![\"Savoie](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Jerrys-Suzuki-vs-Angelles-H-D1-min.jpg\")
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Even before he took one trip down the Lucas Oil Raceway quarter-mile dragstrip last Friday afternoon, Jerry Savoie, NHRA\u2019s 2016 Pro Stock Motorcycle champion didn\u2019t think the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals win would be his to claim.<\/p>\n
After all, the Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson Screamin\u2019 Eagle FXDR motorcycles were racing on their home turf, the EBR Buells had been running exceptionally well and there just weren\u2019t that many opportunities for Suzuki riders to claim the win.<\/p>\n
By late Monday afternoon, that view had changed as Savoie pulled, with tears in his eyes, into the top end\u2019s Winner\u2019s Circle, having defeated five-time champion Andrew Hines and his Harley-Davidson, after Hines fouled at the start line in anticipation of the tree.<\/p>\n
![\"Savoie](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Jerry-and-trophy-min.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t easy getting to the finals, as Savoie qualified eighth. He wasn\u2019t even the quickest Suzuki on the grounds – teammate Karen Stoffer qualified seventh as top runner for the brand. There were a total of seven Suzuki riders vying for the 16 elimination slots on Monday; two of them didn\u2019t make the cut.<\/p>\n
Savoie picked off Ryan Oehler\u2019s EBR despite the latter\u2019s better reaction time in the first round. He won a second tight contest against Joey Gladstone\u2019s EBR in the quarterfinals. He dispatched the Harley-Davidson FXDR of Eddie Krawiec in a third tight race in the semifinals.<\/p>\n
Disregarding Hines\u2019 foul in the finals, Savoie had to overcome the better starts of all his opponents – and the native deficiencies of his machinery (Suzukis are old and haven\u2019t been upgraded in a long, long time) – just to move on from each round.<\/p>\n
He said, early on, that the Suzuki riders had no chance. This despite the fact that he\u2019s the only rider using electronic fuel injection on his Suzuki. This despite the fact that former teammate LE Tonglet won this race last year. This despite the fact that Savoie had already won the U.S. Nationals once before. It was hard to be optimistic when Hines had won seven of the 10 races held leading up to Indy, that reigning champ and EBR rider Matt Smith won once.<\/p>\n
Now Jerry Savoie is seeded fifth (he came to Indy in 10th place) for the six-race Countdown to the Championship that begins at Maple Grove Raceway outside Reading, Pa. in another week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Suzukis have been struggling but we\u2019ve been working and it paid off,\u201d Savoie stated. \u201cI held my composure [at the start line] and we were able to make some good runs. When Andrew throws up a red light, you better thank God for it, because that doesn\u2019t happen very often.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know if I would ever win another one. It\u2019s not easy, but we\u2019re going to go for it and see what happens.\u201d Not every 60-year-old gets the chance to race for a championship, much less a second one, three years after the first.<\/p>\n
![\"Savoie](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Jerry-at-top-end-min.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
He may have missed a few of the \u201cregular season\u201d races in his chosen category leading up to the Countdown, but Jerry Savoie is on board and pumped to try and take another champion\u2019s Wally away from guys at least 20 years younger than he is. Chalk one up for the old guys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even before he took one trip down the quarter-mile last Friday, Jerry Savoie didn\u2019t think the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals win would be his to claim. By late Monday afternoon, that had changed.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":65064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,4802,3470,5029,3399],"tags":[5614,2,1362,4314,2284,41,7,1632],"class_list":["post-65061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-motorcycles-and-powersports","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","tag-anne-proffit","tag-drag-racing","tag-jerry-savoie","tag-motorcycle-racing","tag-motorcycles","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Jerrys-Suzuki-vs-Angelles-H-D1-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-gVn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65065,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65061\/revisions\/65065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}