Another top 25 finish for Afton Swanson

Goldfield native finished 23rd nationally in points

By Phil Monson

Rural Goldfield native Afton Swanson continues her climb on the national drag racing circuit.
The 28-year-old Swanson, who began racing on the Humboldt County Dragway in 2000 at age nine, finished 23rd nationally in points in 2018 in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Top Dragster division.
Swanson finished 25th in points in 2017 but was aided that year by winning a race at Topeka in late May of that year. Her top finish in 2018 was runner-up at St. Louis.
“In 2018 we went to the final round in a national event in St. Louis,” Swanson said. “In 2017 we won a race, so that helped us place a little higher than we did the year before.”
“We still had a pretty good year of racing. To finish in the top 25 nationally out of 500 competitors is still a pretty decent finish,” Swanson said. “To make it to the final round at a national event is one of the big highlights to our 2018 season.”
“One of the bad things that happened was we broke a transmission in the last race of the year. We didn’t have a spare, but thankfully one of our friends let us borrow his spare,” Swanson said.
“We were able to finish racing that weekend because of their help. One of our goals going into 2019 is to save enough money to make sure we have a spare transmission,” Swanson said. “So if that happens in the future, we will be ready with a replacement on hand.”
Swanson, the former Afton Harvey, has paid her dues over the last 19 years. She is a 2009 graduate of Clarion-Goldfield High School. She attended the University of Northern Iowa four years and graduated in 2013 with a degree in marketing management and a minor in Spanish. The last two years of her education at UNI, she had an internship with Denso, a company in Cedar Falls. She was “hired on the spot” at graduation time to work full-time for the company, where she is still employed today.
Afton is a Senior Production Control Specialist with Denso, handling supply chain management for Caterpillar and Bobcat companies.
Her husband is Joe Swanson, a 2008 Humboldt High School graduate, who attended Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge where he studied auto mechanics. His career in mechanics took him to the Cedar Falls/Waterloo area. Joe and Afton now reside in Denver, not a far commute to Waterloo/Cedar Falls each day.
Three years ago Joe and Afton started a new company called Swanson Hydro Graphics. It is a process where car parts are dipped into a tank with a film covering applied. They can even handle other items and have had work done from California to New York.
Afton is the daughter of Tom Harvey of rural Goldfield and Valerie Harvey, also of rural Goldfield. Tom, who is now retired from farming and racing, was a life-long performer at the Humboldt track. When she was nine, he bought Afton a new kit for Christmas to help her begin racing in the junior dragster division.
“She made the transition to a bigger car when she was age 16,” Tom said. “This is her third big car because of the length. When you start going faster, the more length you’ve got, the more stable and safer the car is.”
“They are running 225 miles per hour. That’s four city blocks in a little over six seconds,” Tom said.
Afton’s car, a 2015 Spitzer, is powered by an engine based off of a big-block, 540-cubic inch Chevrolet motor. It has a 1471 super charger on top. On top of that are two, terminator fuel-injection set-ups. It runs on methanol alcohol fuel and pushes about 2,000 horsepower. The RPMs are running at about 8,000 at the finish line.
“When I turned 16 my dad got me into a bigger dragster. I drove that car for five years,” Afton said. “My dad retired from drag racing and I kept on going. I met my husband through drag racing.”
Joe and Afton keep busy traveling the professional circuit across the United States. Racing begins in mid-May and ends in October. When she won her race in Topeka in May of 2017, in the finals she edged Larry Piper of Wamego, KS, running 6.202 seconds at 222 miles per hour.
“I’m not fearless, but speed doesn’t scare me. I have progressed over the years and gotten faster and faster. I didn’t take a huge jump to 220 miles per hour. I’ve been slowly working away at this since I was age nine,” Swanson said.
“The adrenaline rush – you don’t think about it while it is happening because you are in the car and you are reacting. You can’t think about the fact ‘I’m going to go 220 miles an hour.’ You just have to know what is going to happen. It is reflexes. Afterwards, when you pull the parachute and go around the turn road, you breathe normal again. Then you think back about what happened during the run and how it felt,” Swanson said.
“I don’t want to say you feel comfortable. If you get comfortable, you get complacent. You always have to be a little bit nervous, but in a good way. You have to be alert to handle it. It’s not a scared nervous. It is more of an anxious or ready nervous,” Swanson said. “The run only takes six seconds, but a lot happens in those six seconds. You don’t have time to think about what you need to do. You react. You have to have an action plan and go with it. It has to be a reflex.”
“Right now in the off-season we are rebuilding the transmission that broke and saving up for a spare transmission. We are also in the process of doing some basic refreshing of the motor,” Swanson said. “It should not be anything too major, but just some standard life-out parts and preventive maintenance.”
“If you wait until something breaks, then it is a whole lot worse than if you replace something before it breaks. We are always trying to get ahead of things,” Swanson said.
“We have a full schedule where we keep track of how many passes each part on the car has done. When they get to a certain number of passes, we take the part out and replace it with a new part. We have just about lifed out everything where we have taken out old parts and replaced them. We keep old parts as spares to use in the future in the event of a breakdown.”
“After a couple of years you basically refresh and replace with all new parts on everything. We are at that point now after five years of racing at this level all of the parts have been replaced,” Swanson said. “It’s kind of like getting a new motor every five years.”
“In 2018 we made about 100 passes on the track and probably went to 12 races,” Swanson said. “A 100 to 120 passes a season is about normal for the type of racing that we do.”
“We hope to get Joe on the track this year. We have been trying for several years now to get a program for him. He bought a dragster last spring and we have been working to rebuild it so he can get on the track here finally in 2019,” Swanson said.
Swanson is currently without a major sponsor for the 2019 season and seeking financial support.
“We have had changes in our sponsorship in recent months. The sponsor we had in 2018, Inking Custom Graphics out of Cedar Rapids, is not coming back for 2019,” Swanson said. “They were a small start-up company that went out of business late last year so unfortunately, they are not coming back.”
“I have stayed in contact with some of the employees that worked there, including the artist that worked on the design on my car, and he has designed a new Swanson Motorsports logos for us,” Swanson said. “I guess that is a silver lining in all of that. It is good to have that relationship going for us.”
“We are working on trying to find sponsorship for 2019. We have several months before the season starts so I’m feeling optimistic,” Swanson said.
Swanson noted the financial reward is not lucrative.
“I don’t think anybody actually makes money and comes out ahead. In my category, it is a 32-car field. So only 32 people make the show and some people don’t even qualify,” Swanson said. “At the end there is one winner and 31 losers.”
“Winning is actually a pretty big deal because your likelihood of winning is pretty small. They do pay round money starting with second round, so you do get a little bit for advancing into the rounds,” Swanson said. “The winner comes out pretty good. As far as making money, very few people are making money drag racing. Everyone does it for the fun. The enjoyment. Going out and traveling and meeting new people.”
“That’s why I do it. I don’t go into each race thinking I need to win so I’ll make this much money. You can’t count your money in drag racing. You do it because you enjoy it,” Swanson said.
“I’ve been racing my entire life and I’m happy to get to keep doing it,” Swanson said.