Personal History
My name is Justin Almeida and I have been riding for about 10 years now and racing for 4. I started off with a mx80, lets talk about a tank, I lost it due to a baby sitter running it through my dads shop not in but through it. Didn’t take me much time to get another bike and that’s when I got a kx60 and road it until I found out I was going to be moving to Hawaii and couldn’t take it with me. So I ended up selling that bike and took a few years off due to other activities like surfing. It wasn’t until we moved back and I was almost out of high school when I got into racing street bikes. It was a short experience that only lasted for two years (05 and 06) and decided to quit that due to the cost of it and trying to complete college courses in the medical field was not easy. At that time it was when I went back to riding dirt again. I ended up getting a yz 125 and hammered down on that for a few years until I sold that for my first 250f. This is when I started racing again and felt that I would excel in it finally. My first year was rough as I raced here at a local track here in Spokane, WA (Extreme Motorsports). After my first year of racing, I experienced a badly broken collar bone in 2008 that required surgery and 3 months of recovery that still to this day still requires another surgery. After my recovery that summer I got into the mini bike scene and I tended to grow very fond of it and enjoyed it a lot as so did everyone else that raced with me. I raced Salem Mini Moto, Mt. View Mini Moto National, Clark County Mini Moto all multiple times. We then proceeded to make a Mini Moto team for the North West (Hamilton Glass Race Team/ TNT Minis) that has become a dominating team in the Mini Moto scene in our area. I have always enjoyed being around bikes as I use to work for a local shop for about a year and a half before it went under. But in the time of being there I learned lots and grew to know lots of other riders and became very fond of Suzuki's. This last year I can’t say was my best as I was in a practice at a private track in our area I took a bad crash that broke my ankle that required 3 surgeries and 7 months of recovery. At this point in life I learned a lot about myself and in my down time studied everything I could to help keep myself from having these injuries repeat. The biggest thing for me was trying to learn how to not hurt my ankle again because of the fact I was missing bone in my fibula and that it was going to take time for it to heal. As we all know any rider that is injured the only thing you can think about is getting back on the bike, which didn’t take long to figure out that there was ways around it but that’s besides the fact. So my goals for the next season was to start getting all the correct gear and take the right measures that I had really never taken into consideration before. My workouts became important to me and putting in the time on the bike to get comfortable again did as well. I was able to make it through the whole 2011 year with no major crashes and with the goal in mind of just staying consistent and pushing myself as far as I could with out getting hurt and was successful. Now knowing that I can do that and hitting the gym 4 days a week and biking 20 miles a day after I get off work while watching all the Transworld and Racer X hype, I was convinced that this year’s goal was to do something I never thought I would ever try. This would be for me to qualify for Loretta Lynn’s. I was told I have a good shot at it and if I can stick to a routine I should have a chance. I have people ready to get me there and ready to train and push me harder then I have ever. So for 2012 the plan is to make it to Loretta Lynn’s.
Riding Goals
The last year was what I though a good recovery year, I got really comfortable on my bike and was able to compete with some of the top 250b riders in our area. Do to work I was not able to make it out to the races every Saturday. I was able to make enough to get me ready for the 2012 season. I have been in the gym 3 times a week for the last 6 months and feel that I am more then ready to take on the 2012 season with biking almost 20miles a day and switching up my workouts to accommodate the sport. My health is phenomenal for once and my riding abilities have almost tripled in the last couple years and hope to step it up this year. I am looking forward to the new season and going to put my head down and charge hard as my goals have not been reached yet. The biggest one for me is making it to Loretta Lynn’s this year.
Competitive Highlights
One of my biggest highlights to this point was my first mini moto race to where I Jumped over the 1st place rider for the “W”. Another would be back when I was racing sport bikes and I was at PIR and was able to Win my first ever sport bike race. Lastly would be my first race back on a 250f I took the hole shot at airway and was able to check out and take a “W”. This meant a ton to me because of the injuries that I Kept having and not ever being able to seem to make it through a season without getting hurt. Helped build my confidence and make me realize that I can do it and all my hard work to get healthy again paid off. There are so many more but all the guys that I ride with and race with are so competitive that it is a back and forth go around for all of us. We learn from each other and that is how we all became the riders we are today.