Two years ago Joey Savatgy won the 2013 Monster Energy 250 Supercross Rookie of the Year Award. As a result, he hoped to be a championship contender in 2014. Then came a pre-season crash that sent him to the hospital with punctured lungs and a broken scaphoid in his left wrist. While his lungs healed up quickly, the scaphoid break was a total nuisance that took the Californian completely out of the 2014 SX season. Now he’s back and armed with a Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki KX250F. He lined up with it for the first time at the starting gate on Saturday night, in Arlington, Texas, for the start of the East Region.
All things considered, it went pretty well for #37, placing third in the fifteen-lap main event. Savatgy is now probably the best chance that Mitch Payton’s team has of winning a supercross title, as the West Region is all but over for everyone by Cooper Webb, and Savatgy’s East Region teammate Arnaud Tonus looked good but crashed early in his SX debut, finishing eigth. With eight races to make a championship happen, Savatgy appears to be the last best shot to get the men in green have at a supercross title in 2015.
Today, while on his journey home from the Lone Star State, we tracked him down to see how things went in Texas, where he earned his first AMA Supercross podium. (Savatgy finished second at the muddy Ironman National last summer.)
Racer X: Joey, a good race last night for you. Are you encouraged by the outcome?
Joey Savatgy: Obviously, you always want more, but I mean for the way I started off, I feel pretty good. I really struggled in timed qualifying and rode real tight. I definitely didn’t ride to my full potential. In the race I had a bad start and then made my way up to fourth and then just followed. I tried making passes here and there, and for whatever reason I just couldn’t get around the guy I needed to get around [Anthony Rodriguez] quickly enough and I just fell into his race. It turned into, almost, a downhill spiral from there. I just started making a lot of mistakes, and then they had that red flag and that kind of helped me out. I had time to regroup and just get a game plan together.
Overall, I’m definitely pumped on getting my first career podium on Saturday. It’s been a while since I’ve raced, but overall, I’d say I’m happy and I have something to start on.
It seemed like the starts were pretty important on that track.
Yeah, this weekend it seems like more than any other weekend that I’ve watched this season that it was a lot of follow-the-leader. The track was good; it just didn’t have a lot of separation, so it was hard to make the pass. To make the pass you almost needed to force the issue and I tried a few times and was finally able to get around and kind of get into a groove and start hitting my marks again. When you’re behind a rider that close and they’re slowing you up just a little bit it’s frustrating. It’s hard to hit your marks when you don’t have clean air, just like you said.
All things considered, a third isn’t bad at all.
Yeah, I mean Marvin [Musquin] rode great. I can’t take anything away from that. He rode great all day. Marvin was out front the whole time and that’s my fault. I should have had a better start to begin with. To have the holeshot like he did and to have the clean air, and have no one in front of you, it’s easier to get into your groove and hit your marks and just kind of count off the laps. If I was able to get around a rider or two a little sooner I could have maybe caught up to Justin Bogle a little bit and maybe him and I could have pushed and maybe closed the gap to Marvin a little bit. Overall, to start the season off on the box is never a bad thing.
How was Mitch Payton with your performance?
For as bad as… Wait, I don’t want to say as bad as I rode, but for as tight and for as stiff as I rode, he was happy that I didn’t crash and put ourselves in a position that we have no chance at a championship. Yeah, there were some aspects of it that he was pumped on and there was others—like following the guy in front of me too long—that he wasn’t. There are some things we need to work on, but like I told him, we didn’t have a lot of time on the bike and he understood that. He gave me a little bit of slack—not that I wanted any. I knew what I did wrong during the race. It was just one of those deals where I was trying to make it happen and I couldn’t make it happen quick enough. I know what I need to work on now and I’ll go to work this week and come back at Atlanta and start fresh.
What do you believe you need to work on?
Obviously, there is always something to work on. For me, I just need to practice perfecting things that I need to work on, like my starts. I had a good start in the heat race. I wheelied a little bit and had to use a little bit of clutch. I should have had that holeshot. In the main event, I got a little bit of wheel spin right off the gate—I think maybe the gate was packed too hard. I just need to minimize the mistakes. If I can get off the gate and get into a groove and just run my laps, I think we’ll pretty well off. To go in there and not really knowing where I’m supposed to be, I’m good. For not racing SX for over a year and for not having very much time on the bike, it was kind of all up in the air. Now we have an idea as to where I should be. If we can work on that, we can continue to move forward.
For not racing supercross in over a year, Saturday night was something of a baptism by fire, wasn’t it? New bike, new team, new this and that.
Yeah, there were all sorts of things, even the single-file restart—just everything in general. Just being back in a stadium is a totally different environment than being at the test tracks. But overall, I’m happy. It was the first career podium for me in a supercross, and it’s something to build on and get the confidence up on in knowing that’s where you need to be. I’m going to shoot for Atlanta and to get some better starts and hopefully be up there a little bit closer to the front.
Looking over your shoulder and back at the West Region, the Pro Circuit Kawasaki team has struggled a bit with results so far in 2015. Does that put a little more pressure on you this season, or do you look at that as more of an opportunity to step up?
Obviously Mitch wants to win. I’d be sitting here lying to you guys if I said he didn’t expect me to win, but in the same breath and in the long run, it’s a championship and that’s the main goal. He wants another number one plate on the side of the truck, and if that means that you don’t start the season killing everyone but you end up at the end of the season with a title, I think Mitch is going to be way more happy with a title than he will be with a race win here or there. We go out there every weekend and put our best foot forward and where we end up is where we are. I don’t know if he’s not pumped with the results right now, but obviously everyone wants to win and he’s got those number one plates on the side of the truck for a reason. I definitely know he’s hungry for a win and he’ll do whatever he can to help us get there.
What’s your take on the East Region in general?
Obviously Bogle is consistent. He won the championship last year regardless of who crashed out and who didn’t. You have to be there every weekend and he was there. Some people take credit away from him and say that title was handed to him, but at the end of the day nothing is handed to anybody. If he shows up every weekend and he’s able to put it on the box and get the points, you can’t take anything from him. He was there to win. He’s going to be going good. Marvin Musquin. He’s another one. He’s definitely going to be fast—he’s always been fast. Martin Davalos is fast. Jeremy Martin is also fast, but sometimes an unknown. He struggled last year—he couldn’t qualify for the first two rounds and then came out and won the last round. There’s a lot of dudes right now that I’m sure are going fast, but it’s all about the consistency and minimizing those mistakes.