Justin Lambert was born in Bishop, CA, and moved to Bakersfield, CA when he was 4 years old. Motorsports was in the DNA, as Justin’s father was a successful builder of drag boats, drag cars, racing engines, and everything related. At 15 years old, Justin and his dad bought his first car, a 1956 Chevy 210 Sedan in bad shape that the previous owner was barely able to drive daily. With his dad’s direction, Justin immediately tore the car down to the bare frame and quickly became a gearhead himself. In 6 months he and his father rebuilt the car, with modifications of course, into a ‘high school hot rod’ that Justin started driving to high school at 16 years old (and a little street racing on the weekends).

After graduating high school, Justin spent some time at the local community college while exploring what path lay ahead of him, and decided to apply to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the Mechanical Engineering program. After much determination, Justin was accepted into the program, moved to San Luis Obispo, and worked at a machine shop learning new skills while taking a full schedule at Cal Poly. Justin graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree and learned that the average engineering student did not have the mechanical knowledge and ability that he had; something special must be in the future. 

Fresh out of college, Justin was hired as an engineer at a San Luis Obispo company designing and building items for Boeing airplanes and Bombardier trains, but there was an unsettled desire for more out of life. Out of chance, he was doing some outside design work which veered off into Justin founding Cognito Motorsports in a 3,000 sq. ft chicken coop in Arroyo Grande, CA in 2001 – designing and building truck lift kits after his day job. When the 9/11/2001 World Trade Center tragedy happened, the company Justin was working for started getting Boeing contracts canceled, and he was laid off from work, forcing him the opportunity to go all in on Cognito Motorsports. Borrowing from every credit card he could get his hands on, Justin was able to grow the company enough to work its way out of the chicken coop in 2004 and into a 2,500 sq. ft shop back in his hometown of Bakersfield, California.

It has taken over 20 years, and Justin has built a team that has brought Cognito Motorsports to soaring growth and into 60,000 sq ft of manufacturing, warehouse, and office space. Cognito specializes in designing and manufacturing leveling kits, lift kits, and steering upgrades for trucks and SUVs, as well as suspension kits and other accessories for UTVs. Along the way, Justin picked up UTV desert racing as a passion and experienced success winning huge events such as the Baja 1000, Baja 500, San Felipe 250, Vegas to Reno, UTV World Championships, The Mint 400, and more.