Reluctantly retiring racer

When Jimmy LaMastus started racing dirt bikes at age 5, he showed up at events wearing overalls, cowboy boots and a number duct-taped to his shirt.

That was 23 years ago when the future North Idaho motocross professional was just getting revved up.

It took some time to win, but three years after LaMastus began racing, he was bringing in sponsors. By 1990, he had won third place in a national competition in Las Vegas.

Since then, the Post Falls High School graduate has won hundreds of local motocross competitions, four-stroke national competitions, more than a dozen Idaho state championships and the Costa Rica Supercross.

But a series of injuries recently led LaMastus, 28, to hang up his helmet and retire from professional riding.

“It’s been a long road,” said LaMastus, who recently moved to Hayden after living most of his life in Post Falls. “After 25 years of riding every day, every weekend, my body’s saying, ‘I’ve had enough.’ “

LaMastus, who moved to Post Falls from Walla Walla in 1993, turned professional at age 15. He’s been a fixture in the local – and national – racing community, ranking as high as fourth nationally. He has ridden in extreme-sports movies and been featured on television.

“Jimmy has contributed to the sport basically by being a good sport, being a really, really good competitor and being an example to young people to try to emulate,” said Mike McAlister, owner of Motion Sports in Coeur d’Alene.

LaMastus planned a retirement send-off, riding one last time at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds in August.

It was a rude going-away party. LaMastus came up short on a triple jump, didn’t bail out in time and smacked the dirt, breaking his clavicle and some ribs, collapsing part of a lung and bruising his brain.

He has received get-well letters from local kids, and his sister and his fiancée set up a bank account for donations to help with medical and hospital bills.

But LaMastus still is hoping for another ride.

“It’s not me to go out the way it happened at the fair,” said LaMastus, who works on all-terrain vehicles out of Motion Sports.

LaMastus didn’t break a bone riding until age 18. But now he has 48 screws, six plates and four pins on the right side of his body after a string of injuries, LaMastus said.

McAlister, of Motion Sports, describes LaMastus as a fierce competitor in motocross (outdoor) and supercross (indoor) events. In outdoor races, riders loop the jump-filled dirt course for more than half an hour at speeds up to 50 mph.

During a race in Canada, LaMastus and McAlister scoped out the course ahead of time and found a double jump that could be stretched into a triple. LaMastus was competing against some top names in the field, and during the last round, he jumped it as a triple – over the other riders to win the race, McAlister recalled.

“It was awesome,” McAlister said. “That’s the competitor that Jimmy is.”

LaMastus is passing on that same competitive drive to his two sons, 6-year-old Carson and 4-year-old Holden.

Carson is beginning to race, and he has the potential to pass up his father, LaMastus said proudly.

“He’s my protégé,” said LaMastus, who inherited the love of motorcycles from his father, Mike LaMastus, who still is riding and racing at age 52.

It isn’t easy to let go of the sport that has been a mainstay of his life, Jimmy LaMastus said.

“I sit at home and get teary-eyed sometimes thinking about it,” he said.

“You ride the bike and you have no worries. It’s just you and the motorcycle and wanting to win.”