A recent addition to Fire Power Honda for 2025, Joey Savatgy debuted with the team in rounds one and two of the 2024 Australian Supercross Championship (AUSX) in Redcliffe, Queensland, this past weekend. After finishing P2 on Saturday and winning the following day as part of the NAPA Auto Parts Honda Racing team in AUSX, MotoOnline had this Conversation with the 30-year-old to recap his weekend.

Image: Foremost Media.

Honda Racing Australia’s Joey Savatgy, Redcliffe 2 here, you get the win. Take me through the night…

Yeah, it was definitely more hectic tonight. Track was tricky, marbly. Kept drying up, and so first moto was okay, had a good start, and honestly just got bullied in the first turn. I think maybe it was Luke, somebody to my inside just bulldozed me out of the way, so start wasn’t as good as it needed to be. And then, truthfully, just maybe some poor line choices there at the end to seal Luke [Clout] off and take the win and just too much cat and mouse, and then Dean [Wilson] almost got both of us, and it was definitely physical in the first one. Second one was carnage at the beginning, but thankfully I was smart enough. Being patient paid off for once. I had enough of a gap to squirt through. So, like I said, happy goal was to leave here on the box, and second last night, and the overall tonight, so we’re in a good spot. Go home, go back to work.

Hey, you looked like some exchange of words there with your teammate after the first one. Not happy with how that played out in the last laps?

Yeah, honestly, it was one of those things where we were just seeing two different things, what I saw, what he saw. But we went back, and thankfully Dean’s been around long enough, and we’re both old enough to hash it right away, and we went and looked and watched film, and he thought that I was maybe over the line just too aggressive. And then we went and looked, and the one at the end on the last lap know we both agreed that I was good. Maybe earlier on, maybe I threw it in maybe too hard early on, and I told him it was nothing that I did towards him tonight was ill intent. I just wanted to race, and I told him, we’re going to race each other all year, and I respect Dean, and we respect each other. So thankfully, like I said, we’re old enough and we’ve been through it enough to just, ‘Hey, you know FU, FU.’ We’re good. We hugged it out, and we’re solid. Like I said, it’s all good.

Was it a sense of relief coming in this morning, seeing the tracks turned around a little bit with the whoops more traditionally what we’re used to and it evened the field out, was that something you took into your field a bit more?

Well, honestly, the whoops were fine yesterday. They were big, but it’s one of those things that, again, and it’s no excuse because it’s up to us to figure it out, but I didn’t race Supercross at all last year. I haven’t been on a supercross track in over pretty much a year, a little bit more, then transitioning back to the 450 and on a bike I’ve never ridden, like I said. I rode the ’24 at home for maybe four or five days, but we didn’t hit whoops because it was the SMX track layout at first, so I never hit whoops, and I didn’t hit whoops until we got here Sunday and rode. So, it just was me. I wasn’t comfortable, and I just know that trying to skim the whoops could have resulted in a dumb mistake and gone down, and I felt I made the jump line work. Honestly, it ended up being jumping tonight anyways, and unfortunately…

Image: Foremost Media.

It was quicker.

Yeah, it was because the corner got so blown out, and it was so marbly that it just made more sense to protect inside, protect inside, and jump. So, I know some people might not be happy that they knocked the whoops down, but at the end of the day, smaller whoops, still jumpers, so it’s just track-dependent. But thankfully, we got rain today because I’d hate to see this place right now if we didn’t get rain today, or last night because it would’ve been brutal.

It’s pretty marbly. Seeing you in qualifying early this morning, uncorked a bit of a different line there over the back, went over the on-off. Is that something you lined up and you saved for the night show if you needed it and to set that up, just take me through that?

Yeah, it was actually. I did it very last lap of practice. Thankfully, nobody saw it, but I was on a slow lap before my very last lap, and I went single-over-table, and I’m like, ‘Dude, we can make this so easy.’ And so I saved it very last lap, got through the whoops, downshifted a second, just rolled the corner and right over it. It was easy. It was way easier than I thought it was going to be, but as the night went on, it just wasn’t something that was doable over and over. But, obviously, the heat race, I uncorked it, and it’s nice when you have something up your sleeve. Even if it’s not faster for me, it just was more efficient. You’re not having to scrub on, pull up to go off into the corner. It’s just one smooth motion. So, like I said, it’s always nice to have something up your sleeve when you need it, but at the end of the day, it didn’t matter because we didn’t do it when it mattered.