Casper Doctor Now Official Orthopedic Partner, Provider For Pro Motocross Racing

Dr. Joseph McGinley has successful orthopedic clinics in Gillette and Casper, Wyoming, and has climbed the tallest mountains on six of seven continents, but never thought he’d be a major player on the Pro Motocross circuit.

To be clear, McGinley has long been a fan of motocross sports — and still is.

Blame it on all those high-flying stunts, the fancy little air twists when riders go airborne after sharp turns or clearing downward slopes, as well as just racing full throttle on a dirt bike that’s become the equivalent of a two-wheeled Formula 1 lean, mean, racing machine.

In fact, McGinley wasn’t just a fan.

Back in the day, he was a rider, and a regular on the motocross circuit.

“I loved the sport, and I was pretty good at it,” McGinley said. “But I realized I was never going to make a living off of it, and a lot of people would get hurt, too.”

McGinley realized medical school would be much more practical. So, he gave up the sport he loved for a new and different passion — the medical profession. More specifically, musculoskeletal radiography and, ultimately, orthopedics.

McGinley never dreamed when he put motocross on the back burner that his chosen career was ultimately going to wrap right back around to his old passion for motocross sports.

But that’s exactly what’s happened. Today, McGinley has become a name brand on the circuit as the official orthopedic partner and provider for Pro Motocross racing.

In that role, McGinley is part of the weekly podcast, the SMX Insider, where he gives updates on racer injuries at the pro level, and talks about what’s involved in their recovery.

In the summer, he appears at Pro Motocross Championship races across the country, where he does rider seminars on injury prevention, as well as regular television appearances talking about rider injuries and recovery plans.

He’s also treated some of the biggest stars on the circuit — and he’s got all kinds of racing jerseys hanging on the walls of his clinic in Casper to prove it.

That includes the Superman of Superbikes, Jake Gagne, who sent along his championship riding suit, no less, and world-renowned off-road racer Cody Webb, who has won multiple Enduro championships, as well as many others.

McGinley Has His Own Fan Club

Many motocross racing fans now recognize McGinley when he’s at the races, walking around.

“I get patients all the time asking about not only motocross injuries, but they’ll call up and say, ‘Hey, you know, I have knee arthritis, how can I get that treated?’” McGinley said.

And it’s not a stretch to say that many of motocross’ biggest stars are also part of McGinley’s own unofficial fan club.

That’s creating a lot of visibility not just for the McGinley clinic in Casper, and his newer clinic in Gillette, but also for Wyoming itself.

“About 60 to 70% of our patients are out of state,” McGinley said. “So, we’re seeing a lot of patients fly into Casper for medical treatment, and then they’re spending time in Wyoming and seeing the beauty of our state. They’re going downtown, shopping at the stores and restaurants.”

That kind of trend has been helpful for the local economies of both Casper and Gillette, McGinley said, in addition to the overall benefit of having such cutting edge, excellent care available at two locations in Wyoming.

Going For It

McGinley’s return to motocross wasn’t part of a conscious plan. It followed a circuitous route that he never could have foreseen back when he was starting out in medical school.

“It just sort of happened,” McGinley said. “My background is mechanical engineering, and that engineering background is really my passion in medicine — creating solutions for patients that are innovative, safer, less costly, and that gets them back out to their activities.”

For his undergraduate degree in engineering, he focused on biomechanics. Then, in medical school, he specialized in musculoskeletal radiology, a field that involves advanced medical imaging.

“I really saw that as the future of orthopedics, as interventional orthopedics,” McGinley said. “And as I was coming through my training and residency and fellowship, products kept getting developed that were minimizing, as far as the approach, for a lot of orthopedic problems.”

All that made musculoskeletal radiology an exciting slice of medicine, so McGinley dove right in, eventually developing some of his very own patentable products and procedures to minimize invasive surgeries and maximize better health outcomes.

“Now we’re sort of the leader in the field,” McGinley said. “We get opportunities to get products before anyone else.

“And what it’s leading to is, instead of having invasive surgeries where you’re put under general anesthesia and you have several weeks of downtime,” McGinley continued, “We’re doing a lot of these procedures in the office and you’re back to work in two, three days with no stitches, no sedation, nothing.”

Orthopedics as a whole is now trending in that direction, and the McGinley clinic has been helping lead the way.

“One of the biggest examples is carpal tunnel release,” McGinley said. “We have a catheter we use to release the carpal tunnel. It takes five minutes and patients are typically back to work in 48 hours, no stitches.”

Traditional treatments, on the other hand, mean being unable to work for weeks.

McGinley has so far done about a thousand of these minimally invasive procedures for carpal tunnel syndrome, and his center is one of the leading clinics in the country for the procedure.

Arm Pump Treatment Proved A Motocross Draw

McGinley can boast of treating more than 135 patents at McGinley Orthopedic Innovations Inc., which is based in Glenrock. He has so many, the McGinley Clinic in Casper, where he displays photos of patients, has begun to run out of wall space.

Among the innovative treatments McGinley has developed is one that treats a common ailment that motocross drivers call arm pump.

“Essentially, it’s when you’re holding onto the handlebars, your forearms start to swell,” McGinley said. “And then you have a hard time holding onto your handlebars.”

Traditional treatment for the condition, caused by swelling blood vessels, has involve invasive surgery that can keep riders off the track for weeks — if not months — of recovery. And unfortunately, the expensive, time-consuming surgery isn’t always successful.

“I was able to develop a procedure to treat that through essentially a minimally invasive approach with needles,” McGinley said. “And we can typically, if a rider comes out and gets treated, we can get them back out racing within 48 hours and arm pump is gone. No problems, they’re able to get back out there riding.”

Relapses are also rare, McGinley said, making the procedure superior to surgical options. McGinley’s clinic, being the one that developed the procedure, is the world’s leading expert on it.

That’s drawn motocross racers from all around the world to his door. In fact, a push pin map McGinley has on his wall shows pins on every continent except Antarctica, where the only available patients would be penguins. McGinley has no plans to treat penguins any time soon, but he’s enjoying all the motocross riders coming to his door.

“That’s been really fun,” McGinley admitted. “But it wasn’t planned that way. It just sort of evolved as part of our innovation and development and our goals of always trying to better health care at the McGinley Clinic.”

Doubling Down On Motocross

Having come full circle back to a sport he loves, though, McGinley does have plans to double down on his motocross popularity. His clinic is now the primary sponsor of the privateer support program, with a dozen or so of motocross’ up and coming pro racers.

“These are all professional motocross racers,” McGinley said. “They all have their Pro Motocross and Supercross licenses. And they are some young kids, some in their teens and 20s, but they’ve easily been racing for over a decade, so they are elite racers.”

Motocross, McGinley said, is an expensive sport, something he knows firsthand. That makes it hard for up-and-coming racers to get a foothold.

“If you’re not on a factory team or sponsored by a factory team, you typically just have to pay your way to get to each of the races.”

The privateer support program offers the riders some logistical support, including transportation for their bikes to the races, as well as some marketing, and prepared meals on site.

“They also provide a space for them to set up their bike work while they’re at the races, which is a pretty big deal, too,” McGinley said. “And then there’s like a community of support sponsors, like VP Racing Fuels, which provides racing fuel for the riders at no charge.”

The overall effort helps make it feasible for beginning pro-racers to get started and grow in the sport.

“It makes all the difference in the world, because now they can focus on training during the week,” McGinley said. “They know their bikes are going to be there, they’re going to be set up, they’re going to have food prepared of time on site.”

Motocross isn’t the only sports venue where McGinley plans to be more visible though. He’s recently inked a deal with Lochie Hughes and Andretti Global to appear on the side of Hughes’ race car in 2025.

“We treated him when he was up and coming in the (USF) Pro 2000 series,” McGinley said. “He ended up winning that championship last year, and then he was recruited to Andretti racing. So, he’s the newest driver with Andretti Global in INDY NXT.”

McGinley doesn’t know where the racing deal with Hughes might lead, but what he’s learned in life is that following a passion and giving it your all never leads to anything bad.

“I’m sure you will continue to see us grow in motocross,” he said. “And we’re going to be heavily involved with Andretti racing as this partnership continues. So right now, motorcycle racing is our big one, but everything is going to continue to grow.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.