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This was his parents' fourth trip to the Daytona International Speedway in Florida for what is considered the Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing, but nothing got their emotional engines revved as much as trying to follow their son after driver Robby Gordon decided to give him a big thrill for a birthday present.
"It all happened so fast," Mrs. Lee recalled Monday afternoon in an interview on the road from North Carolina, as the family was driving back from Florida.
They had just heard Keith Urban perform in a pre-race concert at the race track Sunday when Justin started talking to a security guard and said he was bored. The guard said to wait a little while because the drivers would be coming through there.
"We were in the first row, and when the drivers came through they all were patting the kids' hand, but Robby Gordon passed Justin by and I called to him that he forgot somebody and that it was Justin's birthday," Mrs. Lee recounted.
"Robby turned, gave Justin a high-five and said to him, 'Come with me' and told us to meet him at his car," she continued. "We were in utter shock.
"My husband and I ran down to the pits, where we were stopped by security guards, and I kept saying that our son was with Robbie Gordon," Justin's mother said, adding that they had never been separated in public from their son before that.
"We were there for about a half hour-even for the national anthem, and we got autographs and pictures with the drivers," Mrs. Lee said.
The drivers each ride in a Corvette for the introductory lap, and Justin did the round with Robby Gordon, the #7 Jim Beam team driver, who went on to take the 34th spot in the 51st annual race results.
Justin had a Tony Stewart hat, however, because the #14 Stewart-Hass Team driver, a two-time cup champion (and eighth-place finisher that day), is his favorite.
"He went right over and Tony Stewart signed his hat. But he's not wearing it now-we're saving it for him! We even kept our wristbands," Mrs. Lee said of their souvenirs.
"It was amazing," she said of the experience. "We had cameras on us, and news people kept asking us who we were."
Commenting on how special their experience was, Mrs. Lee said, "NASCAR has become something really big, and fans don't get the chance to meet the drivers at the race track the way they used to."
Justin, who was watching "Sponge Bob Square Pants" as his family was driving through North Carolina early this week on their way home, said that the best thing about his day at the Daytona Speedway was "getting autographs."
Mrs. Lee knows what it's like to be at the race track for someone her son's age. "My dad used to go the old Danbury Racearena, and I can remember playing with my Barbie doll under the stands," said the New Milford native, a member of the Manwaring family.
She and her husband, who was originally from Pawling, N.Y., but has lived in town for almost 20 years, are avid stock-car racing fans.
"What man doesn't like fast cars!" Mrs. Lee quipped.
"We've gone to races in Virginia and Pennsylvania and other places-about eight or nine tracks-but Daytona is obviously the best," she said.
The 200-lap (500 mile) challenge, which is known as The Great American Race, was called with 48 laps left to go because of rain, and Matt Kenseth, the 2003 cup winner, who was out ahead at that time, was declared the winner of the 2009 cup.
Mrs. Lee said she didn't get to meet him, but, for her anyway, there was one more bit of excitement to remember. "I was just six feet away from Tom Cruise, and he is just as good looking in person as he is in movies and on TV."
