Joey is getting used to being the man in the middle. Photos by: Hoppenworld
If you would have told me before Hangtown that four rounds into the 2016 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross 250MX Championship that Monster Energy / Pro Circuit / Kawasaki’s Joey Savatgy would have three overall wins and a twenty-point lead in the Championship I might have questioned your sanity. Not that Joey wasn’t on everyone’s radar as a podium and possible win threat, but I think everyone thought that the two-time defending Champion, Star Racing / Yamaha’s Jeremy Martin, had everyone on the line covered. Well, Joey has made everyone rethink their preseason predictions.
We are now four rounds into the season and the #37—who had never won a moto prior to 2016—has won 50% of the motos run and 75% of the overalls. On the flip side of that coin, the defending Champion has won just one moto and has yet to record an overall win in his attempt at a third-straight 250MX AMA Motocross Championship. As it sits, Joey now has a twenty-point lead over Star Racing / Yamaha’s Cooper Webb and twenty-four over J-Mart. Granted, we are only eight motos through a twenty-four moto Championship, but anyone not named Joey Savatgy has a lot of catching up to do.
After Joey’s third overall of the season at the 2016 High Point National, he sat down in the press tent to answer some questions about his day and the Championship as a whole. Chase Yocom recorded what Joey had to say.
Looks like in moto one, things could have been a lot better if you got a better start. Did you feel that?
Yeah, absolutely! I think I’ve stressed that before in previous races. There are a lot of guys that can win and go fast, and you’re not doing yourself any favors if you’re not putting yourself in a good position. Ultimately at the end of the day, it’s my fault for not executing and not getting off the gate, so dumb mistake on my part. You live and you learn and you’re always getting better. That’s what makes you better. You make mistakes and you learn from it. You become a better person and smarter racer from learning from your mistakes. It was a little frustrating, but to salvage fourth is always good. That was not the best moto for me. I didn’t ride very well and line selection wasn’t that great, but I knew I had the speed. I felt fast all day.
For moto two we regrouped, got a good start and battled with my teammate for a little bit—which was cool. From there just tried to minimize the mistakes. The track was gnarly out there today. There were a lot of ruts and a lot of holes. The track was constantly changing—ruts changing, getting deeper, dirt falling into places. So a lot of upper body strength this weekend, pushing away from the bike because there’s a lot of holes. Like I said, all in all, it was good. We got off to a good start, rode our own race, got into the lead and tried to bring her home to the checker without making any dumb mistakes.
In moto two, Alex Martin, every time they crossed the finish it was a 1.8, 1.2 second gap, but visually it looked like the center of the raceway was where you lost some time. Did you feel like that was your slowest section of the track?
Oh, absolutely. It took me until maybe four to go. I picked up on a line that he was taking back there that was a lot better than what I was taking. Every time we’d get to this certain part of the track, he’d close up almost right next to me. It took me a while to figure out where he was going. I’m trying to stick to my line that I’ve been taking, that I know, but in the same breath trying to figure out where he’s going. And actually, a close call, I endoed and almost crashed and got squirrelly and actually ended up seeing the line that lap when I almost crashed. From there it was actually quite a relief, because I wasn’t so stressed about where he was going. I picked up on it, and it was definitely a better line. Once I figured that out it made it a little bit easier for me, but it’s never easy if you’re at the end of the moto and you’ve got a Martin behind you.
That endo was a blessing in disguise in a sense?
In a sense, yes, a blessing in disguise. Endo, almost crashed to finding the better line—it’s not the way I want to do it, but I guess if you’re going to do it, that’s the way to do it.
Did you know either of the Martin brothers had gone out in their respective motos? Were you aware at all?
I did the first moto only because Alex was leaving a smoke trail and I was behind him, but in second moto, I didn’t know. I knew that it was Adam [Cianciarulo] in the lead, Jeremy [Martin] was in second and I was in third. I made the pass on Jeremy and then I was able to make the pass on Adam. From there, I think I looked back with maybe—I don’t even know. I looked back and I saw it was 26 again. I said, “Well, here we go.” It seems like that guy and I are always battling at the end of the moto. So like I’ve said before, I think between the two Martin brothers, their fitness is no joke. You can’t question it. I looked back, saw who it was and said, “Here we go again.” We ran it all the way down to the wire. Definitely wasn’t a walk in the park, by any means. We had to put it on the line and had to execute. Yeah, it was good.
Has Alex surprised you this year with his speed and how consistent he’s been?
I think so. Not necessarily. I guess more speed than fitness. I’ve always known that he’s been in a pretty good shape. I know he’s been training with his brother and been around his brother. They have that body type that’s bulldog. I don’t think his fitness has ever been a question, but I think his speed has improved a lot, so hats off to him. He’s riding really well. It’s unfortunate he had that problem the first moto, but as we’ve learned in this sport, it’s how it goes and you’ve got to roll with the punches. You’ve got to maximize points every moto.
With how tight things have been and now you’re leading with twenty point—has that sunk in yet? Did you even know you have a twenty-point lead?
No, I didn’t. That’s good, but like I’ve stressed before, having the red plate is cool, but if we don’t hold onto it and we don’t have it at the end of the series then, sweet, we had the red plate but we didn’t hold onto it. It’s good to have a points lead. It gives you a little bit of a cushion. I think we’ve learned. I had a fifteen point lead after the first round and pulled a—I don’t even know—brain farted and didn’t execute. We lost that fifteen points in one weekend. I don’t think any points lead is safe, especially with the class that we have and the amount of people that are there. So all in all it’s good, just got to try to keep the ball rolling.
Results were under review [for a wheels on the ground infraction on red cross flag] for quite a while there. From your point of view, can you tell us what happened?
Apparently, it was under review. I’m not sure what they were reviewing, but it seems to me that they tend to want to review what I do a lot. I had the same problem in Vegas and the same outcome. Nothing happened. So if that’s what they gotta do to try to take a win away from me, then that’s what they got to do. At the end of the day, even if the results did change, I knew at the end of the day I did my job—showed up and did the best that I could. If they wanted to take that away from me, then they were going to, but there was nothing really to review. Say what you want, but at the end of the day, we got the job done and we’re walking away with the points lead again. Going to go back to the farm and work hard and try and execute again next weekend.
In Colorado, you said you got a text right afterwards from Jeannie [Carmichael] saying, “We got some work to do.” Got any texts this week or not?
Yeah, for the first moto. It was actually worse because Ricky [Carmichael] was here. It was good to rebound. As bad as the first moto went and the bad start that we had, we made due with what we could and made lemonade out of lemons. All in all it was good. It’s hard to complain when you get the overall. Obviously the first moto could have been a lot better, but in the same breath it could have gone worse. Definitely still think there’s a lot of areas that I can improve on. It sounds bad because we’re up here and we did good, but I think, like I said before, this sport is always evolving. Got to go back, watch some film and figure out where we can be better. We’ll practice that during the week and come out next weekend.
With battling the Martins consistently week in and week out, does it sort of give you an idea where they might go knowing their riding style? Can you sort of foreshadow as far as what they might do, or is it every track’s different?
I would say it’s easier to predict what Jeremy’s gonna do. Just growing up with him racing amateurs, knowing how he made his passes when he was an amateur, it’s very similar now that we’re pro. It’s easier to get a read on him. Alex is new to being up front. Not that I’m used to it, because this is more new for me as well, but Alex is new so it’s hard to get a read on him as to what he’s going to do. He has his places that he’s very good. Obviously, once again, I had my places where I was better and he was better in others, so there was a lot of yo-yoing, but with Jeremy, it’s a little easier to predict where he’s going to go. But Alex is still a little bit of an unknown, so I’m still trying to figure him out.
You were saying that, pretty much, you have to be perfect with this class and you even figured it out. In the first moto, you made that one mistake all the way back in fourth. Is that, not pressure, but does that weigh on you? Every moto, you kind of have to be perfect or you can go back to fifth or sixth pretty easily.
That’s what we’re paid for, man; we have to show up and perform. We say this every year, but I think now more than ever, there’s a lot of guys that can win. Getting a bad start doesn’t help you by any means. Not that you could get a bad start in previous years, but I think we saw, last year and the year before, we’ve seen Jeremy get bad starts and work his way to the front. It’s definitely possible, but it’s a little pressure. You’ve got to make sure you’re perfect or as perfect as you can be and execute when you need to execute. We didn’t do that the first moto, but it definitely adds a little bit of pressure. With as many guys as there are, one mistake and you’re fifth. Like in the first moto, when I lost the front, crashed and then guys get around you. Then you got to try to get around them. At that point, the leaders are gone, and unless you’re Superman, you’re not catching them because you’re not that much faster than the guys. So it’s interesting.
How difficult was the track? It seemed to get really deep and rutty. You guys were actually second today, which is different.
Yeah, like you said, we weren’t first moto. I think the track was rougher than what we’ve raced on this year. It was a weird rough, though—a lot of holes, big bumps. Not necessarily high speed braking bumps and stuff like that, but just the bumps got so big you were better off jumping them and constantly moving. The dirt was very soft. Every time you came into a section where there were bumps, the bumps were constantly shifting shape. One time you’d hit it and it’d be square on, and the next time it would have a weird angle to it and bike dancing all over. It is what it is, I guess.
Thank you for your time, Joey.
Thank you.
