Joel, who is from Ardgowan, near Oamaru, is current New Zealand junior 85cc motocross champion. He returned to the sport just two months before winning the title in April, after a 15-month absence because of a bout of arthritis that left him in severe pain.
Despite still taking medication for arthritis, he now had his sights set on turning professional, he said.
Having HLA-B27 reactive arthritis had left him with a calcified finger joint, but he was now ''on the other side of it'', he said.
''At the start it was really sore. I was on crutches at the end of year 8, but it soon came right with medication.''
He also lost 7kg during his struggle with arthritis. He had been riding motor bikes on the family farm since he was 3, and he still loved riding and the ''adrenaline rush'' of competitive motocross, Joel said.
He still remembered his first race in Invercargill, which was ''on the roughest track''.
''I got the bug then and started doing it more and more. It's just fun - I like riding.''
The national junior title was won not long after he crashed his motorbike while practising.
''Last year in February, I broke both my tibia and fibula. I did that at home, riding - I just cased a little jump and landed awkwardly on my leg.''
He had previously broken a collarbone while riding, he said.
Joel's father, Justin, said arthritis was now no great obstacle to Joel's ability to ride.
''Motocross is such a hard physical sport on your body that it was time for a break, really, and it didn't help when he was in pain,'' Mr Meikle said.
However, when the national championships came around, the family made a joint decision to get back into the sport, he said.
''We just said: 'Are you going to give it a go?' because he always had talent. So he had a race and he got the bug again.''
At present there is just one round to go in the Southern Series, the South Island's biggest motocross compe-tition, and Joel is well-placed in both the junior and senior sections, lying in fourth place in the seniors, and is yet to finish outside the top two in any race in the junior competition, including 10 first-place finishes and two second-place finishes.
Joel said he intended to move up to the under-21 level in next year's national finals in February.
