Already holding the red plates heading into Wollongong’s third round of AUSX 2024, Joey Savatgy and Shane McElrath were able to win again on Saturday night. We caught up with the pair following the main events for Debrief.

SX1

Image: Foremost Media.

Joey, overall winner here tonight… What a crazy night of chaos.

That’s the way to put it, chaos. The day was going so well. Just first untimed practice, quickest, timed practice, quickest, heat race, great start. It was quite easy and then first main just, I really blew it. Really blew it honestly, with a bad start. Not a bad start, but I just ran out of patience, made a dumb mistake over here, went off the track and instead of just taking my time and going around the berm, I tried to climb the berm and that turned into an impossible hill climb because plexi or the plywood on the backside. Yeah. It was very disappointing just because the day was going so well, but we regrouped. I really was able to hone in and focus, and thankfully the back-to-backs was good for me because that fire was still there. And then in between second and third just went back and my trainer’s been travelling with me, he lives in Australia, so it was nice to have somebody here to talk to after the race, and just get the mind right, refocus and, yeah, here we are.

Was it a sense of composure when you’re in that moment? You’re on the plywood, you want to get going, you see these positions going, take me through that moment.

Yeah. It was one of those things where I came up short and it was right on the verge of being okay, but I caught a footpeg. So, when I went over the berm and I saved it, I’m like, ‘Alright, I’m good.’ And I went to go turn and for some reason I was like, ‘Well, I don’t want to take any chances. This berm is wide open.’ And as soon as I got on the gas, I caught the plexiglass or the plywood and the thing just lit up, and I got two feet up it and had to do a wheelie, almost fell again and then had to come all the way back around. Yeah. It was composure, but honestly I just got a little too antsy. I probably, had I taken my time and gone around, I probably could have got fourth in that first one. But for a script, you can’t write a much better script, a winner take all, per se, for the last one.

I think you can by race two. That incident over the under over there… Just take me through that from your perspective.

To be honest, it was funny. It’s funny now because I’m okay, but when I came around that lap by the mechanics area, my mechanic wrote on the pit board, smart and I’m like, ‘Yep.’ So, I took my time around the corner, gave him a little bit of space, so I could three and I didn’t have to worry about jumping into him and I three. And when he went to go jump that three, I saw him come up short and as soon as he cased it, I saw his hand blow off and I was like, ‘I’ll probably be okay.’ But dude, he just shot left. It was one of those things where I ducked my body to try to squeeze around him and he caught me, dude, in the air. I was just like, my eyes were as big as they could be and I was like, ‘Uh-oh.’ And to be honest, I was expecting to hit the net and just go right over, but I need to watch it because I don’t know if…

It’s scary!

I don’t know if it looked as scary and gnarly as it felt, but dude, it was not what I wanted, but got up, was panicking because I’m like, Dean [Wilson]’s close and my bars were bent and we were able to hold it together. And then we had a code red in between second and third motos, had to change bars and we made it work.

Hey, the 17 is staying red. It’s been a little while since we’ve seen a red 17 back to PC Kawi days.

Yeah. It’s been a minute! Red on red looks really good, I’ll be honest with you, but I’m glad that we were able to pull it together. To get another win’s awesome. I would’ve loved to have, like I said, gotten a good start in the first one and try to maximise points tonight, but we keep red and we have a weekend off, so we’ll probably do a little bit of testing and try to get me a little bit happier and yeah.

SX2

Image: Foremost Media.

Congratulations Shane, keeping that red plate after another win tonight.

Yes, today was a much better day for me all around, both practice sessions, being on top and being close to the top. I need to clean that up a little bit. I feel like I should be on top both times. My heat race, I got a terrible start and not a lot of time to come through the pack with how short they are. But yeah, in my mains, I really figured out my starts, and that was something I was really pumped on, just executing the starts, even the restart, just really putting myself in a good position and trying to keep the intensity high. That’s where I felt like I’m really good right now and just really getting the bike dialled in. We’re really getting some time on this Honda 250 and I think it’s showing, so I’m excited about it. It’s been a good race, the Triple Crown with triple points. I think that was my goal, is to get maximum points, and it’s good to do that.

Like you said, once you get buried off of starts, it’s a little bit hard to come through in that amount of time, but what’s your overall thoughts on it?

Honestly, I think tonight was pretty good given that they didn’t count the first lap before we hit the finish line, or they did that at the first round. So our races were supposed to be eight laps, but they were technically like seven and a half, and that was even shorter. Whereas this one, it was a true eight laps with the little bit extra. Honestly, I think the eight laps tonight was pretty good duration for the intensity of the races. And having three mains, I think tonight was a better structure than the first two rounds.

When you are out in front leading those opening laps, obviously we see a red flag, we don’t like to see that. Is that a sense of frustration at that moment?

It can be, and that’s something I’ve really tried to work on is like, ‘Hey, we all got to line up and regroup and do it again.’ So that’s part of the mental battle and something that anytime I get an opportunity like that, it’s like, hey, we got to exercise this and keep building that mental muscle. So yeah, I’m pretty pumped on it, on how it went, and definitely that was the second main. Yeah, my start was a little bit worse. I was top three, but I could tell my clutch was a little hot when we did start after the restart. So yeah, I did a pretty good start, just got out drug a little bit, but for the most part, all three mental starts were good, all four.

Well, for you now, a couple of weeks you’re in Australia. You’re going to stick around, not going to fly back between the next two. What’s these weeks look like?

Yeah, tomorrow we fly back to Melbourne, and we’ll be spending some time riding this week, actually getting a full weekend, just more time with the team. We only rode one day this week after Vancouver. Yeah, we don’t have a lot of time on the bike, but we’ve really made the most of it, so I’m really excited to have a weekend off next weekend. It hasn’t been a lot of on-bike riding. The last two weekends have been quite a bit of racing, but yeah, the travel’s pretty heavy, so next weekend it’ll be nice to just get some rest and recover.