Image: Octopi Media.

Strong performances through the final three rounds of the 2020 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship will contribute to cementing the future of Joey Savatgy, who is yet to finalize a contract for next year.

Savatgy missed Monster Energy Supercross with a heel injury suffered in the Australian AUS-X Open off-season race, but was able to return for the outdoors after COVID-19 delayed the start of the season.

Currently at JGRMX Yoshimura Suzuki, 26-year-old Savatgy hasn’t re-signed for 2021 at this stage and knows that the higher his results, the better the opportunities will be in the future. Every moto will count from this point.

“I would say I’m racing for a future, absolutely,” Savatgy declared. “And I’m not doing myself a lot of favors… Obviously, if I was doing really well and had good results, I think my future would be a lot more cemented than it is now, but it’s just the cards I was dealt and that’s kinda what I’ve gotta deal with.

“As far as the future, I was really stressed out about it for a while and I’ve kind of just got to the point now where I’m not really worried about it anymore. All I can do is show up on the weekends, try to get good starts and ride the best that I can each time.

“If that only puts us in ninth place or seventh place, it’s a tough pill to swallow, but that’s all we got. If it gets better and we keep improving and we get closer to the top five, then that’s awesome, but the future’s unknown and it’s unfortunate, because I do feel like I do bring a lot to the table, but what’s meant to be is meant to be. However it plays out, it plays out.”

While he has been consistently in the mix and has benefited from solid starts over the opening six rounds, there hasn’t been any true highlight by the standards of Savatgy. Still, even being able to line-up has been a plus following his time on the sidelines.

“I’m gonna be honest, no,” he said of any one highlight for him this year. “RedBud, we ran third for six laps, I believe, and we weren’t too far off those guys in front of us. They were getting away a little bit, but I was still on the same straight-away – they were getting out of the sand rollers before the RedBud tabletop and I was starting the rollers, so we were still on the same straight-away.

“Obviously, the starts have been good… we’ve had more good than bad. Honestly, for me, like I said earlier, I’m just happy to be back. As tough as it is and as miserable as it can be sometimes when things aren’t going your way, I just have to think back at the end of November when I was lying in a hospital in Australia, how much worse things can be. It’s tough to think that way when racing is on your mind and, being a racer, all you’re worried about is right now.

“The highlight has been just back racing, but if there is one particular race where we’ve had a highlight, I guess RedBud, second moto, we showed that the speed still is there. Obviously we didn’t go the distance and we had a fall when I got into it with Marvin [Musquin], but it just shows that it’s still there.

“It might not be there every weekend like I’d like, but I didn’t forget how to ride and I’ve show I didn’t forget how to start either. I’m hoping that by the end of the year we can kind of get things points in the right direction, show up and just be up there a little bit longer. Just keep striving, try to be better, that’s all I can really do.”