Martin Castelo’s New Deal
Share
Martin Castelo has had an eventful few months. At some point in the offseason the IBcorp Racing team, a program that was put together by people close to Castelo and eventually grew to include more riders and an online reality show, decided to cease operations. This was rather unexpected for the industry, as the team seemed stable, and its shutdown left Castelo and others without their usual place in the pit area. But not all hope was lost for Castelo in 2019; he leveraged some of his close friendships in the industry and managed to get amateur-minded race team BarX/Chaparral/FLY/Suzuki Factory Racing to support him through the opening five rounds of the 2019 Monster Energy Supercross Series in the 250 class. In the mud at San Diego Castelo put in a career-best sixth place finish in the Main Event, but it was his final day with the BarX squad and there were no confirmed fill-in rides for the Ecuadorian.
With that, Castelo hit the phones after San Diego in hopes of landing a spot with a team for the rest of the 250 West Coast season. His efforts paid off, as the JMC Motorsports Husqvarna team have confirmed support through the remaining rounds, which started in Atlanta for the 250 East-West Showdown. We spoke with Castelo about the new deal and the progression he has made through the last few seasons on Friday.
San Diego was a career-best finish in what was your last race with the former team. How quickly did things with JMC Motorsports come together? Because when we talked that night, it didn’t sound like you had a lot in the works.
The week before San Diego I told myself to just focus on the race. I talked to a few people, but not that many, and I did well at San Diego. On Monday after, I printed out a list of all the riders and teams and contacted everyone. I got a text back from everyone, but most said that they were in the middle of the season and didn’t have a budget for another rider or an injured rider. It came down to a couple of teams and JMC stepped up, so we got on the bike as soon as we could. I got four days of Supercross on it and I felt good, so we decided to come here to see how we could do.
They are in a unique spot, being in the Pacific Northwest but having riders in California and Oklahoma. Have you stayed in California through all of this?
Yeah, I stayed in California. They sent my mechanic and a practice bike down, so he stayed with me the whole time that I rode the bike. We tested as much as we could as fast as we could, so there was a lot of riding. We got a good setting right away and I told them it was good, but that it would take a few days for me to make the decision to race Atlanta.
How is it to learn a new group of people at the team and a new bike in a short amount of time?
I just met them all today [Laughs]. I had only met my mechanic, so that is that. The bike was a lot easier than I thought it would be to get used to. We had to go much, much stiffer in the shock; that was the main thing and we had to keep getting it rebuilt, just because the initial setting overall wasn’t stiff enough. We did the fork and shock, but kept working on the shock. After we hit it, it’s been good. This past week I rode as much as I could, three days, before flying out.
What is the plan for you now? Do you finish out the rest of the year or is this just for Supercross?
It’s just for Supercross because they don’t do outdoors, but I have an option of doing the first three outdoors with them. I want to do the full outdoor series, just because I feel like I did okay at the first few rounds last year and I feel like I can get better. I just need something consistent from today out, a bike I can learn and improve on every weekend.
When guys have a career-best finish and then something happens that sets their progress back, they can either fall apart or can use it as motivation. It’s clear you used this as motivation.
Yeah, for sure. I’m trying to make the best out of it and keep having fun on the bike. I love doing this and to do it, you have to do good. During the break I worked on everything that I could, even off the bike, to get better. I watched all of the races multiple times and I think that’s going to help.
Do you feel there is one thing you can credit this season to? You have progressed quite a lot in a few years and it shows.
I think it’s a little bit of everything, from learning the process to learning the tracks quicker to the testing. I’m not afraid to make a change on race day and I used to struggle with that a lot. Like, “What if it doesn’t work?” I would rather have had a not so good suspension setup or something, just because I knew it. So I think I’m just maturing.
Unfortunately for Castelo, a mechanical issue that the team could not correct saddled him in the heat race and he pulled out in the opening laps. His next race with the team will be in Seattle.
