CRANBERRY TWP — Josh Heintz gave up on his dream for a few years.

He caught it anyway.

Heintz, 29, of Cranberry Township is making his professional motocross debut this weekend at the Highpoint National in Mount Morris. The dirt-bike race is part of the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship, an off-road motorcycle series that travels across the country for 12 weekends each summer.

“We're going to do six races this year,” Heintz said. “We'll do all of the East Coast rounds.”

His goal this weekend is simply to qualify for the feature race “and see how it goes from there.

“We didn't come here to watch,” Heintz added.

His father never raced dirt bikes, but he did a lot of trail riding. When Heintz was 4, he got a “hand-me-down” dirt bike after his 5-year-old brother Luke got a new one.

“I learned how to ride a dirt bike before I learned to ride a bicycle,” Heintz said.

He rode laps around his family's yard for a few years before deciding to race competitively. While in high school at North Allegheny, he qualified for the prestigious Loretta Lynn Nationals in Tennessee.

Later that same year, Heintz injured his back and broke a leg in a dirt bike racing accident.

“That made me sit back and think,” he admitted. “Do I really want to make a career of this? All through rehab, I didn't know if I'd go back to racing.”

Heintz went to Penn State University in the fall of 2007 and majored in mechanical engineering. He graduated with a degree in that field in 2011.

“I rode my bike maybe twice a month, didn't race at all through those years ... I thought all of that was behind me,” he said.

When he came back to the Cranberry area after graduation, “I was around it again.”

And he started racing again.

Heintz qualified for the Loretta Lynn Nationals again in 2015 and placed 20th.

“That was against some fast company,” he said. “My love for the sport, that adrenaline ... It all came back.”

It had a little extra nudge, too.

Heintz had always taken pride in working out and staying in shape. After successfully training himself for years, he received his personal training certification and began training others.

While doing so, JT McDonald, his race team manager, said Heintz received further motivation.

“He felt like he couldn't tell athletes he trained to chase their dream when he wasn't chasing his own,” McDonald said.

So Heintz went after it.

To earn a pro card in the American Motocross Association (AMA), he had to earn 60 points in an 18-month period competing in pro-am races.

“If you don't accumulate the necessary points in that period of time, the slate is wiped clean and you start over,” McDonald said.

While working fulltime as a project engineer in the Pittsburgh area — a job that requires out-of-town travel — Heintz participated in races in Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. He tore his labrum in a race at Hurricane Hills in Clifford, Pa.

He managed to place ninth overall despite the injury — but was five points shy of a pro card with only one available race left.

“The Baja Brawl was in Michigan in two months,” Heintz recalled. “With my traing background, I knew how to rehab my shoulder quickly.

“I couldn't ride for weeks. I finally got back on the bike two weeks before the race and practiced like crazy every day.”

He finished among the top 25 in a 55-plus race field at the Baja Brawl and earned his pro card.

“People don't realize how hard it is to get that card,” McDonald said. “For hundred people try for it every year, 15 to 20 actually get it. Only five or 10 of them actually use it.”

Heintz plans on using his.

“My goal was to get here. I've been so focused on that, I haven't thought about anything beyond this point.

“I'm 29. The clock is ticking. I'll show up at races, try to qualify and see where it goes. But I'm here. I've been waiting for this all my life.”