Poncho Castro 12-3-03

When Honda needed a fourth rider to man a night section at this year’s Baja 1000, they looked far and wide, but their go-to-guy was only a few miles from the start in Rosarito, Mexico. His name is Alfonso “Poncho” Castro, a member of the ATV Scene.com Baja team that nearly won last year. We asked Poncho a few questions about the new Honda 450R and this year’s victory. If you ever meet Poncho, you’ll agree, he’s one of the good guys.

ATV Scene: How did the team come about?
Castro: John Gregory called me three weeks before the race and asked if I wanted to be a part of it. Later the rest of the team talked to Bruce Ogilvie about me. He gave the final approval. It was myself, Tim Farr, Doug Eichner, John Gregory and Mark Spaeth.

ATV Scene: How many times have you raced the Baja?
Castro: This is my 5th Baja 1000, and I have raced all the Baja 250s, 500s and 1000s the last five years as well.

ATV Scene: Tell us about the top secret stuff on the new Honda 450R.
Castro: I can’t say that I know of any top secret stuff, but I can tell you about how we set the quads up. We tested the pre production bikes a couple of times. Then we tested the race bikes at a secret location in the California desert. They had the Showa engineers there to fine tune the suspension for us. The light frames were made so the light racks would be interchangeable with Johnny Campbell’s 1X motorcycle. Since Honda had light racks for him at every one of their pits, it was an easy decision to make ours the same as what he was running. We also had a truck load of spare parts, including shocks, a-arms (we used stock ones by the way) axles, you name it – we had an extra one at every pit. Honda also made these desert seats in Japan for us. They used three deferent types of foam compound. I’m told that they were about $1,000 each! Tim and Shane Hitt (who raced on Honda’s other team – who finished fourth) decided to run their sections with the stock seat because they felt more comfortable with it. With the specially made desert seats the quads were too easy to tip over since they were stock width. Plus we used 22″ rears and 23″ front tires so they were pretty tall as well. After Tim switched back to stock everyone else wanted to ride their section with the stock seat too.

ATV Scene: Tell us about how the race went.
Castro: We were 12th to start the race. The race went south on Highway 1. John Gregory started for us. Then Doug Eichner, then Mark Spaeth passed it over to Tim Farr around around mile 175. When Tim got it we were running 3rd, about 11 minutes behind the 2A Bombardier, and 7 minutes behind Keith Little on Wes Miller’s number 3A XR650 Lone Star. Both Keith and Farr managed to get by the Bombardier and run one-two. Farr told me that it wasn’t easy to get past the Bombardier. He didn’t want to let him by. Finally the guy made a mistake and Farr went by. Soon Farr caught up to Keith and rode in his dust for a while. He said it was hard and unsafe to to make a pass without risking crashing so he backed off a little. The two arrived at the Honda Pit at the highway mark within a minute of each other. Wes took the the bike from Keith right away and their team was quickly gone. Meanwhile we decided to take a major maintenance pit stop there. We went with two new tires, a light frame and light rack, air filter, we checked the brake pads, skid plates, oil levels, gas and more. Spaeth took the quad from there. While he was riding we went further south on the highway to my spot. It got dark around 5:30 p.m. Spaeth showed up in first. We looked over the quad and found that the swingarm skid plate was loose. We lifted the quad and tighten up the bolts and filled it up with gas. I took off with a five minute lead. My section was 15 miles on the highway, then about 80 miles on graded roads. This section was real fast but also real dangerous at a few areas. There were several sharp turns with huge cliffs and some of the roads were cut in half by rain ditches. I stopped at two Honda pits where we quickly took on some gas and got going right away. Then I got into a section that was really rocky and full of sand whoops. This was one of the toughest races in Baja history! About 40 miles later I got to San Felipe and passed it over to Eichner. I’m proud to say we improved our lead to about 30+ minutes on second place. I heard our lead improved to 45 + minutes while Doug was on the final session. I knew Doug was fast and could tell he was pouring it on all the way to the end. It was really exciting!

ATV Scene: How was it compared to past year’s, especially last year’s near win on the ATV Scene.com/Trinity team?
Castro: Last year was something I’ll never forget. Half of our team got hurt so Nick (Nelson) and I rode double duty. I’m pretty sure we would have won if we didn’t run out of gas last year, but it was a well earned, respectable second place. Like I said last year was something special, but I have to admit this time out takes the cake! Just being a part of the team was incredible. Honda is serious about winning. It was great to be a part of accomplishing their goal with them.

ATV Scene: We can understand that. And would assume it’s nice to not have to race sections that you never planned on riding.
Castro: Exactly! And this year it was easier to pre run. I was more familiar with the areas because of the races that I have raced that go through there. It was way colder though. In fact, at Valle Trinidad my pre run truck’s thermometer read 35 degrees!

ATV Scene: Speaking of Nick. Tell us the interesting story of his Baja 1000 journey.
Castro: I’m glad Nick’s alive and we can laugh about this, although he might not be laughing about it just yet. He raced with some guys from Brazil on a Raptor. They had problems that led to more problems. Their rear sprocket broke so Nick went to some village on a borrowed Suzuki 400. Someone told him that they had a junk Banshee there and maybe they would sell him the sprocket on it. He got there from a small access road, which had a lot of chase truck traffic on it – making it hard for him to finally get to the house that had the Banshee. Anyway, he got there and sure enough there was a Banshee sitting there, but the lady wouldn’t take $100.00 for the sprocket. He bid all the way to $200 for the sprocket! She still wouldn’t sell it to him! He got all pissed off and left in a hurry. Then on the way back to their broken down quad he went around a turn and crashed almost head on with a chase truck! They collided so hard that the wheel of the truck nearly broke off. He went flying over the truck like superman. Good for him he had protective gear on and only bruised his leg. That was pretty much the final straw for their team.

ATV Scene: What do you know about Wes Miller’s team?
Castro: I know they blew their motor up after leading the race for some time. He’s got the worst luck at the Baja. I feel bad for them. At least this year Little got to ride though (laughing), last year the quad never got to him. In fact it was Keith who took over the lead this year. At least he can say he led the Baja 1000 for a while.

ATV Scene: What’s it like to race on a factory backed team? Was Honda good to you?
Castro: Racing for Honda was really awesome! We even had all the engineers that designed the new 450R right there with us. It was great to go out and race the shit out of those quads with the insurance of all the hours of testing behind it. I mean we had bullet proof motors and equipment, extremely organized Honda pits that were there especially for us, the greatest riders I could possible race with, — what more can I say? It was awesome!

ATV Scene: How did you like the new 450R?
Castro: The 450R was a really strong. It has a really fast motor but more importantly it’s really easy to use the powerband. Since we left it at the stock width and went with taller tires it was a little tipsy but the shocks are a work of art. They didn’t fade throughout the whole race.

ATV Scene: Any close calls out there?
Castro: I only had a couple of close calls coming into San Felipe. There was a few booby traps that almost got me.

ATV Scene: Honda was filming you guys from a helicopter. What’s it like racing under a helicopter, with your every move being watched?
Castro: I didn’t have the helicopter over me while I rode. There’s some law that says they can’t fly at night. Farr, Spaeth and Eichner had it above them though. Spaeth told me it was making him really nervous. He went down at a silt bed and felt embarrassed that they had him on video.

ATV Scene: Do you know what they are going to do with the footage? Can our readers see this anywhere?
Castro:I don’t know if the guys at Honda will release the video or not. I’ll try to find out.

ATV Scene: Who impressed you most on the team?
Castro: Everyone did a great job. Gregory made up for our poor starting position and passed a bunch of riders, Farr caught up to the Bombardier and passed him, where we went from third to second. Then Spaeth put us in the lead. Then I gave the team a 35 minute cushion. Finally, Eichner added to our lead at the end — where we finished 16th overall! We all did a great job!

It was the first time I met Tim, what a great guy! You know he picked the exact same wedding band as I did! He called me over to his van to show me something. He pulled out his ring and sure enough it was an exact match to mine, same design, type, color, everything! Platinum inside and out and gold in the middle, how weird is that? I got mine hand made in San Diego from a catalog with about 5,000 ring designs, it was pretty weird to see the same one on someone else. I said we have the same taste.

ATV Scene: How much did you win? Did Honda give you anything for the fine effort?
Castro: I haven’t got anything from the cash prize yet. Actually the purse isn’t that big but the accomplishment sure is. I’m going to ask Honda for a deal on a new 450R though. And I locked up a full ride for Golden West Cycle next year at the SCORE events and maybe the Best in the Desert series too.

ATV Scene: How did you guys celebrate the big victory?
Castro: We celebrated at the finish line with all the Japanese engineers. Then we all went for dinner on Saturday night before the awards ceremony. I’m still celebrating with my family now.

ATV Scene: Any last words.
Castro: I would like to thank Honda for giving me the chance. And my own sponsors Golden West Cycle, Duncan Racing International, Ricky Stator, Maxima Oils, South Bay Motorsports, O’neal and most importantly my wife and son for their support.

Tags:

Comments

comments