Our old friend, Eric Johnson did this cool interview with Justin Hill speaking on the eve of the 2025 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship round set for this Saturday night at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.

“The biggest jump in the world is going from being really good to elite,” explained the veteran Hill, who has been at it in AMA Pro Racing since his rookie season in 2013, and who along the way picked up the 2017 AMA Supercross Championship 250SX West title. “I might sound nuts, but I’m kind of going to Tampa to win.”

The No. 46 racer for Team Tedder/Monster Energy Racing, Hill, now nearing age 30, has posted up an excellent 2025 supercross campaign, placing eighth, fourteenth, fifteenth and an excellent sixth at Anaheim 1, San Diego, Anaheim 2 and Glendale, respectively. Sixth overall on the Team Tedder/Monster Energy Racing KTM in Arizona, Hill charged to highly impressive 8-10-7 moto scores while competing and holding his own amongst the best supercross athletes on Planet Earth.

“I’m headed back from Arizona now,” explained Hill this week, starting to turn his attentions over to Raymond James Stadium in Florida. “We stayed and we were intending on riding this week. My mechanic had to rip back. We kind of had some what have yous go on with engines because I threw an engine at San Diego when I had that 14th place because my plate fell off in the first turn crash. Then from there the filter fell out. So I was riding the bike with it just sucking sand and dirt. I can’t even believe the bike made it. At the end the bike was ruined, but I finished the race with a pit stop. So we had some stuff that we had to do. We had to work double time and get some engines back over to Mitch Payton so that we could get some engines back into rotation. Other than that, I mean we were just going to hang out in Arizona and just ride all week this week.

“I pulled my calf pretty bad in the first main on Saturday over in Phoenix,” continued Hill. “I kind of thought it was over because it hurt so bad. I felt like it was just popping. Dr. Navarro just taped me up really good and said, ‘I think it’s going to hold up.’ I said, Okay, if you say so.’ So I’ve kept it going. It was all a pretty fun week, honestly.”

Slotted-in at eleventh in Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship points four rounds into the ’25 racing season, Hill has found himself fiercely competitive and holding station among the front runners come main event time, the Yoncalla, Oregon native believes he is right where he needs to be in the football and baseball stadiums of the motorsport.

“It has been good,” smiled Hill. “I got through the San Diego race, and with the way that I felt that night, I think I could have had a top five finish. I felt like I was really onto something. Then we go to A2, that’s when I finally came down with what everybody had. I just felt like death. I had just no energy. I could barely drum up the energy to ride the bike. I just felt so drained. So obviously that was just a really tough night. I just struggled a lot getting my body doing what I wanted it to be doing. Man, that’s really it. A1, I was like, ‘Okay, that’s good. Good start. This is right where I want to be at the beginning. Alright, it’s on. We’re going up from here.’ Now, after round four, this is where I wanted to be after round two, you know? But it’s good. I’m happy. In that process I’ve learned so much in two weeks. I can’t complain about where I’m at. I think the way that I’m doing this sport now, I’m only going to get better. I’m just looking forward to it. As long as I keep plugging away and keep moving and just keep believing that I can be the guy that’s going to get even better, I’m good with everything. If everyone thinks that you should not be able to beat certain people while racing, over time, you start to believe that too. And that’s because this is the toughest spot in the world. It’s hard to get your mind aligned with what you’re doing and just believing, ‘Oh no, I can be better than these guys. I can be great.’ The biggest jump in the world is going from being really good to elite. It’s just such an interesting thing. Mentally, I’m in an awesome place.

“You know EJ, I do things so differently now,” furthered Hill. “I’ve allowed myself to throw all those past experiences and past doubts in the trash. I know I’m doing it all now. It’s hard to that because I have so many years of racing engrained in me and there are so many things that you become accustomed to. I really try not to become accustomed to the same things that hurt my racing and hold me back. That’s the hard part. That’s what I’m working on. But my confidence is building and I feel it. I feel it every weekend. There are just little pieces that are more and more obtainable.”

Hill comes straight off a fighting sixth place overall finish over at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona where and now hopes and plans to further optimize his speed and momentum as he heads East.

“That start in the final main at Glendale,” said Hill, “That was the very first start where I actually leaked out front and passed the guys. I actually got to the first turn at the same time as the leaders. I had a really garbage gate pick on the far outside, but with that being said, that was the very first time that I entered that corner with the guys. I learned and changed a couple of major things. That didn’t seem major in my head, but then I did them and I’m like, ‘Oh, those are major changes.’ So now I know how I’m going to start this weekend in Tampa. If I can just keep that same routine that I just learned in place, I think my starts are going to improve like crazy. That can be huge for me.

“I’m now going to a place, Tampa, Florida, a place where I have honestly had some really killer races,” continued on Hill. “There is something about it and something about Tampa. I walk in that stadium and that bid old, wrecked pirate ship and I’m like, ‘You know what? This place is cool.’ I just always feel like it is cool in there. It looks like a really good track. It has got a lot of those degreed turns, which I like a lot. And this is funny EJ. I don’t know if you remember this race, but in 2018 I jumped up and raced the 450 for a couple of races. That was when I won my first heat on the big bike and I battled for the lead in the main before I fell over. But it was a really good race as far as just showing my speed and potential and all that. That finish line section, and the section leading into it, is like the same layout. I look at that Tampa tack and think, ‘That’s exactly what that track looked like in 2018.’ Some of the track is different, obviously, but the things that I remember about the track are literally the same as this weekend’s track. So it’s just a weird little thing and in my head, I’m like, ‘I’m really excited about this.’ I might sound nuts, but I’m kind of going there to win.”

A key variable in Justin Hill’s on-track success thus far in ’25 is that the veteran acer has now allowed himself to get intimidated or even shook by the full-on works racers and teams he lines up against every Saturday night.

“It’s hard to operate thinking about who is who and who is where,” Hill reasoned. “That’s what I’m trying to get away from. If I get away from that and just go, ‘Okay, I’m passing this guy. I’m going for it.’ I did that this past weekend with what I had. I got eighth in the fist moto, and the second moto I got tenth in. I spent half that race trying to feel my calf out. And then just to clear the air, I definitely hit that big triple jump across the start first. I only say that because I saw that jump on the track layout and I built the layout on the video game. From that, I was jumping that jump on the video game since Sunday of last week. While I was doing that, I said to myself, ‘Dude, that jump is possible and I’m going to show up and I’m going to do it.’ I had to claim that one because I had it in my head for so long. In the third moto I was able to be consistent enough and stay in it enough in the final moto to place seventh. Yeah, I’m pretty happy. All that being said, I got a lot of confidence from this weekend. If I can just get a clean weekend again where I can put all the pieces together without any of these smaller issues, I have zero reservations about running away with it. I mean that’s where my head is that. Hopefully it happens.

“What I’ve learned the most from these last couple weeks, is just how I structure everything,” 5’ 8”, 154-pound Hill went on. “I have a killer team. Right now I have got three coaches that I work with right now. I have two coaches off the bike, and I have Jay Whipple, of course, on the bike. I’ve got all these guys. We are all in a conversation together weekly and going, ‘Okay, what can we do and how can we structure this?’ My one guy, Taylor Ros, just has all of my numbers. I wear a watch 24/7 and he has all my numbers and he can tell what’s going on with me. He can tell what’s happening, but I still have to tell him how I feel. I still have to give him the other pieces of data. With my stubborn ass, after San Diego I was pretty frustrated and saying, ‘Man, that should have been great and it sucks. Let’s just bomb it and get after it this week and make next week even better.’ That’s me throwing all of the pieces that we used to get there out the window. That’s what that is. That’s what I did and I immediately felt the problems that came with that. Like I showed up to Anaheim 2 and I was already feeling a little something, but I didn’t tell anybody, ‘Oh, I’m feeling this way.’ I ignored all that and I went old school. I leaned that I could complicate things easier rather than make big gains. Everything that I’m doing now is what I should be doing. It’s easy to stray away on the life side. That used to be the case with me. Now, it’s like I’m more likely to go a little bit overboard. I need to be careful with that, too. This is a happy medium. I know that if I follow everything that we are doing, that is where I’ll be. That’s my big lesson in the last couple of weeks. If I do it, I think I’ll feel good all year. We’ve got thirteen rounds to go and I just feel like back to where I felt in December. I felt really good and really ready to go. Physically, I feel like I’m back to where I was in December. That is a really good feeling. I was doing so many 25-minute motos. It was like, ‘There is not a moto on Earth that can hurt me right now.’ Conditioning-wise, that’s how I feel.

Eleventh in points and consistently among the front runners in heat races and main events, Hill is gaining confidence with each and every top 10.

“Yes, for sure I feel good about the racing,” said Hill. “Like I said, there is a lot that went into getting my head where it us. And it is a head game. I’ve been close in this kind of conditioning before. I think that I have had bikes that have worked this good before. I think there has been a lot of things that have happened to me in my career that maybe match this, but I don’t think my head has ever been this strong. Right now, I think I mop myself in any other year of my career. It’s pretty crazy to feel that way because I’m kind of old.”