Ricky Gadson was calling me. It scared him to death. It’s just not right for people to be that bored in life and try to destroy somebody else’s life. I don’t understand it. I just don’t get it. Why do people want to try to destroy other people? I don’t get it.”
McBride said he’s fortunate to have built a good enough reputation that those who knew him immediately dismissed the reports as fake news.
“For somebody to put that out like that absolutely blows my mind,” McBride said. “I don’t understand why. I’ve been doing this 46 years. I’ve had some sponsors for thirty-plus years that’s been with me. It’s just one of those things that people want to hurt our sport. It not only hurts me, it puts a black eye on the sport.”
For McBride, drag racing is his happy place, and misinformation campaigns such as this threaten the one place where he finds solace.
“The best part, when I come here, I don’t watch TV, I don’t know what’s going on with the news, and I don’t care,” McBride said. “All I care about is what’s going on here at this race track. It’s my happy place. I mean, you’re not worried. All your worries are at home. You ain’t worried about the gas bill, the power bill, the personal property tax. You ain’t worried about all that, you’re here in your happy place, and that’s what it’s all about.”
