Savatgy Scores Season-Best Fifth in Philadelphia SX

Philadelphia, PA PhiladelphiaMonster Energy AMA Supercross Championship

It has been an up and down season for Quad Lock Honda Racing’s Joey Savatgy, who started to catch fire in Tampa with a seventh place, and then logged two more top ten finishes before a big crash in Indianapolis sidelined him for a couple of rounds. He tried to make a comeback last weekend in Foxborough, only in the very muddy conditions he failed to qualify for the main for the first time ever in his career. Then the following weekend he followed it up with his season best finish of fifth! Our Steve Mattes caught up with Joey after the race to talk about the ups and downs of the sport and how he is recovering. Read his thoughts below.

Racer X: Joey Savatgy isn't life funny? Like, you come back from injury, you don't qualify for the main, and then you come back, and you have your season best, you ride great, even catch Malcolm [Stewart] near the end. It is a roller coaster of a sport.
Joey Savatgy: That's what we joke about it in the semi, but life's a roller coaster, you got the ups and downs. It would be nice to minimize the downs, right? Like try to keep it a little bit more mellow, but yeah, honestly, last weekend was hard for me. Never not qualified before.

Did the AMA actually come and tell you what happened?
No. So honestly, the only reason that we knew is because my dad, like I came back from the heat race and I'm thinking we squeaked it in. Like that was close. I go upstairs and I can hear my phone vibrating, and then it stops, and I hear vibrating. I'm like, “Dude, who's calling me?” And it's my dad and I'm like, “Hello?” And he's like, “Dude, you're in the LCQ.” And I'm like, “No, we got ninth.” He's like, “No, Malcolm's transponder fell off.” And I'm like, “No way.” So, then I go downstairs and Nate's washing the bike. And I'm like, “Hey, we're in the LCQ” and so, he's not ready and we're getting ready to go and my bars are bent like pretty bad. And I'm like, “Well, we gotta try to change them because if we get through the LCQ we're not gonna have time to change when we come back.” So, I go down there to pick the gate and like I'm standing up there waiting and most people have already picked their gate, and here comes Nate like last minute.

"Life's a roller coaster, you got the ups and downs... but yeah, honestly, last weekend was hard for me. Never not qualified before." -Joey Savatgy on a tough race in Foxborough. Align Media

It's ridiculous the AMA wouldn't be like, “Oh hey, someone go tell Savatgy’s team.”
Especially with Martin [Davalos] being down there in the tower, you think there's enough radio communication that they would let him know. But yeah, last weekend was tough, not ideal, but it feels good to bounce back.

It's funny because when you were healthy and feeling a little better before the crash, you were telling me, “I gotta get a start. I can run with these guys, I just can't get a start.” And you got one, and you were right, you can run that pace. You just got to get up there and see it.
Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, obviously fifth is great, but it was an ugly fifth, you know, I'll be honest, the first five, eight minutes of that moto, it's just, I've struggled this year. Which is weird because all the Australian and World Supercross, everything's so short, but for whatever reason, I was missing my marks. I wasn't getting the rhythms consistently. Like I was just making too many mistakes at the beginning. But, yeah, I felt good, you know, obviously hitting the ground a couple of weeks ago and having to miss a round or two, I think takes a little bit of the mojo out of it. But I believe that if I can get a way up there, I can be close to that every weekend and, obviously easy to say, harder to do, but you know, I made a run at Malcolm there towards the end and just kind of caught some flappers at a bad place, which kind of killed that. But I would have liked to have seen if I could have made a push towards him because I was getting close. But like I said, I'm happy to make the main event.

Basically, where are we at? How close to 100 percent are we?
To be honest, I'm struggling, I'm dealing with some back pain right now. I got an MRI last week, so we're waiting on results. I just haven't been the same. I've just been struggling. Can't pick my kids up right now. Certain twists and bends, like it's just not normal.

I'm not a doctor, but those little winglets can crack on your spinal. It doesn't take much.
I mean, you might be right. Like I said, something's not normal because I've always struggled with a little bit of back pain, but it's more of like Southwick Sunday morning, right? Like, “Oh man, my back hurts.” And now it's like, it could be a Wednesday morning, and I just have a hard time getting up out of bed because my back hurts so bad. So, I'm hoping that maybe it's just, I'm being weak and, maybe my abdomen with the ribs being broken and just everything being so tight, maybe that's some of it, but I just get these weird sensations of pain shooting down my back that doesn't feel normal. So, to be honest, thankfully for the most part doesn't hinder me. I still feel like pretty good on the bike, but there are some movements that I find myself that I'll get like that jolt the pain on my back. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not 100 percent, but it's not really limiting me that much right now.

Okay, the heat race crash was hilarious, and then you almost did it again in the main.
In my defense, what happened is when I over jumped that in the heat race and I landed, I lost my back brake. Like, we've never seen this, but it pulled the threads out. So, when I went nose high and I hit the back, like there was no brake, so I blew off the track. So then when I got back on the track, and I was in tenth I didn't have back brakes. So, trying to navigate that track with no back brake was tough and then like obviously being on the bubble, I'm like, “Dude, we're not doing this again.” So yeah, it was weird like I landed, over jumped it. And I went to go drag the back brake to kind of slow me down, and nothing was there. And then the main event, yeah, the same thing I over jumped a little bit, but I was able to drag the back brake and keep it on the track.

"But I believe that if I can get a way up there, I can be close to that every weekend." -Joey Savatgy Align Media

Yeah, I happened to catch both of them, like, “Oh my God, he's doing it again.”
I know, I honestly for a minute I was like, there's no way, but this time I went to go hit the brake and it was there.

Literally, I never saw one other rider do that all day.
Just me, but like I said in my defense in the heat race I had no brakes.

I have asked a few guys this, but dude, considering the rain all night long, this track was really good.
I thought it was going to be a disaster. Honestly, I thought we were about to have round two after last weekend all over again, but dude, they did a good job. Like they took the tarp off and when we went to go walk the track, I was like, “It's not bad.” I mean, there was standing water in places and honestly, I think if we didn't get that afternoon rain after second practice, I think it could have been even better, but yeah, I mean, hats off they did a great job. I was fully anticipating another mud race, and thankfully for the fans, I mean, obviously it's one thing for the fans, maybe they enjoy it, but I'm sure they'd rather have a dry race because they tend to have a little bit better battles. So, yeah, I'm glad it didn't rain because it was cold as balls today, not my weather.

Well, good job, so funny the sport.
Highs and lows, man. Weekend to weekend, it's crazy, but thank you.

Joey Savatgy’s Rebound