J Caster
Honda TRX700XX Pilot
With all the drama I see more and more on this site, I noticed I have been visiting it less and am not interested in the majority of the posts anymore. Why? I'm not into gossip. I really don't care who just bought this, who just sold that, who just wrecked something, who called who a name, who got dust on who, etc...........
I have learned people like to read stories (even if they will admit it or not!). All you have to do is look at the responses to Lucho's stories to understand this. I love reading the stories from Lucho (real or not) and from others about their racing.
Most of us that visit this site do so because we love desert racing. The Baja 1000 is coming up soon and there are lots of racers entered for all sorts of reasons. I thought it would be interesting to hear other racers stories about why they do what they do and what their goals are. Hopefully this will be one thread that stays away from all the drama and sticks to the passion of the sport.
I got this idea because I am currently taking a writing class for work. We were asked to write about ourselves and what makes us who we are. I wrote about reaching my goal of winning the Overall title at the Baja 1000.
Below is what I submitted for my writing class. Hopefully it will entertain some of you and at least give you an idea of who I am.
My name is Josh Caster.
I was given a writing assignment and was asked to write about what makes me who I am. I thought about this for awhile, decided to write about something I have been very passionate about and something that plays a big part of my life. It is about reaching a life-time goal of winning the Overall title at the Baja 1000 race.
Most people have never heard of the Baja 1000 race before, even though it is one of the most famous off-road races in the world. It has been running every year for over 40 years down the Baja California peninsula and is the longest non-stop point to point off-road race in the world. Many of the racers who start the race never make it to the finish due to the harshness of the terrain. The race runs through some of the most remote areas of the Baja peninsula before the racers finally make it to the finish line. Each year the course is different and every year the course offers more challenges to the racers. Just to finish the race is a great accomplishment that takes great planning, preparation, and training.
The 2009 Baja 1000 will be the first time I will be attending this race as a racer and not just a spectator. I have been to the race many times over the years, but this will be the first time I will be racing. Before I get too far ahead of myself, I want to give a little background about me and how I got involved in racing.
It all started with my Dad’s love of the desert. He would spend many weekends out in the desert riding ATVs and motorcycles and most of the time he would take my Mom and all of us kids along with him. Like a lot of families in Southern California, we would visit the local deserts or Baja almost every weekend during the winter months to enjoy riding ATVs.
I loved riding so much when I was younger; I would always be the first one awake in camp each morning just so I could start riding. It would still be dark in the morning when I was putting my gear on (if I hadn’t slept in it that night before, which happened most of the time) and then I would sit and wait for the sun to come up. As soon as it was light enough, I would be out there riding my ATV around camp for hours on end. I would only stop long enough to fill up the gas tank and maybe grab some food.
When I started getting a little bit older I moved from the ATV to a motorcycle. It was about this time, my Dad started taking me on long rides down in Baja. Some of these trips were to places most people visit when riding off-road in Baja and they included places like Mike’s Sky Ranch, Guadalupe Hot Springs, The Old Mill, Santo Tomas, San Felipe, Gonzaga Bay, The Sawmill, but we also visited other places that are less well known. I can’t think of any of those trips that were not an adventure with a bunch of stories I will never forget. Things like riding 50 miles with no lights in the middle of the night on my XR100, to being snowed on and not being able to see the road, to being rained on and riding through endless miles of muddy roads (never try Laguna Salada in the rain!), to riders crashing and breaking parts on their bikes or themselves. Many of these rides include other family members from brothers and sisters to uncles and cousins. Each ride was amazing and they are still something I look forward to every year.
One trip that has always stood out for me was when I was still very young and my family was camping on a beach in Baja that we would visit every year. We happened to be down there when they were running the Baja 500 race. The race course ran past our camp up the coast roads following the beaches and cliffs along the Pacific Ocean. I remember watching the racers go by on the motorcycles and ATVs, and thinking to myself I had never seen anyone go that fast before. Little did I know but I was hooked from that point on. I continued to visit the local deserts and Baja with my family. Some of the most fun I had was “racing” my uncle when out play riding.
I didn’t get the chance to see another race in Baja after that one trip for many years but luckily enough for me, my family moved to a new home a few years later and our new neighbors just happened to be one of the most famous families to race off-road cars in Baja. I took full advantage of this great opportunity and would join them at every Baja race I could from that point on, working in the pits and helping with anything that needed to be done.
While I learned a lot and really enjoyed helping out as part of the pit, I still couldn’t keep the thought out of my mind about those racers I had seen on the motorcycles and ATVs that day on the beach. I wanted to race a motorcycle down there just like I had seen those racers do that day.
At one of my first trips to the Baja 1000 I got the chance to attend the awards presentation, the day after the race. When walking in, the first thing I noticed was the trophies set up on the awards stage. Right in the front for everyone to see, there were three bronze Indians with the title at their feet that said “Overall”. I soon learned that these three trophies were given to the fastest overall motorcycle, overall ATV, and overall four-wheel vehicle for the race. The race flyer handed out included names of all those that have won the overall title, many of them had won multiple times. The list is surprisingly short for over 40 years of racing and this made me aware how tough it was to win the overall title, the bronze Indian and join this very select group of racers.
When I watched those racers receive their bronze Indians, I could see the pride and sense of accomplishment on their faces. They had just done something very few people in the world will ever get the chance to experience. It was their expressions that made me realize that not only did I want to race the Baja 1000, but I wanted to be added to that list of overall winners and have my very own bronze Indian.
During this time I quit riding motorcycles and started riding ATVs again for a change of pace. Soon I found out I was more comfortable riding an ATV than I ever was on a motorcycle. I was so comfortable on them that I finally decided to enter my first race. In January of 2008, I entered the novice class at a local desert race. I finished second place in my class and was hooked to racing even more so now. It is hard to explain the adrenalin and focus you get while racing. I continued to race at many of the local races and learned a lot in the process. Before the end of the year I had moved up to the expert class.
I continued to try and use these racing experiences to learn enough to one day try for my ultimate goal of winning the Baja 1000. At the end of the 2008 racing season I was offered the dream of a lifetime, the chance to race a Factory ATV. I entered the ironman class and would ride 150 miles in the Nevada desert on an ATV I had never ridden before. I knew I would have some eyes watching me during this race, so not only did I want to prove to them I could win but I also wanted to prove it to myself. At the end of the day, I had done what I set out to do, finishing at the top of my class a full 45 minutes ahead of second place and proving to myself I was just as fast as the other racers out there. Little did I know, but I had also proved enough to the other eyes watching me and I was offered a spot on the American Honda Factory team. With my goal of winning the Baja 1000 this was a dream come true.
American Honda has put more time, money, and hard work into winning the Baja 1000 than anyone I know, so having the chance to be a part of that team was truly amazing. Their teams are the one’s I had looked up to for years. Many of those racers on the overall winners list include riders for Honda. For me, it was like being handed the golden ticket.
I would be joining the Honda team for three races in Baja. The first was the San Felipe 250 and this race was in March. The second race was the Baja 500 in June and then we had the Baja 1000 in November. The Honda team had won every race the year before and were the championship winners, so going into the new season I knew they wanted to keep this title and it was now my job to help them do just that.
In March we headed south to San Felipe for my first race on the team and my first race in Baja. I can’t explain the excitement and fear I felt going to that race. Finally I was getting my chance to race in Baja, something I had been dreaming about for years, but then I also had the fear of letting the team down. Having team mates was something I wasn’t used to because I had finished all my other races solo. It is hard to describe the amount of work that goes into preparing for a race like this. You get a lot of different things going through your head all at once, but on race day I had never been so focused in my life. Everything else was tuned out and I only had one thing on my mind that day – racing! It is amazing how fast time can go by when you are that focused and my 95 miles of the course went by in the blink of an eye.
At the finish line I waited for what seemed like hours until the first ATV crossed the finish. I was instantly choked up when I saw it was our team who had just crossed the finish line and won the overall. That was one of the happiest moments in my life. The next day I got to walk on that stage with those bronze Indians and hold it up to the camera just like I had seen those racers do so many years before and just like them I had a smile from ear to ear.
Before long it was time for us to head south to Baja once again, this time for the Baja 500. I was still super excited about my first race and win in Baja, so I was really looking forward to this race. Just like the prior races, this race kept the team up for many late nights trying to prepare everything. I have had some pretty stressful days at work but nothing compares to getting ready for a race of this magnitude. Once you have finished a race in Baja and get the chance to feel the accomplishment of crossing that finish line, you want it again. The thrill of racing across the desolate areas of the Baja peninsula while the locals are standing on the side of the course screaming and cheering you on, is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced.
With lots of hard work and determination our team crossed the finish line once again in first place. That feeling I got when our ATV crossed the finish line first was just as great as the first time I saw it happen. I was living my dream and enjoying every minute of it. Unfortunately we found out a week after the race we had been penalized along with many other racers and our position had moved to second place. I was very disappointed but knew they couldn’t take away the sense of accomplishment I got from finishing that race.
While those races are great challenges, it is the Baja 1000 this November that I am really looking forward too. For me it is the ultimate race. I can not think of anything quite like it and I think that is what draws me to it. It is still months before the race date and already the team is preparing. This race means more to me that any other race I have ever participated in and I am looking forward to racing down those very same roads I saw those racers on so many years before.
In November I will get the opportunity to make one of my dreams come true. Just weeks ago our team learned American Honda would be pulling out of ATV racing for 2010 and this race will be the last one of many years of racing in Baja for them. While this is a disappointment to loose such a great sponsor, I am truly grateful for the opportunities they have given me this year and I am looking forward to making their last race in Baja, another record setting one.
Hopefully in November I will get to check winning the Overall title at the Baja 1000 off my list, so I can move on to other important goals I have set for my life. I do know anything can happen in Baja so if I don’t end up completing my goal this year I will be back again.
I have learned people like to read stories (even if they will admit it or not!). All you have to do is look at the responses to Lucho's stories to understand this. I love reading the stories from Lucho (real or not) and from others about their racing.
Most of us that visit this site do so because we love desert racing. The Baja 1000 is coming up soon and there are lots of racers entered for all sorts of reasons. I thought it would be interesting to hear other racers stories about why they do what they do and what their goals are. Hopefully this will be one thread that stays away from all the drama and sticks to the passion of the sport.
I got this idea because I am currently taking a writing class for work. We were asked to write about ourselves and what makes us who we are. I wrote about reaching my goal of winning the Overall title at the Baja 1000.
Below is what I submitted for my writing class. Hopefully it will entertain some of you and at least give you an idea of who I am.
My name is Josh Caster.
I was given a writing assignment and was asked to write about what makes me who I am. I thought about this for awhile, decided to write about something I have been very passionate about and something that plays a big part of my life. It is about reaching a life-time goal of winning the Overall title at the Baja 1000 race.
Most people have never heard of the Baja 1000 race before, even though it is one of the most famous off-road races in the world. It has been running every year for over 40 years down the Baja California peninsula and is the longest non-stop point to point off-road race in the world. Many of the racers who start the race never make it to the finish due to the harshness of the terrain. The race runs through some of the most remote areas of the Baja peninsula before the racers finally make it to the finish line. Each year the course is different and every year the course offers more challenges to the racers. Just to finish the race is a great accomplishment that takes great planning, preparation, and training.
The 2009 Baja 1000 will be the first time I will be attending this race as a racer and not just a spectator. I have been to the race many times over the years, but this will be the first time I will be racing. Before I get too far ahead of myself, I want to give a little background about me and how I got involved in racing.
It all started with my Dad’s love of the desert. He would spend many weekends out in the desert riding ATVs and motorcycles and most of the time he would take my Mom and all of us kids along with him. Like a lot of families in Southern California, we would visit the local deserts or Baja almost every weekend during the winter months to enjoy riding ATVs.
I loved riding so much when I was younger; I would always be the first one awake in camp each morning just so I could start riding. It would still be dark in the morning when I was putting my gear on (if I hadn’t slept in it that night before, which happened most of the time) and then I would sit and wait for the sun to come up. As soon as it was light enough, I would be out there riding my ATV around camp for hours on end. I would only stop long enough to fill up the gas tank and maybe grab some food.
When I started getting a little bit older I moved from the ATV to a motorcycle. It was about this time, my Dad started taking me on long rides down in Baja. Some of these trips were to places most people visit when riding off-road in Baja and they included places like Mike’s Sky Ranch, Guadalupe Hot Springs, The Old Mill, Santo Tomas, San Felipe, Gonzaga Bay, The Sawmill, but we also visited other places that are less well known. I can’t think of any of those trips that were not an adventure with a bunch of stories I will never forget. Things like riding 50 miles with no lights in the middle of the night on my XR100, to being snowed on and not being able to see the road, to being rained on and riding through endless miles of muddy roads (never try Laguna Salada in the rain!), to riders crashing and breaking parts on their bikes or themselves. Many of these rides include other family members from brothers and sisters to uncles and cousins. Each ride was amazing and they are still something I look forward to every year.
One trip that has always stood out for me was when I was still very young and my family was camping on a beach in Baja that we would visit every year. We happened to be down there when they were running the Baja 500 race. The race course ran past our camp up the coast roads following the beaches and cliffs along the Pacific Ocean. I remember watching the racers go by on the motorcycles and ATVs, and thinking to myself I had never seen anyone go that fast before. Little did I know but I was hooked from that point on. I continued to visit the local deserts and Baja with my family. Some of the most fun I had was “racing” my uncle when out play riding.
I didn’t get the chance to see another race in Baja after that one trip for many years but luckily enough for me, my family moved to a new home a few years later and our new neighbors just happened to be one of the most famous families to race off-road cars in Baja. I took full advantage of this great opportunity and would join them at every Baja race I could from that point on, working in the pits and helping with anything that needed to be done.
While I learned a lot and really enjoyed helping out as part of the pit, I still couldn’t keep the thought out of my mind about those racers I had seen on the motorcycles and ATVs that day on the beach. I wanted to race a motorcycle down there just like I had seen those racers do that day.
At one of my first trips to the Baja 1000 I got the chance to attend the awards presentation, the day after the race. When walking in, the first thing I noticed was the trophies set up on the awards stage. Right in the front for everyone to see, there were three bronze Indians with the title at their feet that said “Overall”. I soon learned that these three trophies were given to the fastest overall motorcycle, overall ATV, and overall four-wheel vehicle for the race. The race flyer handed out included names of all those that have won the overall title, many of them had won multiple times. The list is surprisingly short for over 40 years of racing and this made me aware how tough it was to win the overall title, the bronze Indian and join this very select group of racers.
When I watched those racers receive their bronze Indians, I could see the pride and sense of accomplishment on their faces. They had just done something very few people in the world will ever get the chance to experience. It was their expressions that made me realize that not only did I want to race the Baja 1000, but I wanted to be added to that list of overall winners and have my very own bronze Indian.
During this time I quit riding motorcycles and started riding ATVs again for a change of pace. Soon I found out I was more comfortable riding an ATV than I ever was on a motorcycle. I was so comfortable on them that I finally decided to enter my first race. In January of 2008, I entered the novice class at a local desert race. I finished second place in my class and was hooked to racing even more so now. It is hard to explain the adrenalin and focus you get while racing. I continued to race at many of the local races and learned a lot in the process. Before the end of the year I had moved up to the expert class.
I continued to try and use these racing experiences to learn enough to one day try for my ultimate goal of winning the Baja 1000. At the end of the 2008 racing season I was offered the dream of a lifetime, the chance to race a Factory ATV. I entered the ironman class and would ride 150 miles in the Nevada desert on an ATV I had never ridden before. I knew I would have some eyes watching me during this race, so not only did I want to prove to them I could win but I also wanted to prove it to myself. At the end of the day, I had done what I set out to do, finishing at the top of my class a full 45 minutes ahead of second place and proving to myself I was just as fast as the other racers out there. Little did I know, but I had also proved enough to the other eyes watching me and I was offered a spot on the American Honda Factory team. With my goal of winning the Baja 1000 this was a dream come true.
American Honda has put more time, money, and hard work into winning the Baja 1000 than anyone I know, so having the chance to be a part of that team was truly amazing. Their teams are the one’s I had looked up to for years. Many of those racers on the overall winners list include riders for Honda. For me, it was like being handed the golden ticket.
I would be joining the Honda team for three races in Baja. The first was the San Felipe 250 and this race was in March. The second race was the Baja 500 in June and then we had the Baja 1000 in November. The Honda team had won every race the year before and were the championship winners, so going into the new season I knew they wanted to keep this title and it was now my job to help them do just that.
In March we headed south to San Felipe for my first race on the team and my first race in Baja. I can’t explain the excitement and fear I felt going to that race. Finally I was getting my chance to race in Baja, something I had been dreaming about for years, but then I also had the fear of letting the team down. Having team mates was something I wasn’t used to because I had finished all my other races solo. It is hard to describe the amount of work that goes into preparing for a race like this. You get a lot of different things going through your head all at once, but on race day I had never been so focused in my life. Everything else was tuned out and I only had one thing on my mind that day – racing! It is amazing how fast time can go by when you are that focused and my 95 miles of the course went by in the blink of an eye.
At the finish line I waited for what seemed like hours until the first ATV crossed the finish. I was instantly choked up when I saw it was our team who had just crossed the finish line and won the overall. That was one of the happiest moments in my life. The next day I got to walk on that stage with those bronze Indians and hold it up to the camera just like I had seen those racers do so many years before and just like them I had a smile from ear to ear.
Before long it was time for us to head south to Baja once again, this time for the Baja 500. I was still super excited about my first race and win in Baja, so I was really looking forward to this race. Just like the prior races, this race kept the team up for many late nights trying to prepare everything. I have had some pretty stressful days at work but nothing compares to getting ready for a race of this magnitude. Once you have finished a race in Baja and get the chance to feel the accomplishment of crossing that finish line, you want it again. The thrill of racing across the desolate areas of the Baja peninsula while the locals are standing on the side of the course screaming and cheering you on, is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced.
With lots of hard work and determination our team crossed the finish line once again in first place. That feeling I got when our ATV crossed the finish line first was just as great as the first time I saw it happen. I was living my dream and enjoying every minute of it. Unfortunately we found out a week after the race we had been penalized along with many other racers and our position had moved to second place. I was very disappointed but knew they couldn’t take away the sense of accomplishment I got from finishing that race.
While those races are great challenges, it is the Baja 1000 this November that I am really looking forward too. For me it is the ultimate race. I can not think of anything quite like it and I think that is what draws me to it. It is still months before the race date and already the team is preparing. This race means more to me that any other race I have ever participated in and I am looking forward to racing down those very same roads I saw those racers on so many years before.
In November I will get the opportunity to make one of my dreams come true. Just weeks ago our team learned American Honda would be pulling out of ATV racing for 2010 and this race will be the last one of many years of racing in Baja for them. While this is a disappointment to loose such a great sponsor, I am truly grateful for the opportunities they have given me this year and I am looking forward to making their last race in Baja, another record setting one.
Hopefully in November I will get to check winning the Overall title at the Baja 1000 off my list, so I can move on to other important goals I have set for my life. I do know anything can happen in Baja so if I don’t end up completing my goal this year I will be back again.
